God’s will isn’t complicated. But we sure make it sound so.

When I was a kid, parents and pastors encouraged us to learn and follow God’s will. Wasn’t just a kid thing either. Churches encourage everybody to learn and follow God’s will. It’s what churches do.

How do we do this? “Read your bible!” we were told. So we did. And… we found it had a lot of interesting stories, good advice, confusing visions, super boring genealogies, clever advice, inspiring poems, commands which were sometimes startling (“Wow, look at all the weird stuff God made the Hebrews do. Wait, does he still want us to do this?”) and sometimes made total sense (“Don’t eat bats. Well duh.”).

But… we were still generally confused about where to find what God’s will is.

Ah, said our youth pastors: It’s in the biblical principles. Apparently once we read enough bible, we’ll notice certain common themes throughout, and realize, “This seems like something God cares about.” To hear our youth pastors explain it: Turns out this—the connecting the dots between verses to find the underlying philosophy—is how we deduce God’s will.

And we can totally do this on your own, but lucky for us young people, the youth pastors already knew a bunch of the principles. So that’s what they taught us: Things like tithing to your church, and obeying your parents no matter what, and courtship instead of dating, and only voting for prolife candidates. And various other things which oughta make us into good conservative churchgoing citizens.

If you wanna learn a bunch of these principles, we were told, Bill Gothard has seminars! So, in my early 20s, I attended one. Gothard has books full of biblical principles: Stuff he extrapolated from bible. Well, more accurately, already believed… but then Gothard went digging through his bible for proof texts, found ’em, and insists his principles are bible-based, not merely bible-compatible. (Okay, you gotta massage some of those verses to make ’em fit, but still!)

I already explained how these “principles” too often get deduced improperly, or get read into the bible instead of read from it. This article’s not really about them anyway. Lemme set ’em aside.

’Cause whenever newbies and kids come to me, or pastors, or any other mature Christian, with questions about God’s will, they’re not asking about biblical principles.

“You have not because you ask not.”

James 4.2.

Here’s a phenomenon I come across a little too often: Someone’s in need. They bring up their need to fellow Christians. And the fellow Christians respond, “Have you asked God to help you with that? ’Cause if you ask, he’ll help. You’re in need because you haven’t asked God about it. ‘You have not because you ask not.’ ”

Me, I’m pretty sure the needy person has asked God for help. Whenever I’m in need, he’s my go-to. I go to other people second. And no, not because other people suck: I wanna see if I can achieve it myself first, or I can achieve it with God’s help first. I guess it comes from the American ideal of self-sufficiency… although I admit it’s not always the wisest ideal. Some burdens ought to be shared.

And likewise some people try to avoid burdens whenever they can. That, more often than not, is the real motivation behind Christians telling the needy, “So have you asked God about it?” They don’t wanna help.

But let’s set them aside for a moment, and deal with the fact the quote they’ve used, “You have not because you ask not,” is only part of a bible verse. It’s missing the other part. The whole of the verse goes like yea:

James 4.2 KJV

Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

…Gee, that’s not all that encouraging of a bible verse.

Which is why people tend to skip the first part of the verse, if they know it. More often they don’t know it. They only know the “You have not because you ask not” part.

Sharing Jesus patiently.

For the sake of this article I’ll call him Uladzimir. He’s a pastor, and he was trying to teach me how he did street evangelism—where you stand in some public place, and share Jesus with passers-by.

Most of the time, street evangelists pick someplace busy, but not hurried—someplace where people might hang out, and therefore have a few minutes to talk. Like a park, a shopping mall, a town square, a main street, a parking lot. For this instruction, Uladzimir took me to a mall.

Pick a place to stand, he instructed, and watch the passers-by as they come your way. Look at their body language.

• Do they walk quickly, eyes straight ahead, pretending you’re invisible (like they do with beggars and pollsters), pretending they have somewhere to be? Skip them.
• Do they walk slowly, nodding or saying hello as they approach, seemingly willing to listen if you distracted them with a conversation? Talk to them.

