The Gospel of John

"The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road." This is excellent writing advice from the novelist Richard Price. But John blows it up with the grandest opening in all of literature: In the beginning was the Word. He wants us to look at Jesus first.

"Why were your headquarters so nice?" asked my friend. I was puzzled. "What do you mean?" I thought to myself. "The ministry wanted to take care of the staff so we could serve Jesus." He said, "Really? What about the indoor waterfall?" His question exposed me: It's possible to be surrounded by Scripture, talking about Jesus, and still be promoting oneself.

My Mom said the rocks would be amazing. I believed her, but sitting in the car for hours made me wish I was back home. She said we would ride on donkeys. I thought that sounded uncomfortable and smelly. She said I would never see anything like it again. But moms are good at hyperbole. Then we arrived at the Grand Canyon.

When I arrived for a weekend retreat with thirty up-and-coming leaders, the jockeying for position started immediately. One guy asked me to explain the gospel in front of everyone. But it was a setup. No matter what I said, he would be able to critique an element I missed, or show the group how he could do it better. The gospel had become a tool to fight for status. John the Baptist lived in the desert, but his fame spread throughout the country. So, the leaders in Jerusalem sent a team to interview him.

When I was in middle school, another student loved to torment me with cruel nicknames. The one that hurt the most? "Tubby." He'd say it with a sneer, point at my overweight belly, and laugh. Our names and nicknames are how others view us and our identity. But as bad as these nicknames were, I'm grateful no one ever threatened me with death.

Sitting in the library at the University of Aberdeen, I argued with an atheist for seven hours. By the end of the day, I was worn out by his relentless habit of pulling up YouTube videos one after another for me to debunk. I was hungry, cold, and tired. Neither of us had moved an inch. I thought I was doing evangelism. In retrospect, I was just trying to win. And nobody enters the Kingdom because they lost a debate.

Sitting at Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, I had to lead another Bible study. But I'd already studied the Bible with five students that day. I was spiritually dry and emotionally spent. I didn't want to do it, but I could hardly tell the next student, "Yeah, I don't want to read God's Word with you." So, I pasted on a smile and pretended.

The story about Jesus flipping tables is awkward. It's used both to rationalize posting rage bait online and to attack Jesus as an untrustworthy, out-of-control leader. But now that I've listened to the stories of dozens of survivors of church hurt, I get it.

I have the degrees listed on my LinkedIn profile—the M.Div., the D.Min. I've led ministries at Ivy League universities and served as an elder. On paper, I'm an expert. But there are nights when I stare at the ceiling and feel completely hollow. I know about God, but in the dark, sometimes I wonder if I've lost the wonder of simply being with Him. It's unsettling to realize that my credentials aren't enough.

We love John 3:16 because it feels safe. It's an inspirational thought printed on bumper stickers and In-N-Out cups. But if you read the whole passage, the text starts to feel uncomfortably intrusive. Jesus didn't come to offer a ticket to heaven. He shines a spotlight on our worst secrets. But why?

I watched my friend Nabeel Qureshi captivate a room for an hour, telling story after story. Afterwards, I saw the line of people stretching across the sanctuary to get their books signed. I smiled and helped to keep the event running smoothly, but my stomach felt tight. I wasn't just observing his success; I was measuring my invisibility against it. It's hard to watch someone else get exactly what you wanted. After all, what's the point of my ministry when he was so talented?

My friend looked me in the eye and asked, "So, do you think I'm going to hell?" My stomach tightened. I didn't want to threaten him or sound like a judgmental street preacher. I wanted to be liked, but I also wanted him to know the Jesus who saved my life. I felt stuck between being polite and being honest. We highly value tolerance, so the Bible's straightforwardness is uncomfortable.

We were expecting a fabulous meal at the ski lodge's steakhouse. High ceilings, mahogany leather chairs, elegantly dressed staff. But by the time the entrees arrived, no one was talking. We marinated in the silence of a family trying not to make things worse. Whenever I stopped staring at my plate to look up, I saw angry, frustrated faces. We had everything, but it wasn't enough.

