St. John Studies

I’m sorry but so much of what passes for preaching today is just pablum.

Why would I write that?  Here is why.  Too many sermons deal with the importance of man and not enough deal with the glory of God.

Matt Chandler in his book The Explicit Gospel declares “the foremost desire of God’s heart is not our salvation but rather the glory of His own name.  God’s glory is what drives the universe; it is why everything exists.  This world is not present, spinning and sailing in the universe, so that you and I might be saved or lost but so that God might be glorified in his infinite perfections” [33-34].

Why do we have such a struggle understanding God’s glory? 

First of all, His “glory” is such an abstract concept.  Abstract concepts are ideas that exist in thought but don’t have a physical or concrete existence.  Certainly when one entertains the idea that God’s glory is more important than “anything,” that idea is difficult to grasp.

Biblical references to God’s glory don’t help much. When Moses asks God to show him His glory, God tells Moses you cannot see my face and live.  Repeatedly we see in the Old Testament supernatural fire, thick clouds, and a great quaking of the earth.  In the New Testament the glory of God is revealed in His son Jesus Christ.  John 1:14 says “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Jesus’ miracles revealed God’s glory; John 2: 11 states they were “signs through which he revealed his glory.”  Through Christ, God seems more approachable and knowable since He was a human being [yet divine].

Still however, we struggle to grasp that idea of glory to God alone, what Chandler refers to as soli Deo Gloria.  Let me repeat, “the foremost desire of God’s heart is not our salvation but rather the glory of His own name.”

Even though we struggle with the abstract idea of glory, that is no excuse to put man in the center of the universe.  Some would say that God has always desired a relationship with man.  That would be true, but does God have to have a relationship with man to exist?  Does God have to have man to declare as Chandler says “You complete me.”  The answer is no.  God is not lonely and God does not need us to have fellowship.  His glory drives the universe and it is the reason that everything exists.  The world is not turning because we need God to save us; it is turning so God might be “glorified in His infinite perfections” [34].

Some turn to Scripture and try to prove the importance of man by parsing God’s words.  The problem with that is the Bible provides principles for life but not specific answers to all of man’s questions.  To think so is a mistake.  Dallas Willard* states the “Bible will not tell you what to do with most of the details of your life.”  Certainly there are many guidelines for life: do not engage in illicit sex or do not abuse your parents, but the whole book is not about us.  The idea that it is going to answer every question we have about life is another instance of man trying to assert his importance. 

Some are taken aback by this idea.  “Surely God would not be so egocentric!”  Egocentric is a pejorative word that we can apply to humans but it does not apply to God.  God is so much above this label that it cannot apply. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God created man and that He created him for His glory. Therefore, the ultimate purpose of man, according to the Bible, is simply to glorify God. We were created to bring Him glory. Some would say that God has plans for me; plans that are good.  We can know that, but whatever those plans look like, they will ultimately result in His glory.  If we show righteousness to this world, it comes from God and we must give Him the glory.  It is hard to fight the temptation to be proud of our righteous acts but we are merely vessels for others to see God in us.  We don’t have the power to be righteous but God has the power to work through us.

God stands alone as supreme.  John Piper writes “The further up you go in the revealed thoughts of God, the clearer you see that God’s aim in creating the world was to display the value of His own glory.” 

Truly it is a shock to see that God’s glory is all-important and not man.  Too many of us get this wrong as we express what Christianity means to us.  It is God who has glorious self-regard and it should be that way.  Man has no right to claim “glorious self-regard” and to do so is a simple misunderstanding of God in the least and blasphemy in the worst. 

Let’s just end this post with words by Chandler, strong words which put us in our place.  Too often we forget how humble we should be.  “it is God who is deep in riches, God who is deep in wisdom, God who is deep in lovingkindness, and God who is deep in Glory. Not us.  This is the message of the Bible” [35].

This is the message of the Holy Father.

*from his book Hearing God

Somewhere from my deep dark past I recall lyrics to a song entitled “Getting to Know You.”  I researched the tune and found it was from the musical “The King and I” starring Yul Brynner, which began its Broadway run in 1951.  Part of the song has the following lyrics:  “Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, Getting to hope you like me.”  You see that’s the problem for many people.  They don’t know others very well.  When it comes to God, this can be a real problem too [especially for Christians].  We don’t know Him very well at all.

