Considering Gospel-Powered Humility

I have a growing number of books on humility. I have already read Mahaney’s Humility: True Greatness, Mack’s Humility: the forgotten virtue, and Henry’s The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit. But like books on love, I feel compelled to have more books on the subject. That is probably a reflection of my weakness and sin- I struggle with pride and loving others well. They pretty much go together. Humility is no small thing, according to Jonathan Edwards.

In Charity and Its Fruits he usually points to pride as the root cause of the sin we commit that is contrary to love. Love, he says, promotes humility which moves us to love others well.

“Humility disposes men to be of a yielding spirit to others, ready, for the sake of peace, and to gratify others, to comply in many things with their inclinations, and to yield to their judgments wherein they are not inconsistent with truth and holiness. A truly humble man is inflexible in nothing but the cause of his Lord and Master, which is the cause of truth and virtue.”

So, the latest book I’ve read on humility is William Farley’s Gospel-Powered Humility. His book is different from Mack and Mahaney’s books. He notices our society’s aversion to humility. He notices the lack of humility producing messages in our churches. His conviction is that the gospel produces humility in those who hear in faith.

“When we assume the gospel and pursue its fruits, the fruits eventually displace the gospel and all that remains is ‘moralism.'”

I agree with him. We have no hope for humility apart from the gospel. He is essentially seeking to correct an imbalance in contemporary preaching which tends to avoid the ugly truth about our sinfulness and God’s judgment. These, he says, should be part of what humbles us.

“Humility is the fertilizer that nourishes our soul and makes us fruitful.”

Since it is a counter-balance it does seem to err on the opposite end. Keep in mind I’ll be preaching on Colossians 1:21-23 this Sunday which points to our utterly sinful condition which necessitated Christ’s atonement. I’m not saying we don’t preach the hard and ugly truths (though I would say that God’s justice is beautiful to a redeemed and sanctified mind). Farley focuses on those hard truths with chapters on the wrath of God, the final judgment and the sinfulness of sin. His chapter on the history of preaching also focuses on how these hard truths helped break up the hard soil of the heart so gospel seed could grow.

“Here is the great paradox: the proud man thinks he is humble, but the humble man thinks he is proud.”

I wanted to read more chapters like his chapter on faith alone. I wanted to see how the positive aspects of the gospel also humble us. That’s because I believe they do. So, what Farley presents us is not wrong. I’d just say it was a bit incomplete.

“Jesus received the humbling that our constant and unremitting self-exaltation merits.”

He does include chapters on the fear of man and the power of a humble leader. Those help round out the book, showing some of the practical results of pride and humility.

“God designed salvation to deeply humble me, to crush my pride, and to transfer my grounds for positive self-image from self to God.”

Farley is highly dependent upon the Puritans (not a bad thing). His theology is solid. I just found it hard reading at times because of the emphasis on wrath, judgement and our sinfulness. Let me explain.

While not yet a pastor, I heard a sermon on Romans 3. The pastor was seeking to “reform” the church and was making his way through Romans. I had high anticipations as he’d lay out total, or radical, depravity to the people. It was about 1/3 our sinfulness and it seemed to me like he rushed to the good news too quickly. The people needed to wrestle with the reality of the bad news. He seemed to move too quickly.

“Sin shrouds our thoughts in mental darkness, rendering true belief in God humanly impossible.”

It can sound like Farley is wanting us to move too slowly. I admit that is completely subjective. But when I see the 4 main chapters and 3 of them are on the “bad news” …. Like I said, I wish there was a greater focus on how the doctrine of sanctification, in addition to justification, continues to humble us.

But Farley is right- too often this part of the gospel is greatly neglected today. Many “pastors” on TV completely ignore this. It is the result of the fear of man, liberalism, bad theology and a host of other reasons (though Farley argues that liberal theology is the result of the fear of man). Most people don’t need more self-esteem. They need a good dose of gospel humility. As I tell my kids & congregation:

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5

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Considering Gospel-Powered Parenting, Part 1

In the Introduction, the author notes that 75,000 books on parenting have been written in the last decade.  We are apparently obsessed with parenting, and we apparently haven’t discovered how to parent well.

In Gospel-Powered Parenting, William Farley brings something different to the table.  He isn’t focused on technique, he’s focused on the hearts of the parents and their goals.

“The common denominator between success and failure seems to be the spiritual depth and sincerity of the parents, especially the spiritual depth and sincerity of the father.”

This is interesting in light of an Atlantic  Monthly article a young lady on the plane was reading recently, “Are Fathers Necessary?”  Every study (which the article thinks erroneous, without real data) I’ve read indicates they are (check out Life Without Father by David Popenoe.  This is why the wise church focuses on dads and tries to involve men in ministry to children (time to man up, guys: you are important to the kingdom!).

Success here is essentially defined as children who own the faith of their parents are are involved church members after leaving the home.  How they were educated is far less important than their witnessing “experiential religion”, as the Puritans would say, in the home.  And especially by dad (hmm, maybe those passages in the Bible aren’t shaped by ‘patriarchism’ but reflect how God often works in light of the covenant).

Initially, his claim that the Job 1 responsibility of Christian parents is to see their kids come to faith (he is a Calvinist, so he recognizes parents as a means, not the cause, of their faith).  It seems like all that matters is that if we get our kids to say the prayer, we’re done.  That would be reductionistic, and that is not what he means.  If we are powered by the gospel, and they believe it, many of those issues will be addressed but not in an idolatrous fashion.  Our children will learn how to manage money, persevere in difficulty, delay gratification, do their best in school (depending on their own intellectual capacity) and be good citizens and workers.  The gospel will produce the character necessary for those things if we recognize it isn’t just “fire insurance”

He begins with the assumptions each parent has in that process.  They are often unseen, but drive our parenting.  He lays out his assumptions.

1. Parenting is not easy.  We are sinners, and so are they.  There will be plenty of failure to go around.
2. God is sovereign, but He uses means.  We are not to be passive, but active, in light of His commands.  But we are also to be trusting in light of His promises and providence.
3. A good offense (is better than a good defense).  Often we try to protect our kids, fearing the world will corrupt them.  As a result, we often raise legalists or rebels.  We recognize the battleground is their hearts and make the gospel the main issue to shape their hearts.  Love for Christ is the only real way to avoid the corruption of the world.
4. Understand the New Birth.  Our kids don’t need the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism of our day.  They need to be born again- given spiritual life.  This is borne out by its fruit, not merely a decision.
5. God-centered Families.  Most people have child-centered families, and sports or performing arts often crowd out manifestations of lively faith.  The kids learn they are more important than God, and worship is essentially optional.

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