"How's your week been?" I asked him. He started talking about the stress of his studies. It was safe terrain, and I knew it meant he didn't want to talk about his girlfriend this week. As a campus minister, sometimes I was too afraid to ask the uncomfortable questions. But Jesus always knew when and how to help.

"I just called everyone on my phone and told them about Jesus." I was stunned. I didn't even know she was a Christian. She certainly didn't seem like one! Then I felt convicted. In one afternoon, this student had done more evangelism than I had in the past year. And I was the one in full-time ministry.

The hardest part of trusting God isn't the first step. It's the long walk after, before we know the outcome. For instance, when I lived in Boston, I spent a year living in Dorchester, in a neighborhood where it wasn't safe to be outside after dark. I once asked one of my roommates why he'd moved there. He told me it was a "leap of faith." He believed God would provide for him, so he summoned the courage to move in and serve the community. It seemed foolish at the time. How can ministering to children in a small house church change anything? But sixteen years later, that crazy choice gave him opportunities to reform entire criminal justice systems in partnership with academics and politicians. We never know God's plans for our small steps of faith.

At one of the lowest points in my life, I'd been hurting for so long that I didn't know if the pain would ever go away. I'd sit in my office and look blankly at my computer monitor, with no idea what to do. Good friends would tell me their own stories of recovering from devastation, but I was too depressed to be encouraged. All I could do was politely remark, "I'm so glad that God did that for you" while thinking, "But God hasn't done that for me."

In the spring of 2009, a student I discipled, whom I'll call Rob, went on a missions trip to Honduras. Unfortunately, one of his housemates was hostile. Rob ignored the insults, washed the guy's dishes, and endured listening to his blaring techno music through the night. The final straw came when Rob borrowed his housemate's computer, and it stopped working while he was typing up an email. His housemate threatened to beat him up if he didn't pay $150 to get it fixed.

I once got incredibly angry at one of my roommates because he wrote a blog with what I considered bad theology. I felt I had to defend God, so I wrote him a long, impassioned email where I told him he was unbiblical, a burden to others, and even a bad example to children. Amazingly, he responded and rightly told me that my email was demoralizing and insulting. As I re-read what I wrote, the adrenaline of "being right" drained out of me, replaced by a cold pit in my stomach. I immediately confessed to him, "My email was a disaster... I am sorry." It was cruelty in the name of God.

I was on a global Skype call with RZIM's senior leaders and Ravi Zacharias himself—the famous apologist whose ministry would eventually collapse after reporters uncovered decades of abuse. I was looking at an email Ravi had sent to a woman: "If you betray me here, I will have to end it." For a man whose entire ministry testimony began with a suicide attempt, this should have been impossible to ignore. But the call was filled with friends and mentors I respected. They assured me Ravi was innocent, and that if I understood Indian culture, I'd see this differently. So I stayed loyal. It wasn't that I weighed the evidence and found it wanting. It's that I couldn't weigh the evidence at all. The room I was in made the truth unthinkable.

"Thank you Heavenly Father...to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists that this is our nation not theirs...Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ." As I listened to Jacob Chansley, also known as The Q Shaman, use a megaphone to speak these words in the U.S. Capitol, I felt ill. How could a violent riot that vandalized Congress, assaulted around 140 police officers, and killed five of them act in the name of Jesus?

A few years ago, I was questioning again whether I still believed in God. To give God a fair chance, I decided to study what the Bible says about who God is. I needed to know if I had lost belief in my understanding of God, or if I had stopped believing in the God of the Bible. Most of what I read was familiar. But a surprising relief came when I realized that the Bible has always described God as incomprehensible. I want a God I can understand, but God has never accommodated that request.

For ten years after college, I worked as a campus minister. So, my income depended on the sacrificial giving of others. For those ten years, I saw God meet my every need. And for the next ten years, I wondered if God would meet my need again. I wish this struggle ended when I got another job or when my wife got promoted. But no matter how my circumstances change, I still wonder if God will be there for me.