In our effort to know God, Matt Chandler has said we need to understand His “Transcendent Creativity*.”  Chandler also says we need to understand God’s “Sovereign Knowing**.”  Let’s go further.  Chandler also writes it is very important to know that God does not need us; we need Him.  Well, that’s a bit crude.  Chandler puts it in these words: “God owes no man anything.  Our very existence has been gifted to us by His grace.”  God is perfectly self-sufficient.

Why is it necessary to say things like this to today’s Christian?  Here is the reason.  Today’s Christians are not taught that we are dependent on God.  Too many believers have adopted the idea that we are “self-sufficient.”  Chandler says this is the result of too many pastors who preach the “prosperity Gospel.”  You know that prosperity gospel that teaches that faith, positive confession, and generous giving guarantee material wealth, physical health, and personal success. It emphasizes a direct link between belief and earthly prosperity, often presenting financial blessing as evidence of God’s favor. 

The problem with this theology is that it promotes materialism and does not explain why everyone who believes in God is not prosperous.  Poverty therefore must be a sign that a person lacks faith and wealth, God is showering His blessings only on the “true believer.”  I would go further by stating that it gives a prosperous Christian a false sense of entitlement regarding God.  Chandler says “most evangelicals believe Christians are in a bargaining position [with God].  We carry an insidious prosperity gospel around in our dark, little, entitled hearts.  We come to the throne and say, ‘I’ll do this, and You’ll do that.  And if I do this for You, then You’ll do that for me.’” [31].  Let’s reiterate: God does not need us; we need Him.

We misunderstand our relationship with God as a 50/50 exchange.  We think we have to do our part and then He does his. We cannot treat God like He is a cosmic vending machine.  We put in our coins [prayers, Bible study, Christian service, worship etc.] and what we want pops out.  There are many pastors who preach this in churches, online and on television but where they get these ideas, I do not know.  Does this have an impact?  It does!  People get their emotions stirred up by this message, thinking that they can achieve what they want through some worldly commitment on their part.  I know a man who worked hard in my church and I was flabbergasted when he came to Wednesday night service, bragging that God had blessed his good “works” with a Mercedes.  Whatever we do in the name of God, I am sure He appreciates it, but He is not bound to reciprocate with a Mercedes.  What was this man’s God?  I daresay it was not God in heaven above; it was a Mercedes.

Chandler thinks this attitude is totally absurd.  “If everything is God’s, you have nothing to give Him that He doesn’t already own.”  There is no bargaining position with God.  The root cause of all this need for self-sufficiency is pride.  Some Christians think they are special and they forget the need to be humble in God’s presence.  Proverbs 11:2 says “When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.”  Proverbs 16: 5 says “Every one that is proud is heard is an abomination to the Lord.”  James 4: 6 says “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  Many people do not understand this Scripture as they love to express their knowledge, power and professional skills.  Bravado is the common currency today while humility takes a back seat. 

There have been times in my life when I have cried out to God for help, times when I was so confused and lost that I did not know what to do next [definitely not times of bravado].  In those times, pride went out the window as I was desperate for answers.  Yes in those times, God did not need me; I needed Him, but what happened was that He helped me in those desperate times nevertheless.  He did not need me; He wanted me. You see God wants to have a relationship with all of us.  That is His gift.  He is in the business of restoring sinners like me.  He does not have to do that; He wants to do that.  Usually when I plod along thinking I am in charge, I really am not.  That is pride.  I kid myself that I am not broken when I really am.  You see, all of us humans are broken images of God and He wants to fix us all, to make us new.  When God’s son hung on the cross and took on all of our sins, He offered something we did not deserve.  He offered us the gift of grace.  He offered us the gift of forgiveness.  He offered us the gift of eternal life.

So we need to reorient our thinking to gratitude, gratitude to a God who only asks that we follow Him.  We need to say to God, I need to “get to know you.”  We need to rid ourselves of pride in our worldly possessions.  We need to rid ourselves of the attitude that we can take our works and exchange them for the admiration of our Lord.  God is gloriously self-sufficient, perfectly self-sufficient. 

Be thankful that He wants us and know that His love is unconditional.  Nothing we have or can do can merit His love. 

What does that do?

It makes our love unconditional also…

*”Transcendent Creativity Hurts My Brain”  November 21, 2025

**”Most Christians Salute the Sovereignty of God but Believe the Sovereignty of Man”  November 30, 2025

“How deep is the wisdom and knowledge of God?”

