The Gospel of John

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.