I spent years arguing about whether God chose me or I chose God. Scholars on both sides warned me that the other position was unbiblical, dangerous, or even heretical. The debate taught me to think about the Bible as an ammo depot. I developed a habit of going to the Scriptures to get armed for battle. But when I viewed the Bible as a battleground, it distracted me from looking at Jesus.

Before he said a word, his tousled hair and bemused smile identified him as a skeptical Harvard student. "So, what's this about?" he asked, glancing at the conversation starters we'd put up outside of the Science Center. I wanted to tell him about a Jesus who made sense. Not one who would ask him to drink blood and eat flesh.

I showed up at the building to collect my items and say goodbye, but a security guard met me outside the front door with some boxes already packed up. In about a minute, we loaded everything into the trunk of my car, and I drove away. The coldness of the exchange made the cost of being a whistleblower clear. I realized I'd never see most of my former colleagues, and now former friends, again. As I drove home, the pain was so unbearable I couldn't cry.

When a large foundation announced they planned to spend a billion dollars on advertisements about Jesus, I felt conflicted. Throughout my ministry, I've always done some kind of marketing. But a Super Bowl ad? Jealousy and cynicism don't mix well.

When I visited Honduras in 2017, I had an M.Div. degree, years of ministry experience, and a position with a global nonprofit. As the board chair for Creating Jobs, I wanted to meet our beneficiaries. We sat down to coach Joyce, a 17-year-old who runs a hair salon. A few hours later, we all realized we'd been in the presence of unexpected greatness. This teenager had hired three employees, developed a loyal clientele, was paying her way through college, and was supporting eight family members with her income. But we were most impressed with her kindness, humility, and compassion. I showed up to teach. But she gave the lesson.

We were sitting at Flour in Boston because I couldn't resist their croissants. As I caught up with an old friend, I asked about her family. She let out a deep, heavy sigh. Then she told me, "After he said he wanted a divorce, I realized he'd checked out of the marriage a long time ago. No matter how hard I tried to make it work, he'd already decided to leave." Have you ever tried to be close to someone, but found they were always far away?

I went to the morning prayer meeting because I was running on empty. The grind of planning our annual summer conference had left me drained. Between coordinating flights for speakers, housing for participants, and preparing to emcee the week, I was exhausted. But I left the prayer meeting feeling empty, too. How bad was it when meeting with co-workers to pray didn't change how I felt? As I walked down the hallway to my desk, I felt the heaviness of each step.

"How do you know my name?" my professor asked. As a young philosopher, I wanted an impressive answer. What is the evidence? Are there any logical fallacies? Maybe I could say, "I verified your identity with the course catalog." But where did the university get his name? I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and admitted, "Because you told it to me."

"For five months I've perceived you as being arrogant to me. So I've been praying for you every day and trying to start positive conversations with you. But it's been so uncomfortable, I haven't wanted to come to our Bible study anymore. I hope we can work this out and become closer friends." I wish I could be so gracious, but that's how a friend in seminary confronted me when I lived in Boston.

Who am I to question someone’s faith? It’s the kind of accusation that abusive leaders use to destabilize and control. Even entertaining the thought feels judgmental. However, about 65% of Americans call themselves Christians, while cell phone data indicates that only 5% attend church every week. I don't believe church attendance makes someone a Christian. What if millions of self-identified Christians don't know Jesus?

My cross-country teammate leaned back in his chair and said, "I'll believe in God if he reveals himself to me." We were sitting in the Lynx Lair at Rhodes College, and I believed him. It seemed he genuinely wanted to know God. But his comment left me stumped. If God loves us, why is he so hard to find? Why doesn't God want more people to know him?

"You're lying. I don't trust you." My co-worker's accusation felt worse than getting punched in the face. I knew I was telling the truth. But how could I prove it when she'd already decided that I was a liar?

The discolored, funky-smelling jerseys made middle school P.E. bad enough. But the worst part was when teams were picked, and I was a reluctant last choice. Social exclusion was always harder than being overweight.