“God knows every word in every language in every sentence in every paragraph in every chapter of every book ever written.”

“He knows every fact of history past and future, every bit of truth discovered and undiscovered, and every proof of science known and unknown” [Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, 25].

Ok, if the post entitled “God’s Transcendent Creativity” [November 21, 2025] did not hurt your brain, then this one certainly will.

Why ponder things like God’s wisdom and God’s transcendent creativity?  Because many Christians do not have much of an idea about the characteristics of God.  I will quote from my November 21st post:  “Christians actually don’t have much knowledge of God but they really don’t want to admit it.”  This idea plays into the main theme that Matt Chandler is working with.  He is very bold in his claim that many Christians “assume” they know Scripture when they have only put minimal effort into the study of Scripture.   Chandler feels that Christians base their lives on an “assumed” Gospel**, when they should be living their lives based on the “explicit” Gospel.  If one wants to understand the explicit Gospel, Chandler writes about they will have to commit to making an effort to know God.

Chapter One of his book is all about introducing believers to God. Chandler says we have to have the complex talk about who God is.  “What is He like?  How big is He?  How deep and wide is his power?”  Hence we have to discuss God’s sovereign knowing, a second characteristic of God.

We have to begin with the last two words in the previous sentence.  What is sovereign?  Sovereign means “supreme power or authority.”  Attach that word to knowing and you have an entity that has supreme knowledge.  Now go back to the beginning of this post and reread the second and third sentence and “know” that Chandler was not exaggerating about the wisdom of God.  This part of his book in Chapter One (dealing with sovereign knowledge) has loads of practical examples of how much God knows.

Today we live in a world that seems proud of advanced knowledge, subjects like artificial intelligence and data science, quantum and computing technologies, and biotechnology and space science.  Surely man is close to the level of knowledge of God [I am being facetious].  The Bible says otherwise:  “If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is folly with God” [First Corinthians 3: 18-19].  Now before you go too far and think that I am an anti-intellectual, let me assure you that I am not.  I don’t have a suspicion of the more challenging ideas of theology and I don’t stress loving God with my heart and soul, neglecting mental efforts to know God.  I believe that Christian education and critical thinking are crucial for Christians to avoid a shallow faith.  Today, I believe too many Christian believers are being led by pastors who overemphasize ancillary goals (or even worldly goals) for their flock instead of basic Scripture-based belief.

Yes I am willing to admit that we will never know what God knows but that is no reason to give up on thinking.  John Stott [one of my favorite authors) says the Christian’s mind does matter.  But there is the old story of scientists laboring for centuries, climbing a great intellectual wall of discovery.  They finally reach the top, expecting to see the ultimate explanation of reality—perhaps the triumph of human reason alone.  But when they peer over the wall, they find God already sitting there, waiting.  That story rings true for me.  God is waiting for man to begin to “wise up” but man will never be and can never be “God-wise”. 

Chandler states that God knows everything on the macro level, the micro level, and has breadth of knowledge and depth of knowledge.  This whole idea of the limitless knowledge of God is challenging, but Chandler likens man to a four-year old in the backseat of the car telling “Dad” “He” doesn’t know where “He” is going.  Romans 11: 34 says “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or has been his counselor?”  The answer is nobody.

What do we have to operate on?  We should not throw up our hands and say, I am too stupid so I will just operate on my shallow faith.  Why make the effort to know the “all-knowing” God?  We do have a revelation from God as revealed in His Bible.  He speaks to us in “dreams and in visions and in words” [30].  The Bible speaks to us though creation.  So when we feel intellectually small, we need to know that God has given us some wisdom to grow us, but not enough to counsel Him. That’s man’s problem; we know some things and we get prideful about what we know. Chandler writes “He has revealed enough of His character and attributes to save us, or preclude us from irresponsibility in not being saved, but He has not given us enough information to ever, with even a shred of integrity, second-guess him” [30].

Chandler is a master of the dramatic as he pens his thoughts.  On the subject of God’s sovereign knowledge he says “Nobody gets to counsel God.  Nobody gets to give God advice.  Nobody gets to straighten God’s path. No one” [30].

Enough said…

*a quote from the theologian R.C. Sproul.