Still, Uladzimir pointed out, don’t forget to listen to the Holy Spirit throughout. If he interrupts us in our assessment, and says, “Go talk to that one”—even if they look outwardly hostile, and look like maybe they wanna hurt you—obey your Lord. Likewise if he says, “No, not this one,” then no, not this one.

Simple idea. So I stood at an empty spot in the mall, my evangelism clipboard in hand (looking for all the world like a pollster, I guess) and watched people walk past.

The first two wouldn’t even make eye contact. I even said “Hello” as they passed. I do that ordinarily; it’s not a trick to make people start a conversation. They didn’t break stride. The next few were likewise too busy to slow down.

Uladzimir grew impatient.

“Is the Spirit telling you no on all these people?” he said.

“They’re all giving off the ‘uninterested’ vibe,” I pointed out.

Ordinarily Uladzimir is a patient man. (I know from personal experience; I’ve tested his patience a bunch of times.) But this day he didn’t feel like waiting. Two power-walkers later, Uladzimir simply stepped in front of the next person and said, “Hello!” and began his spiel.

“I’m sorry,” said the man, “I really have to be somewhere.” And off he went.

I resisted the temptation to ask Uladzimir whether the Holy Spirit had said yes to that guy.

Uladzimir proceeded to break his own procedure three more times. We got nowhere.

To be fair, he really wanted to teach me his evangelism technique. And not with somebody else who was pretending to be pagan; he wanted a real-life example. But today he was just gonna be frustrated. The fish weren’t biting. Hey, sometimes it’s like that.

I think Uladzimir’s guidelines are entirely valid though. If you ever find yourself doing street evangelism, remember: Holy Spirit and body language. If they don’t look interested, don’t force Jesus upon them. And if the Holy Spirit overrides our impressions, follow the Spirit.

But my point of this little story is to make a bigger point: Patience.

Impatience is fruitless evangelism.

Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and if we’re sharing Jesus, we need to exhibit his character. Need to. I suspect a big reason Uladzimir and I weren’t getting anywhere on that day at the mall, was because he was losing his patience, and the Spirit wanted him in a much better headspace.

Part of the reason I changed Uladzimir’s name is because he ordinarily is a patient man. It’s just that day, he wasn’t. And sometimes we’re all gonna have bad days. That’s life. When that happens, lean on the Spirit harder. Uladzimir didn’t, and tried to force the situation—and any other day he’d be the first to tell you to never force the situation. We gotta work with the conditions we have.

Other evangelists don’t agree at all. Neither are they patient at all. They always try to force the situation—“Now is the day of your salvation!”—and push as hard as they can. They think they have a mandate from the Spirit to do so.

• They dress outrageously, to get attention.
• They get a bullhorn, or a working sound system, and get loud.
• They make signs. Some of them are even legible. (Some are even Christian. The “God Hates Fags” signs aren’t.)
• They have giveaways. Like free food, cold water, free clothes, coupons, tchotchkes… but you gotta listen to their message before you can have the freebies.
• They write what they consider clever tracts, which are “guaranteed” to get read. Usually ’cause the tract looks like it’s about something other than Christ, just to get you reading. Sometimes there’s shock value involved: They condemn something, like another religion (whether it be Mormons or Muslims or even fellow Christians) or certain things in the popular culture (like Harry Potter books or reality shows). Or they threaten you with hell and mayhem. Whatever gets you to start reading… and then put it down in about two minutes, and mutter to yourself, “Oh, it’s Christian. Feh.”

You see the general theme though: They’re not willing for things to happen naturally. Hey, the rest of the world doesn’t work that way: We have to seize the day. Make our opportunities. Go out and get that job, or make that sale, or drive that bargain, or whatever it is we have conquer. We can’t passively sit around and wait for things to fall out of the sky. So they presume the same is true of evangelism: Go into all the world and make disciples, Mt 28.19 right? Don’t just expect them to wander into our churches.

Ordinarily I agree: We Christians should be active, not passive. But “active” means actively obeying the Spirit. It doesn’t mean, “Well, I don’t see anything happening, so I’m gonna go make things happen.” Sometimes God’s time has not yet come:

• Christians aren’t obedient enough yet, and need rebuking.
• Christians haven’t prepared enough yet, and need training.
• Christians are too unfruitful to lead others, and need maturing.