A best-selling apologist called me to talk about Ravi. He agreed that Ravi was a liar, a bully, and a predator. Then he suggested I leave RZIM quietly. "You have to understand, these women got paid. They weren't victims, they were participants." When I kept writing, he called again. He let me know that if I wanted to stay in ministry, I needed to tone it down. Soon after, he was doing events with a leader from Ravi's inner circle.

"This is the first time I've been able to sing a worship song since my pastor abused me." I didn't know what to say. As I listened to a survivor describe how her former church turned against her to protect their abusive pastor, I felt disoriented. How was she the problem? How common was this? Why didn't I know about it? But I did know that by creating a safe space for survivors, the RESTORE conference honored God.

"Titus 3:10. No reply needed." When I read her email, I gasped. I knew how to decode this message from an important leader in my ministry. She was saying I was divisive, and she was cutting me out of her life. But we worked together. If I had done something wrong, I didn't know what it was. I felt excluded and helpless.

"I appreciate what you're doing, but I can't get involved. I hope you understand." I did understand. Our family had two incomes, but he needed to provide for his family. If I were in his position, I might have kept my head down, too. But it didn't make being a whistleblower feel any less lonely.

You've repeatedly asked God the same question, hoping for a different answer. You've journaled about it, asked three friends for advice, and scrolled TikTok to find confirmation. But no matter how much you want a different answer, you can't help but think God's answer is the one you don't want to hear.

At Thanksgiving, we gathered in the kitchen, joined hands, bowed our heads, and prayed. But I wondered, "What's the point of praying together if most of us don't believe in Jesus?"

When one of my friends died, his wife prayed for three days that God would raise him from the dead. She reasoned that Jesus loved him and loved her, so his death could be reversed. His funeral was heavy with the burden of unanswered prayers.

We prayed and prayed for his healing. He was young, healthy, married with children, and actively serving the Lord as a campus minister. Despite his total dedication to the Lord, he got cancer and died. When I got the news, I knew I should feel hope, but I mainly felt punched in the gut.

On December 3, 2017, Ravi Zacharias published a series of audacious lies in Christianity Today to avoid accountability for inflating his resume and abusing a woman. Ironically, he stated, "I promised to leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth." Zacharias was willing to destroy the truth to protect his platform. But he had no idea that journalists, investigators, and whistleblowers would eventually leave no stone unturned and their pursuit of truth would reveal his many decades of abuse to the world.

"I gave my car to the church." I didn't know what to make of it. She was a college student burdened by student loans. She needed her car to get to work. And she gave it to her church. I worried that she'd been conned. Maybe she was. Or maybe she gave it to Jesus. It's a story that still makes me uncomfortable.

As I scrolled through social media, a government agency posted a video of soldiers in combat gear while Psalm 18:37 scrolled across the screen: "I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed." The caption read, "We Are One Nation Under God." But when I read the whole psalm, it didn't sound like the video.

As I walked through Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, I looked up and saw The Foot Soldier. Ronald McDowell's statue shows a young black boy being manhandled by a stern officer as a ferocious dog lunges at his chest. When police disrupted the children's march in 1963, they thought they'd won. But now their suffering sits on a bronze pedestal, forcing us to look up at them and give them honor.

I spent the morning talking to a skeptic. A friend and I answered question after question and presented layer upon layer of evidence. Eventually, he told us that no matter how strong the case was, he didn't think the eyewitness testimony about Jesus would lead him to the truth.

In seminary, I took a preaching class that required us to give mini-sermons in front of our peers. I agonized over every word and rehearsed my talk a hundred times. I wanted to be recognized as the best preacher in the class.

At the Sunday evening service, as we sang another chorus of "How Deep the Father's Love for Us," I started to recoil inside. The more I considered the depth of God's love, the more uncomfortable I felt. How could God love me this much? And if I believed that, wouldn't I need to love him just as much? I didn't know if I could do that.

My friends kept inviting me to hang out with them and Sam. They were patient and kind with him, whether he was depressed or acting out. Whenever we drove home from an evening together, we shared how hard it was to be his friends. I knew they were loving him the way Jesus would, but I couldn't do it. I stopped going over to see Sam.