**by “assumed”, Christians may hear Scripture read in church, they may read small sections of Scripture in Sunday school or their pastor may preach on Scripture but do they read it on their own, do they think about the meaning of Scripture, do they study Scripture using their own using study methods or by consulting expert analysis?  With minimal exposure, they assume they know Scripture.

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” [First Corinthians 15: 3].

In my post of October 31, 2025 I ran the risk of offending some readers of this blog.  I felt the need to define the word Gospel.  The reason I did that was due to the nature of Matt Chandler’s approach to the Bible.  He is bold in his claim that many Christians do not know the “explicit Gospel.”  He is also bold in his claim that many Christians “assume” they know Scripture when they have only put minimal effort into the study of Scripture.  First Corinthians 15: 3 makes direct reference to the issue of “first importance,” that Jesus died for our sins according to the Word of God.  Chandler is “getting back to the basics,” “practicing the fundamentals” or “starting from scratch.”  He aims to correct the problem that has occurred in Christian evangelical circles:  too many believers think they  know the Gospel but they really don’t know it at all.  They have never taken God’s word into their heart. 

Before I go too far and offend again, there is a major difference in getting busy with Jesus and taking God’s word into your heart.  In this country we know how to get busy.  Christians spend a lot of time with fellow Christians doing wonderful things and those wonderful things are important, but we don’t spend much time in God’s word.  There is no doubt that we own Bibles; we just don’t read them.  According to New Yorker Magazine, the Bible “is the best-selling book of the year, every year.  Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the United States is a virtually impossible task, but a conservative estimate is that is that Americans purchase some twenty-five million Bibles every year, twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book.”  According to the Crosswalk blog, “the Bible is indeed the most owned book in America with nearly nine out of ten Americans owning a Bible and Americans own an average of 4.4 copies per household. However, it is also the least read book, with most Christians never reading the Bible from cover to cover” [Crosswalk, “The Bible is Consistently a Best Seller” accessed November 11, 2025].

Bible owners have a litany of excuses for not reading The Book; just type “reasons people don’t read the Bible” into your browser.  “I just don’t have time.”  “That language is difficult.”  “It is not exciting enough. I don’t like boring reading.”  “I just don’t understand the historical background of the Bible.”  The excuses people provide for not reading The Bible just go on and on, and some of them may be valid, but some of them are not [ I am just being honest and honesty hurts sometimes].

The basic problem amounts to this.  We claim to be people who know God but we don’t read His word.  It is like trying to fight a battle without a sword.  Not reading the Gospel is leaving too many people of Christian faith feeling lost, powerless and open to incorrect interpretation of Scripture. 

Chandler’s plan is to write a book with two over-arching approaches to Scripture and those approaches are what he calls “The Gospel on the Ground” and “The Gospel in the Air.”  Let me explain.  By Gospel on the ground, he thinks Christians need to know the Bible narrative.  Chandler sees the Bible as a story of God’s self-sufficiency that ends with man’s response to the Gospel’s good news.  God reigns supreme over every part of the story and He is continuing to reign on the earth today.  God is working in my life and the lives of those around me, what Chandler calls “the capturing and resurrecting of dead hearts.”

By Gospel in the air he means the Gospel from “30,000 feet up.”  Whereas the “ground” is the micro view, the air is the “macro view.”  Jesus’s life fits into the big picture of God’s plan for His world from the beginning of time to the final redemption of His creation; after all, Jesus appears in Revelation 21:5 when He says He is “making all things new.”  Chandler writes “When we consider the Gospel from the air, the atoning work of Christ culminates and reveals to us the big picture of God’s plan of restoration from the beginning of time to the end of time.” 

It is a mighty big “ask” to inspire Christians who barely read the Bible to begin to read it from two vantage points, but that is what Chandler is proposing.  He feels when Christians try to operate with the limited knowledge we have, we are going to have misunderstandings of Scripture, we are open to heresies and we may even attack our own Christian brothers due to false “Biblical” ideas.  Let me pause and ask does this sound like what some Christians are practicing today as they mix all types of Biblical ideas with full-throated efforts to gain political power?

It is no wonder that this is happening because lack of Gospel knowledge is allowing it.  As stated above, Christians want to be busy and there is nothing busier than attempting to help engineer American society into a Christian theocracy.  But is that the aim of the Gospel?  I don’t think so.  Chandler feels there is a need to get back to what is of “first importance.”  He wants to make sure that all who believe in Christ are on the same page here [God’s page].  There is a need for us to be talking about what God is talking about. 

