Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Tabernacles, Grief, & My Greatest Hope

One of the most striking aspects of the Transfiguration narrative found in Matthew 17:1-8 is that the disciples who had friends and family below did not want to come down off the mountain. While we know Jesus, Moses and Elijah appeared to the disciples on the mountain, our language struggles to capture the true joy, goodness, and glory that three disciples experienced while in the presence of the glorified Jesus. Matthew 17:1 says that Jesus’s face “shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” Mark 9:3 says, “his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” Luke says of Jesus “the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white (Lk 9:29).” Despite the limitations of our language, we can affirm that the disciples got a taste of the heavenly glory of Christ. It proved so delightful that they never wanted it to end. Thus, Peter tossed out the idea of building everybody a little house or tabernacle up there so that they would never have to leave.

Admittedly, Peter’s comment about tabernacles arose from the depths of idiocy (Mt 17:4). He failed to account for the promise of Jesus’s coming resurrection which made a way for Peter, James, and John to stand on that mountain without being consumed by God’s perfect judgement. Thus, the Father told Peter to be quiet and to listen to Jesus. But while Peter’s statement arose from a lack of theological awareness, I believe it also arose from the experiential goodness of that moment. Whatever Peter encountered on that mountain was enough to make him forget about the world beneath him.

This Sad World Below

When my dear April died, more than one friend asked me if I found solace in the fact that her death had brought an end to her suffering. In one sense, yes: I’m glad that she is no longer shivering in pain and rejoice that she is with Christ for he is a far better husband than I ever was. Even in death, God is faithful. (For a fuller discussion on the gracious nature of death click here)

But in another sense, “no.” By itself, such knowledge has often proved an inadequate antidote to the daily struggles of grief that have swirled about. Neither April nor I was longing for her release from this world but rather for her renewed health.

While April has been perfected, I still inhabit a world defined by the ethos of those confused disciples and arrogant pharisees who choose to argue the finer points of theology at the base of the mount of transfiguration and to ignore the demon-possessed child who was convulsing at their feet. In other April’s exaltation to the mountain above has not improved my status down below. I still wrestle with insecurities, failures, and limitations. And where once I could lean into my helpmate for comfort and support, I must now (in one sense) walk alone, managing laundry, meal schedules, band aide dispensing, sermon prep, and all the other things that come with being a single parent and a pastor. In short, her deliverance from trials has brought about the most trying season of my life. As J.C. Ryle noted, “We should not weep from them, but for ourselves…better are the dead in Christ than the living!”

Hope for All of us

Admittedly, my experiences are not unique to me or to widowhood. All who follow Christ will experience hardships of one kind or another. A quick survey of NT analogies reveals that God had connected the Christian life to professions such as soldiering, farming, and running – occupations that require fortitude and that offer no holidays. Similarly, Jesus’s parables talk not about ‘if’ but rather about ‘when’ the storms of life will come. In other words, to follow Christ is to embrace the sufferings of Christ and the storms of this world. While God is faithful and those who follow Christ receive all kinds of good gifts as they wait at the base of the mountain, the end goal is not a better below but heaven above. Until Christ returns, the world beneath will forever and always be marred by brokenness, sorrow, and death.

Borrowing the metaphor of sailing, the Puritan John Flavel restated the idea this way,

You are yet rolling and tossing upon a tempestuous sea, but your friend is gone into the quiet harbor; desire to be there than he were at sea with you again.

Friends, the destination, the final hope for the believer is heaven…the mountain where we tabernacle with God forever. Our hope is not so much that someone has left this world (though praise God for the hope of their salvation) but rather that we too one day will get to sail into that harbor upon the winds of grace.

In Conclusion

So back to the earlier question. I would answer, “Yes, but there is an even greater hope.” For you see, I find little comfort in reflecting upon the end of April’s suffering as I scrub fingerpaint off the couch and figure out how to parent the devious and yet very cute little culprit. In those moments, I find hope in the truth that whatever Peter, James, and John saw in-part on that mountain, I will one day live in full. Come Lord Jesus!