I was talking with a friend who told me he keeps praying, "God, what do you want me to do with my life?" He said, "I'm still looking for God's answer." I wanted to give him something better than a bumper sticker answer.

I watched the worship band slowly develop the intensity of the opening song. With each repetition, they layered in drums, another guitar, or another vocalist. By the time we segued into the second song, hands were raised, and the congregation was caught up in worship. But I didn't feel anything. So I wondered, are we feeling the presence of God or the vibe of a concert? The Bible says God is near. Why does he sometimes feel so far away?

In seminary, I spent fifteen minutes a day memorizing Scripture. It seemed like the kind of thing a future pastor should do. I felt proud of my dedication to God, but I didn't become more humble, forgiving, or kind.

I want to evaluate God's ideas and follow the ones that make sense. If his suggestions are difficult, costly, or even inconvenient, I will usually postpone implementation. But the first disciples of Jesus would have been shocked by my casual approach to God. Obey God? Of course! He's God. They wondered, "How can God be our Friend?" I'm confused that a friend can command me to obey.

My wife and I were getting to know another couple at an event, and the early discussions were full of laughter. After the entrees arrived, they asked me what I did for work. I said, "Well, I'm kind of a pastor. I write and give away Bible studies." The husband recoiled and said, "If you're a pastor, I don't want to be talking to you." I try to talk about what I do in the nicest way. But sometimes it gets awkward fast.

A former friend said there was "nothing Christian" about my "evil" actions, so he'd asked our former employer to cancel a book we'd written together. His messages hurt, but the worst part was that he wrapped his cruelty in the language of Scripture. It made me wonder if God's people are safe.

It was a dream trip: to walk where Jesus walked in the Holy Land. When our tour group arrived at the Jordan River, a few people got re-baptized, swept up in the awe that Jesus was here. But what I didn't understand was that it was better to be at the Jordan River without Jesus.

I crumpled into a corner of the hospital hallway. The harsh fluorescent lights illuminated the terror of birth. My wife had been in labor for two days, and we didn't know when or how it would end. But when our firstborn finally arrived, all we knew was joy.

Christianity Today once reported that at a major missions conference, 8,000 people signed commitment cards indicating a desire to serve in overseas missions. But when the organizers reported the follow-up three years later, they found 1,000 had actually gone. As I read the statistic, I thought about how I had tried to be a good neighbor in an impoverished part of Boston. But the cost was too high, and I moved out less than a year later.

I grew up with the idea that I needed to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. Even in seminary, three semesters of systematic theology were required for graduation. But discipleship groups? Those were optional. It's easier to learn about Jesus than to know him.

"If you want to be a real man, you need to have money in your pocket." My friend's dad gave him pot to sell at William L. Sayre Junior High School in West Philadelphia. In 1968, this could have sent him to jail. So, it didn't feel natural for him to see God as a trustworthy Father.

I visualized myself as being toxic, like a radioactive substance hidden in a glass test tube. Who would want to be associated with an unemployed whistleblower?

I showed up for RZIM's beloved Christmas party. We played fun games, received our Christmas bonuses, and heard that we were family. But then came the Bible teaching, and we were asked to pledge ourselves to be like Ravi Zacharias. I understood the devotion to him, but this was the final breaking point before I resigned.

The pastor asked if he could take me to lunch. I was eager to say yes. After the meal arrived, he asked me if my wife could stop causing trouble. He promised me that the church leadership would handle the situation. But the trouble wasn't my wife. It was that a pedophile was entering an area designated for children. That's when I learned that my seat at the table was meant to silence a threat.

While visiting Chattanooga, I walked to the Walnut Street Bridge and found a plaque honoring Ed Johnson. I learned that in 1906, a sham jury trial sentenced him to death for raping a white woman. While in jail, he committed himself to Jesus and was baptized. But after the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, the sheriff dismissed nearly all the guards from their posts. That night, a mob forced its way into the jail so it could hang Ed from the second span of the bridge. His final words to his murderers were, "God bless you all, I am an innocent man."