To do that we have to open our Bibles and yes, read from TWO vantage points.

Matt Chandler has written a book called The Explicit Gospel.  It is important to probe his meaning of explicit which means “stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.”  It is also important to probe the meaning of the word Gospel.  Christians probably know that Gospel means “the record of Jesus’ life and teaching in the first four books of the New Testament.”  Maybe someone reading this post is a bit unclear on the meaning of “Gospel.” My intent is not to insult readers, just be explicit.

What Chandler proposes to do with his book is be very clear that too many Christians today just don’t know much about the Gospel.  He writes “people have heard the Gospel but didn’t have the spiritual ears to truly hear it, to receive it” [12].  What has happened to many Christians is they have heard a version of the Gospel [from the pulpit] but they have not taken the time on their own to probe the meaning of the Word through ongoing discussion with others or ongoing personal study.  They assume they have a knowledge of God’s word.  Again, Chandler writes “the Gospel has been merely assumed, not taught or proclaimed as central.  It hadn’t been explicit” [13].

Chandler cites example after example of people who have been raised in the church but they don’t have much knowledge of God’s Word.  I like the way he describes these people: believers who practice “moral, therapeutic deism”.  The idea behind this notion is that if we “clean up” our behavior, we will earn favor with God.  God may have entered a person’s heart, but after that, the believer takes over. There is no longer a need to rely on God for spiritual growth. Some would see this as even more complex; moral therapeutic deism is really the siren call of the American idea of self-help.  Believers need to concentrate on self-actualization and self-fulfillment.  God is relegated in the process as your cheerleader as you do all the work to be the best you can be.

That is not the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. 

What is wrong with this version of the Gospel?  There is too much self-reliance and not enough Jesus reliance. 

What is wrong with this version of the Gospel?  Jesus is not in the center of it all as He should be.  I turn to the Apostle Paul who expresses his debt to Christ in Galatians 2: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Paul’s reference to the law is to Jewish law, the Pharisee’s 1st Century version of moral therapeutic deism [that is a “stetch”, but maybe you get my point].

If Christ died for us to achieve righteousness through self-actualization and self-fulfillment, He died for no purpose.  We don’t need him.  He is not central to the process.  The driving force of our transformation into more righteous beings is not through the Helper, the Holy Spirit or the Divine Counsellor; it is our self-centered efforts at self-righteousness.

This is the way I was raised in the church so when Chandler expresses his disappointment in believers who don’t really know the power of Jesus Christ as expressed in the Gospel, he is disappointed in me.  Church attendance, Sunday school membership, going to Bible Study on Wednesday night, journaling, Bible reading plans, committee membership at church, choir singing etc., all that does not matter one bit if I don’t have Jesus Christ as the center of my life.  That is why I am working on new posts for his book.  I have realized that I have just been typing thoughts to create blog posts and I have not been taking the time to ask why.  [Maybe I am admitting I did not have Jesus Christ as the center of my writing]. When I am under great pressures in life [as I have been lately] I forget to draw upon the Gospel for my needed strength. I chafe at my inability to have peace in my life.  I long for control when I cannot have it.  I go “through the motions” of live expecting some righteous reward and it is not forthcoming.  This can destroy my faith.

I forget that my Lord and Savior are with me, in my time of trouble and that all will eventually be well according to His purposes, not mine.  My life is not all about my desires.  It is about Christ and what I can do to further His Kingdom.  I should live by faith but instead, I have a desire to live in the flesh.  Life should be a “bowl of cherries” and lately it has not been.  How should I handle this season of troubles?

I should have even greater faith.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,   because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” [the book of James].

When times are wonderful, we should praise God.  When times are troubling, we should praise God.  We owe all that we have in this life to Jesus Christ.  There is not condemnation for any of us, for Christ has set us free.  It is not our doing; it is due to His sacrifice on the cross.  When we try to live a perfect life, expecting a perfect result in the afterlife, we are not living a life based on the explicit Gospel.  We are living a life based on self-righteousness.  Jesus never tells his followers to have pride about their faith; he models humility in his obedience of His Father’s will.  He preaches about God’s chosen ones as those who are patient, gentle, humble and meek.

I quote Chandler’s words about his reliance upon Jesus: “My sin is in the past: forgiven.  My current struggles: covered.  My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ” [15].

The explicit Gospel:  His work, not mine.