Peter Witkowski Church History, Ecclesiology

Lloyd-Jones, Rick Warren, & the Looming Crisis of a Paper Denomination

As British evangelicalism approached the precipice of their own crisis in 1966, the famed British preacher and evangelist, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones passionately encouraged evangelicals to leave their floundering denominations. As he made clear in his Appeal, he was done with paper churches. Speaking of the impulse to define the local church by creeds and statements of faith, the Doctor said,

I am sorry, I cannot accept the view that the church consists of articles or a confession of faith. A church does not consist of the Thirty-Nine Articles. A church does not consist of the Westminster Confession of Faith…A church consists of living people.

At first glance, the Doctor seemed to be affirming the often-heard statement of “No creed, but the Bible” as he headed off into the world of Christian experience. But while the fiery Welsh Preacher of Westminster Chapel certainly affirmed the authority and sufficiency of the Bible and the importance of the universal Christian experience of conversion, he had not given up on creeds in 1966.

Lloyd-Jones & The Importance of Creeds

He taught that the church’s survival depended upon the existence of creeds. Reflecting upon the practice of the early church, Lloyd-Jones said, “They defined heresy, and condemned it, and excommunicated men who taught it…The result was that we have the so-called great creeds of the Church – for instance the Apostle’s Creed.” What proved true of the early church also proved true of the Protestant Reformation and of the Church during other times of revival. Lloyd-Jones continued,

The Church in every period of revival and awakening, when she is really alive…has always done this very thing. The drawing up of a Confession is nothing less than a way of ‘girding up the lions of your mind,’ or ‘putting on the girdle of truth.’

In other words, the historic, evangelical church has always welcomed creeds and statements of faith because they were “drawn up to save the life of the Church and to safeguard the truth concerning our Lord and His salvation.” Lloyd-Jones believed that those who held fast to the Scriptures would hold equally fast to documents such as “the Westminster Confession.”

In critiquing paper churches, Lloyd-Jones was not expressing antagonism towards creeds but rather towards their misuse. In other words, he did not oppose the presence of creeds but rather those disingenuous pastors and denominational workers who signed orthodox creeds so that they could teach heterodoxy if not outright heresy apart from any criticism. In the 1960s, British liberals engaged in the doublespeak that defined the liberals wing of the SBC during the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 90s. In front of boards and councils, they publicly affirmed orthodoxy. But in their Tuesday morning lectures and their Sunday morning sermons, they openly attacked core biblical doctrines. Reflecting upon this reality in 1969, Lloyd-Jones remarked, “What the Christian church is teaching at any given time is what is being proclaimed from its pulpits and not what is handed down on paper.”

Though the British liberals hoped to revive their struggling churches through the inclusion of more culturally adept theology, their broadening theological horizons did not translate to increased membership. The grand cathedrals of old were transformed into flimsy and empty paper structures. As Lloyd-Jones noted, “If you mix with polluted doctrine, it is not surprising that you become diseased and more or less useless in the kingdom of God.” Those who abandoned or diluted the creeds would ultimately lose the gospel and their churches. He warned, “if you make what appears to be a minor change somewhere on the circumference it will soon have its effect even upon the center.”

Warren & the Baptist Faith and Message

In a few days, the SBC will face its own crisis. The messengers at the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting will have to decide whether they will reinstate Rick Warren’s old church (Saddleback Church) which has ordained and installed women pastors, violating the SBC statement of faith, the Baptist Faith in Message 2000, and its biblical moorings (and for what it’s worth – Lloyd-Jones’s teaching). With that vote, Southern Baptists will determine whether their confessional documents exist to protect the integrity of the gospel or to protect those who teach against the Bible from institutional and biblical accountability. In other words, they will be determining whether the SBC is a living or a paper denomination.

May they choose wisely.

What Did they Decide?

In God’s kindness, the messengers at the 2023 Annual Meeting affirmed that creeds exist to uphold the clear teaching of the Scriptures. They rejected Warren’s appeal to reinstate Saddleback Church by a vote of 88% to 11%. I am thankful to report that the SBC is not a paper denomination. As of 6/14/2023, it is very much alive!

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Why I Don’t Talk to April But Pray

When my dear April ceased to breathe, a piercing emptiness settled over my home and my soul. Where once there had been laughter, playful banter, and deep theological reflection now there was only thick, sticky, and suffocating silence.