At the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, I walked up to a lunch counter and put on headphones. Immediately, I was dropped into 1960s Greensboro, hearing the dull thuds of angry hands and feet colliding with human flesh, and threats to kill me. Each year, around 250,000 people visit the museum and remember why we honor these non-violent protestors.

In Barracks 28 of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, Betsie ten Boom coughed on a bed stuffed with fleas and lice. Corrie carried her on a stretcher to the hospital ward, where Betsie whispered her final words. She whispered, we "must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here" (The Hiding Place, 227). Corrie wrote her words down, giving hope to tens of millions of people in over sixty languages.

In 203 AD, a 22-year-old mother sat in a suffocating Roman dungeon, separated from her infant son. When her father begged her to offer a small pinch of incense to the emperor to secure her freedom, Vibia Perpetua pointed to a water pitcher. She asked, “Can it be called by any other name than what it is? Neither can I call myself anything else than a Christian.”

On March 16, 1968, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson was flying a helicopter over My Lai in Vietnam. As he looked down, he saw his fellow Americans massacring unarmed villagers. He could have stayed high in the safety of his cockpit, but he landed directly in the line of fire. Then, he ordered his crew to train their guns on the U.S. troops to stop the shooting. For decades, he was ostracized, bullied, and faced death threats for getting involved. But he also found lifelong brotherhood with the two crewmen who stood by his side.

"It's a shooting star!" "What, where?" (Obviously, they were far above our heads). I scrambled to find the tent's zipper in the dark and get outside. Peering up at the vast sky, I struggled to see the meteors. But as my friends showed me where to look, I started to see them for myself.

I was driving down a forgettable road in South Hamilton, MA. My creaky Ford Explorer screeched to a halt at a four-way stop sign. As I turned on the left-turn blinker and began my turn, it hit me in my chest, "I am your Father, and I love you." It was a moment when I wished I could cry, but the tears stayed bottled up. Still, it was an unexpected revelation that God knew me and he cared for me. For the rest of my drive, I felt filled with his love.

At the first managers' meeting of the year at RZIM's global headquarters in 2019, I gave a presentation called "The Fearless Organization." As we sat under a massive glass chandelier in the ornate executive dining room, I shared, "If our behavior creates fear in people's hearts, we are doing the opposite of what God has done to us. And John goes so far as to say that this is an indication that we do not have genuine faith in God." Little could I have guessed that two years later, I'd resign because of how people in that room had bullied me. Fear is the opposite of God's mission.

A friend once forwarded me an email. In it, he explained how he felt about God before he met me. He wrote, "When I first talked with Carson, I was very skeptical of everything he was saying because I thought that religion was entirely man-made. I thought that simple logic would suffice to tear Christianity apart." And when it comes to the resurrection, it's a simple case: dead people stay dead.

In February 1941, during the German bombing of London in World War II, James Welch of the British Broadcasting Corporation wrote to an Oxford tutor known for his prize-winning scholarship on medieval literature. Would he do a war-time radio series? Altogether, C.S. Lewis would complete a four series of talks for the BBC, which later became the international bestseller *Mere Christianity.* It was an odd turn of events for a scholar who had spent many evenings reading Old Icelandic sagas with his friends at The Coalbiters.

I drive by the old RZIM headquarters at least once a week. Every time, I reactively grip my steering wheel tighter, look straight ahead, and try not to get pulled back into a dark place. But as I thought about Jesus at a charcoal fire, I realized God is inviting me to see a place of pain as the start of a good new life.

After I finished my D.Min. at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I had to reckon with what my Major Project had concluded. After all, I'd written it. But interviewing thirty Christians who were following Jesus more faithfully than I was and studying how dozens of theologians defined discipleship had shaken me. I had to admit to myself that the way I'd been doing ministry wasn't going to help others follow Jesus. But neither did I want to pivot my entire approach to ministry. It was uncomfortable to change what I do and how I do it. I wanted to stay in my comfort zone instead of starting FriendsFollowingJesus.com and sharing my struggles with the world. But Jesus kept saying, "Follow me." So, I did.