Could be any number of reasons.

The answer to all our maturity problems is not to bypass them with a six-week evangelism seminar, a slew of gospel tracts, a citywide campaign, and zealots willing to verbally assault passers-by. It’s not to co-opt the methods of multi-level marketing in order to share Jesus. That works great for selling a consumable product, but we’re trying to get people to totally surrender their lives to Jesus, and that’s a way bigger commitment level than 10 bottles of overpriced essential oils. Jesus is not a product. He’s our Lord.

The impatient route appears to win people to Jesus, but how many of them stick around? How many of them turn out to be just as impatient as their evangelists, and quit Jesus the instant things get difficult? (Or forget him as soon as they leave the evangelist’s presence, and never go to church nor read a bible nor pray?) How many of ’em were just saying “Yes” to everything in order to make the evangelist shut up and go away? And if only we were patient, we’d notice all these things—but we’re not, and don’t.

Stuff to bear in mind while evangelizing.

Back to Uladzimir’s instructions:

WATCH FOR BODY LANGUAGE. If people look interested or open, approach. If not, not.

LISTEN TO THEIR RESPONSES. As you’re sharing, pay attention to how they’re reacting. I know from experience lots of people just wanna talk spirituality, or wanna debate religion for the fun of it, so they’re not actually listening, and you’re getting nowhere.

So. When you talk about spiritual things, are they open and interested, or anxious and wanna get away now that they know what you’re about? Are they willing to hear what you have to say about Jesus, or do they wanna correct you with all their ideas about Jesus? Are they open to repentance, or do they think they’re just fine with God as long as they don’t sin too much?

Force nothing on anyone. But when they’re willing to talk, talk.

FOLLOW THE SPIRIT. Regardless of what we observe, we don’t know the whole picture. But the Holy Spirit does.

If he tells us to ignore what we observe and share Jesus anyway, do it. If he tells us to ignore what we think is an open door—because it’s not really—and shut up, do it. He knows all; we don’t. It’s idiotic to ignore his warnings simply because “God’s word won’t return void,” so go ahead and play leapfrog in that minefield.

BE PATIENT! Lastly, don’t force “opportunities” by creating set-ups and scams and shock. Watch your environment carefully for the opportunities the Spirit actually has set up for us. They’re already there. We just have to ask him to show us where they are.

Our job is simply to share our experiences (assuming we have any; get some!) with others. Tell them who Jesus is, what he’s done for you, and what he’s gonna do for everybody. Not to “seal the deal”; that’s the Spirit’s job. Nor to apply pressure; that’s his job too. Just share. And when it’s not time to share, wait—and get ready.

It’s not about racking up souls; it’s not about numbers, speed, immediate decisions for Christ, or any of that. It’s about letting people know Jesus loves ’em, and inviting them to new life. And how we demonstrate that new life is by sharing Jesus patiently.

On 𝘯𝘰𝘵 giving to certain churches.

Recently the subject came up about funding one’s church… and about whether we oughta fund churches which really doesn’t need the money.

Fr’instance a megachurch. People assume bigger churches are successful, and flush with cash, so it doesn’t matter whether they give these churches any money: The churches already have money. The Roman Catholic Church is loaded with expensive buildings, priceless artwork, huge tracts of land; heck, Vatican City is a sovereign nation-state which prints money and postage stamps. Hence whenever a Catholic diocese actually does need money, most people’s first response is, “Oh come on; you guys have money.” And don’t give.

Now yes, churches with a lot of people are gonna need a lot of resources. More pastors, obviously. More support staff: More secretaries and assistants, janitors and groundskeepers, bookkeepers, security guards, IT and website personnel, counselors and life coaches, drivers and pilots… the organization can get pretty huge. Plus bigger buildings, more land, higher electric bills, and so forth. So they’re gonna need more donations.

Now when big churches have a surplus, what we should see is they fund more missionaries and community good works—like this one megachurch in my town. We see ’em legitimately, publicly contributing to the growth of God’s kingdom.