As my heart broke under the weight of April’s death, I longed to be heard, to pour out my heart without reserve and without concern of time, schedule, or setting. But when I asked aloud, “Where are you, my love?” the air brought back no reply.

Why I Generally Don’t Talk to April

Though some have suggested that I trade my past marital dialogues for a therapeutic monologue, I find the option rather uncompelling if not troubling. I have no idea how April would respond to the experiences, concerns, hopes, worries, and fears that I now carry about with me. I can certainly speculate about how she might react to this or that. But as all good historians know, such speculations prove to be anachronistic and wholly inauthentic. They are nothing more than the manifestations of our imaginations on to reality which by logical necessity distort reality. We cannot project out without either adding to or taking away from what would be real. Such imaginary interactions with our dead loved ones are to reality what orcs are to men.

But even if she were to interact with my ramblings from heaven, she would have little to share with me for she is perfect, and I (as my kids will happily attest to) am not. As Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” The struggles, fears, worries, hopes, and desires that I wish to process aloud with her, the things the make me yearn for her open ear, derive from my incomplete knowledge of the Lord and from my sinful frailty. April no longer shares in those things, nor can she relate to my incompleteness for she knows the eternal joy of completeness. She has crossed the Jordan. Even if she could respond to my mumblings, I could no more understand her knowledge than a three-year-old could understand the terminology used to develop rocket science. As Paul noted of his vision of heaven, “he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” And what she could share with me has already been shared with me through the Scriptures. As Jesus said in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them (Lk 16:29).”

This is not to say that April has no knowledge of me nor awareness of what happens in my life or in the lives of our dear children while she awaits Christ’s return in heaven. Scripture seems to indicate some heavenly awareness of earthly things. But while her love for us and us for her remains, we have no meaningful way to communicate. Death has separated us until it will one day again unite us. Until then, I must embrace the reality of her absence.

Why I Pray

But I do not have to embrace the silence. Though I have lost the companionship of my April for a time, I am not alone. My cries do not go unheard. The Psalmist offers all who grieve a glorious hope writing, “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.” I still process my life out loud. I cry out to the Lord through the penetrating silence that has enveloped my bedroom, kitchen, car, office, and even the church sanctuary. When I am alone and in need of help, I talk to the God who is there in the silence, bottling my tears as I weep through the night, extending grace to me as I argue with him through the day, and filling my heart with hope as I plead for fresh signs of his goodness and love. In other words, I do not bottle up my emotions but rather audibly process them with the Lord. The Puritan John Flavel who discovered the goodness of this process a few hundred years before me wrote,

To whom should children go but to their father, to make their moan…Did we complain more to God, he would complain less of us, and quickly abate the matters of our complaint.

Oh friends, it is sweet to process one’s life through prayer. Indeed, to talk with God is to commune with him and to experience the truth, love, and grace that transforms our lives.

However, such practices are not unique to widowers or to the grieving. As one theologian noted,

Invoking God, calling on him in prayer, isn’t an emergency measure…something that we turn to in extremity, at the hour of death or disappointment or depression. Calling on God’s name accompanies all of human life and all human activity.

Or to borrow from the apostle Peter, all of us are to cast our cares upon Christ because he cares for us (1 Pt 5:7).

What April Knew

Towards the end of her life as April verbally processed her fears with me, she would at times bring our conversations to a conclusion and kindly say, “I don’t expect an answer from you, Peter.” The comment unnerved me. I was her husband…her best friend…her truest confidant…her pastor. Surely, I should have some answer…some hope to offer…some word to say. But with each passing day, I have come to increasingly appreciate her wisdom in those moments. My shoulders could not carry all her burdens. Nor could her’s carry mine. They were not designed to. But Christ’s could. To Him, she turned.

A few weeks later when I lost my April, my heart shattered into a million pieces like a glass striking a hard kitchen tile. Nothing made sense. Everything hurt and was out of place. But I was not alone. Though he crushed me, my God did not leave me nor forsake me. He heard me. He hears me.

Don’t talk to the dead who cannot help us as they await the resurrection. Talk to the God who hears!