But what we tend to see, especially in prosperity-gospel churches, is better-paid pastors who drive better-model cars. Whose “outreaches” tend to consist of conferences and schools which charge for entry. Whose support staff consists of a lot of unpaid interns, or who make minimum wage with no benefits. Like this other megachurch in my town.

Everybody knows—pagans especially!—that Christians are supposed to reject materialism. That Jesus publicly made a point of rejecting materialism. So you’d think Christians, who know this too, would make a point of not sending our donations to materialistic churches.

But yeah, we’ve been conned into thinking and doing otherwise.

How do we fund our churches?

Back in high school I invited a schoolmate to my church. After the service he confessed he was really bothered by the offering plates.

We passed offering plates right after the worship songs, but before the karaoke. (Many Christians call it “special music.” It’s where someone gets on stage and sings along to an instrumental track. Exactly like karaoke. ’Cause it’s karaoke.) People put cash and checks in the plates. Sometimes in little envelopes, so people can’t see how little they actually give. Sometimes not, so people can.

This bugged him. In the church where he was raised, they had an offering box in back of the auditorium. If people wanted to inconspicuolusly put money or gum wrappers into it, they could. The box, he felt, was way more appropriate than our ostentatious “Look what I gave” display—which reminded him much too much of this story:

Mark 12.41-44 NRSV

1 [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

That, and he didn’t like how we interrupted our services to beg for money. People should just give, he figured.

Me, I grew up hearing you funded your church by tithing: Ten percent of every paycheck belongs to Jesus, so give it to your church. Ten percent of the gross, not the net; and if you don’t cough up the dough you’ll be cursed. No, an usher wouldn’t shout, “Tithe, motherf---er!” although that’d be awesome; I didn’t say cursed at. It meant we expected this bit of Malachi to come true:

Malachi 3.8-9 NRSV

8 Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you!

Our finances were gonna shrivel. We’d been told scary stories about people who stopped tithing, and suddenly they could no longer live within their means. Apparently if God doesn’t get his cut, he takes it out of us in other ways. Ways we won’t like. You know, like wiseguys who stage a few “accidents” till they get paid off.

Now no, I’m not accusing our pastors of trying to shake us down. They preached this because it’s what they were taught. They were told this is a biblical principle, and shown all the appropriate proof texts in Malachi and Matthew. They never bothered to investigate beyond these verses, and see whether the bible teaches more about the subject—and it does. I wrote about it.

When I investigated, I also discovered tithing—as a means of financing Christian churches—is actually a recent doctrine.

It first appeared in the United States a very short time after the year 1776. That bit of information give you any hint as to why churches suddenly began to preach about tithing?

Right you are: Because between the Edict of Milan in the year 313, and the American Revolution in 1776, churches were almost entirely funded by the state. Senates and kings paid for everything. Really, your tax dollars did. (Well, considering the United States used to be British, your tax pounds did.) They felt it was the state’s duty to do so; that if you’re truly a Christian nation, the nation sponsors the church. Right?

But then the United States quit being British. Our states all rewrote their constitutions. In them, nearly all of them included freedom of religion: The state has no official church, so citizens aren’t compelled to state any particular Christian creed… nor fund any particular Christian church.

Churches hated the idea, because now it meant they had to fund themselves. And now they do: By telling their regulars we need to tithe.

Bishops: The head leaders in a church.

BISHOP 'bɪʃ.əp noun. A senior member of the Christian clergy. Usually in charge of multiple churches, like a district or diocese; usually empowered to appoint other clergy.

2. A chess piece. Each player gets two, and they only move diagonally; one on white squares, and one on black.

[Episcopal ə'pɪs.kə.pəl adjective.]

When Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus about church leaders, one particular word he used was ἐπίσκοπον/epískopon, “supervisor.” The King James Version translates this word as “overseer” Ac 20.28 KJV and “bishop.” 1Pe 2.25 KJV We actually got the latter word “bishop” from epískopon; you just have to drop the -on ending and swap the epí- for bi-, and soften the k sound. Language evolves like that.

Every church has supervisors of one form or another. But not all of ’em use the word “bishop” for them; not all of ’em are comfortable with that word, ’cause they think of it as a Catholic thing. So they use other words, like “pastor” or “minister” or “overseer” or “superintendent” or “president.” Varies from church to church.

Now, some of the reason people don’t wanna use “bishop” to translate epískopon is because of what “bishop” means nowadays: A person who supervises multiple churches, or multiple campuses of a really big church. (Although some pastors just want a more important-sounding title, so they use “bishop” regardless. Watch out for those guys. But back to my point.) They figure Paul was writing about the head leader in one particular church, so to their minds epíksopon means “pastor,” and that’s how they interpret it.

And they’re right. It is equivalent to what we mean by “pastor”—the person who supervises and shepherds a flock of Christians. Like Jesus. 1Pe 2.25 But you gotta remember in the first century, churches met in homes, and frequently and necessarily multiple homes. The person supervising one group, quickly found himself supervising multiple groups. Multiple campuses of the same church. Like bishops do nowadays. And over time, when churches moved into church buildings, bishops would be in charge of the church for the whole city, but they weren’t able to be in multiple places at once to run the services. So each individual service had a presbyter (who became what we now call “priests”) run things. Again, kinda like multi-campus churches today.

But we don’t have to call the head leader a bishop. Doesn’t matter what you call them: Pastor (senior pastor, head pastor, lead pastor, teaching pastor, pastor emeritus), priest, vicar, minister, reverend, apostle, prophet, chairman, president, senior elder, chief deacon. Wherever the buck stops, that’s who Paul meant. That’s your bishop.

For the sake of churches which get nervous about that title, I’ll just say “supervisor” from here on out.

Presbyters: The grownups who run a church.

PRESBYTER 'prɛz.bə.dər, 'prɛs.bə.dər noun. An elder in a Christian church.

2. The formal title of a minister or priest, in certain Christian denominations.

[Presbyteral prɛz'bə.dər.əl adjective, presbyterial prɛz.bə'tɪ.ri.əl adjective, presbyterian prɛz.bə'tɪ.ri.ən adjective.]

You likely know the word presbyterian because there are presbyterian churches, and a few presbyterian denominations. The word’s in their names. Y’might not know what it means: It indicates these particular churches aren’t run by the head pastor, nor run from afar by a bishop, nor are they a democracy where all the members get a vote. They’re run by a limited number of qualified mature Christians. They’re run by elders.

The New Testament word which we translate “elder” is πρεσβύτερος/presvýteros, and in the Latin bible this became presbyter. So yeah, it’s a Latin word. Still means “elder.”

The ancient church was run by elders for a few centuries, but it gradually evolved into something more hierarchical: Presbyters became the priests who run the church services; bishops were the supervisors who oversaw all the churches in town; archbishops oversaw all the bishops in the province; patriarchs oversaw all the bishops in the country. Western churches got it into their heads their patriarch oversaw all the bishops in the world, including other patriarchs… and that’s one of the ways the Roman Catholic Church grew distant and distinct from the Orthodox Church, causing the universal church to officially split in 1054. But both those churches still think of presbyter and priest as the same thing—and an elder as something entirely different.

After the Protestant movement began, churches still largely ran the same way, with archbishops and bishops and priests. But once the Church of Scotland went Protestant, they started to rethink the whole church leadership idea. Top-down leadership wasn’t working for them… and not everybody in the church was spiritually mature enough to responsibly vote for things. So who should lead? Their solution, which they’re pretty sure comes from bible: Elders.

Titus 1.5-9 ESV

5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

True, lots of Christians like to make a distinction between elder and overseer (Greek ἐπίσκοπον/epískopon, “supervisor”; KJV “bishop”) as two different titles and offices in a church. But the way Paul of Tarsus phrased it to Titus of Crete, he treated the terms as interchangeable. Elders supervise. (And there’s still a little bit of hierarchy: Titus was to appoint these elders, and supervise them. Whether you’re fine with hierarchical churches or not, every Christian answers to every other Christian, y’know.)

How presbyterian churches oughta work, is presbyters get selected from the congregation: Somebody in leadership recognizes you’re mature enough to be included in the leadership, and invites you to join in. And now you’re contributing to how the church is run. You have a say. Your voice gets heard. And the presbyters actually do run stuff.

Yeah, the church has a head pastor, because somebody needs to be the executive around there, but the pastor doesn’t run everything; the presbyters do. The pastor doesn’t do all the work—and no church’s pastor should do all the work!—but presbyters do. And the pastor doesn’t decide everything, like the church’s mission statement or policies or goals or faith statement: Presbyters do.

How presbyterian churches actually do work, varies.

Enoch.

In seminary a fellow student told me about the worst sermon he’d ever heard. It was based on this verse:

Genesis 5.24 KJV

And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

The preacher began with this verse, paused, and continued, “And lemme tell you what Enoch was not: Enoch was not faithless! Enoch was not afraid! Enoch was not weak!” And so on. The preacher listed all sorts of things Enoch presumably was not.

Based on what? Well, here’s the entirety of what the bible has on חֲנ֥וֹךְ/Khenókh, whom we know as Enoch ben Jared. (Not Enoch ben Cain; Ge 4.17 that’s a different guy.)

Genesis 5.18-24 NRSV

18 When Jared had lived one hundred sixty-two years he became the father of Enoch. 19 Jared lived after the birth of Enoch eight hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 20 Thus all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years; and he died.

21 When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

His name gets dropped in two genealogies. 1Ch 1.2, Lk 3.36 Jesus ben Sirach refers to him twice in his apocryphal book. Si 44.16, 49.14 NRSV Then:

Hebrews 11.5-6 NRSV

5 By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not found, because God had taken him.” Ge 5.24 For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God.” Si 44.16 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

 

Jude 1.14-15 NRSV

14 It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

Jude refers to 1 Enoch, another apocryphal book, which claims to have Enoch’s prophecies in it. The saying “Enoch walked with God” Ge 5.24 shows Enoch and the LORD had an interactive relationship, so likely Enoch did prophesy from time to time. Still, the reason 1 Enoch isn’t in the bible—isn’t even in Orthodox and Catholic bibles—is because it’s profoundly unlikely Enoch wrote it.

Anyway. As you can see, there’s very little about Enoch in the bible altogether, which means there’s not a lot we can say Enoch was, much less was not. I mean he mighta been weak and afraid, though Hebrews makes it clear he certainly had to have had faith.

Let’s dig into the little we have.

Why are people nontheist? No, it’s not bad Christians.

Nontheists are people who live their lives with zero concern for God. They don’t believe he even exists, or doubt his existence enough to act as if he’s not. They won’t always call themselves atheists or agnostics, ’cause those guys tend to be antichrists and jerks: They’re not anti-religious. They’re simply not religious.

Why are people nontheist? Simple: It’s how they were raised. They had nontheist parents. Like my dad: My grandparents never outright said they didn’t believe in God, but nothing they did ever indicated any belief, and that’s what they passed along to their kids. My aunts and uncle went other routes, but Dad decided upon atheism.

Now what about people who weren’t raised nontheist? Well, Brennan Manning, a former Franciscan priest who became a popular author and public speaker, had a theory that’s become very widely accepted among Evangelical Christians.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

Kevin Max reads the quote before the song “What If I Stumble?” off DC Talk’s bestselling 1995 album Jesus Freak. A lot of Evangelicals listened to that album, heard the idea, thought it brilliant, and spread it far and wide. We still claim it’s true: People become nontheist because Christians suck. So stop sucking! Quit being such jerks and love your neighbor! Be compassionate, be loving, be kind, and win people to Jesus by actually being like Jesus!

And yeah, I’ve known various ex-Christians who quit Christianity because their fellow Christians were awful to them. Like gay kids whose parents drove them away (and called it “tough love”—like they’re gonna shun the gayness out of them). Like kids who dared question their legalistic parents, and the parents decided it made ’em apostate, and the kids actually became apostate. Such ex-Christians aren’t necessarily nontheist: Many do believe in God, but they no longer identify as Christian, so they’re pagan. But they might not be pagan had they experienced God’s love through God’s supposed people.

So yeah, maybe the greatest single cause of paganism today, is Christians who don’t properly demonstrate Jesus’s love. Like all humans, pagans are looking for love and acceptance, and if they don’t get it from Christians, they’ll seek and find it elsewhere.

But nontheists?—people who don’t believe in God altogether?—meh.

I’d recommend we stop swallowing Manning and DC Talk’s idea whole, and actually talk to some nontheists. You’ll find out really quickly their objection actually isn’t Christians behaving badly. (Though it certainly doesn’t help!) They don’t believe in God because they don’t find the God-idea reasonable.

“Prophets” who only share encouraging words.

There’s a rather loaded word we Christians use on a frequent basis: “Word.” It refers to Jesus. It can also refer to the bible, either as a whole, or to specific statements of God in the scriptures. It can refer to the gospel, Mt 13.19 the “good word.” It can refer to any message or lesson, really: A Sunday school class, a sermon, or a prayer where the petitioner slipped a lesson into it, passive-aggressive or not.

Or it can just be a short, positive saying. An “encouraging word.” A T-shirt slogan, easily short enough for text messages and Twitter.

All my life I’ve heard these little sayings. Had a pastor who’d like to start each Sunday morning service with one of them: “Church, I have a word for you.” Then he’d share it. Might be a popular saying; might be a clever saying; might be a bible verse. Might expound on it a little, but it’d take him no more than 30 seconds, ’cause he was gonna pray, and then we were gonna sing. “Church, be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.” It’d be short.

Christians like to encourage each other with such things. We’ll make memes of them and scatter them all over the internet. We teach ’em to newbies and children. Most are good, and consistent with the scriptures. Some are bunk. But I tend to call them generic Christian truth. Stuff like:

• Jesus loves you. (This I know, for the bible tells me so.)
• Be of good cheer!
• God considers you valuable. You’re not irrelevant.
• It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you his kingdom.
• Jesus is the way, truth, and life.
• Heaven is real, and someday you get to see it.
• God wants to help, so don’t forget to pray.
• Stop fixating on the world’s chaos. It’s passing away.
• Jesus is returning!

And so on. We put ’em on T-shirts and bumper stickers, put ’em into Christian pop songs, and use ’em to encourage one another. Anybody can do it.

And it takes no prophetic ability whatsoever. The Holy Spirit doesn’t have to tell me, “Hey, go tell that stranger I love her.” You already know God loves her; you can tell her without any prompting from him. We can tell anyone, at any time, “Hey, God loves you!” ’Cause it’s true.

Although sometimes the Spirit does have to give us a little kick in the pants. But that little kick doesn’t count as prophecy; it’s not always because these strangers have to hear God loves them. Yeah, sometimes they do… but a lot of times the Spirit gives us that kick because we suck at encouraging others. So if you ever thought to yourself, “Why’d the Spirit make me go say something to that stranger? He looked so unimpressed”—it’s not because that person needed to hear anything, but because the Spirit’s teaching you to obey. Good Christian. Keep it up.

But let’s get off that tangent and get to those Christians who specialize in sharing generic Christian truths… and think it’s their prophetic ministry.

Yeah. There are such creatures. I know plenty. And I’m not knocking the encouragement! Christians need to encourage one another; probably more than we already do.

The catch is these people think what they’re doing is prophetic, and it’s really not. Like I said, encouragement takes no prophetic ability whatsoever. You don’t need to personally hear God say, “Tell this person these words” before you can share a generic Christian truth with ’em. Plenty of cessationists, who are dead certain God doesn’t talk to people anymore, tweet encouragement at one another. (As they should: Since they think God abandoned us, they especially need the encouragement!) You can slap a bumper sticker on your car, park it, and leave it there… and it’ll encourage every Christian who sees it, including the one who finally tows your car away. And you won’t have done anything more.

But you know how some people would really like to become prophets, and are willing to call anything prophetic if it means they’re prophets. So yeah, they’ll consider encouraging words to be “prophecies.” Even though they’re not. Even when they misinterpret scripture (“God knows the plans he has for you!”) or aren’t even scriptural at all (“Everything happens for a reason!”). You know, stuff the Holy Spirit doesn’t do.