Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Christians Cannot Agree To Silence

The men and women who comprise the great secular exchanges of knowledge often scowl at those who put forward the notions of universal truth. The exchange hums about on the premise that all ideas contain the same amount of truth or (if you will, error). Though an idea could be labeled useful by society, its true value remains nothing more than the cultural valuation of a shifting time. Today’s truth maybe tomorrows error. A world without truth, must becomes a world without judgement. No philosopher, teacher, or child has to condemn another person’s perspective for all ideas arise from the same sponginess of nothing.

The elites who manage the marketplace of knowledge often require Christians to abandon their claims of universal truth at home prior to entering the debate. After all most of the secular world abided by a no solicitation policy. Though the world requires Christians to affirm that Christianity is just one of the many members on the COEXISTS bumper sticker striving for greater meaning, Christians cannot agree to abandon their universal claims. They must speak up.

Jesus the Tribal Deity

In some ways, the God of the Bible does resemble a tribal deity concerned about the wellbeing of a small subset of the world’s population. In Genesis, Exodus, and the prophetic books, God repeatedly promised “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people (Jer. 31:1).” In the New Testament, God extends his promises to include the church comprised of men and women who trusted in the work of the revealed Messiah, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:25b-27 declares,  “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” At first glance, The biblical God appears to love his people in much the same way Zeus loved Greece.

Jesus the Ruler of the Universe

But the God of the Bible claims to be more. The first sentence in the Bible proclaims, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The whole world is God’s world. Colossians 1:16 strengths the ideas of Genesis, reporting,

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  

Colossians 1:16

Why does God prioritize the nation of Israel and then the church?

Jesus invests in the Jewish and then the Christian tribe for the express purpose of seeing the whole world come to Christ. When Adam and Eve sinned and found themselves exiled from the Garden, the marketplace of ideas became corrupt. Instead of spreading the peace and love of God throughout the world, the children of Adam and Eve spread hate and evil. Wherever the human race went, death followed.  

God established the nation of Israel and then the church to combat the virus of sin through the spread of truth. God declared that the nation of Israel was to be a “light for the nations (Is. 42:6).” After Jesus’s death and resurrection, the Church picks up the mantle of kingdom expression. Mathew 28:19-20 defines the mission of the church as follows,

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:19-20

God created a tribe, and then a church to reestablish his kingdom, overcoming “evil with good (Rom. 12:21).” God promises that this campaign will succeed. Micah 4:1-2 concludes,

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

The Christian cannot be content to keep his or her faith within the confines of their homes because they God of the Bible lays claim not just to the Christians home or to the Christians neighborhood but to the world. Jesus proclaims:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Acts 1:8

The Christian must speak of his or her God in the marketplace of ideas for his or her God is not a tribal deity but the God of the universe. The famed scholar Abraham Kuyper correctly, noted the Christian Religion, “concerns the whole of our human race.” Friends, we cannot agree silence. We must share the whole Jesus with the whole world.

Are you speaking?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Stash Your Problems On The Gospel Shelf

When life falls apart, Christians often close their Bibles and turn to anyone and everything else for help. Afterall, the gospel seems to know little of Instagram bullies, chronically depressed spouses, and teenagers overdosing on opioids. The gospel bookshelf deals well with the issues of life, rebirth and death. But the Jesus shelf appears to weak and awkwardly shaped to hold the massive and never-ending series of short and long stories entitled “My Issues.” To make it through life, we stick these books onto the self-help bookshelf, or display them on the social media bookshelf, or jam them into the therapeutic bookshelf. In so doing, we miss out on some of the best aspects of our salvation and sanctification. Those books that contain our sorrows, sins, and trials belong on the gospel shelf. It is strong enough to hold them all. More importantly, it is the only place that can make sense of our pain, sorrows, and struggles.

Micah and the Hope of the Gospel

In Micah 5:1-6, the Old Testament prophet and his audience faced an existential crisis. The Assyrian army stood outside their gates intent on Judah’s death. All political options had been exhausted. The bribes for peace had been paid. The God’s Holy temple and the palace of the Davidic king had been stripped of their gold. The nation had been humiliated And still, the Assyrian army came, seeking more plunder

Seeing their panic and fear, the prophet Micah could have counseled the nation to adapt a new form of taxation, to have developed new geopolitical alliances, or to have reinvested into their national defense. The prophet did none of those things. He pointed his people to Bethlehem Ephrathah.

We do not have to impress God to gain salvation. Jesus did not come from Jerusalem. He come from Bethlehem. He came from nowhere to save nobodies.

Micah focused on the city of David because it represented the King who had arisen out of obscurity to defeat Goliath and to establish the kingdom of Israel. It was a story of redemption and salvation that pointed to the great salvation would be accomplished by the Messiah who would also come from the tiny, humble town of Bethlehem.

Jesus’s origin story reveals that he knew we were weak. He does not find our sins, failures, and weakness offputting. He knew we would face armies of adversity that we could not conquer. He came because he knew we needed help, his help. We do not have to impress God to gain salvation. Jesus did not come from Jerusalem, the land of the kings and the powerful. He come from Bethlehem. He came from nowhere to save nobodies.

Jesus arrived tiny and lowly in Bethlehem intent upon ransoming captive Israel. Times of sorrow wrapped in falleness drop into our lives. Back pains strike us unexpectedly and neighbors persecute us for our faith. The Egyptians enslaved Israel. The nation of Judah would go into exile. But the our fall is never the end of our story for we are tied to the gospel story, the story of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. According to the gospel, the birth pains of sorrow that we experience in this world always point to our salvation: redemption and new creation.

The Hope of the Gospel

We hope and trust that God will work in our lives today, because he has saved us. He has redeemed us, the children of Adam and Eve, from the exile of our grandparents. Like them, we too had rebelled against God. And yet, Jesus still came and brought us back as brothers and sisters (Micah 5:3). Jesus lived, died, and rose again to transform rebels like us into sons and daughters of the king when we repent and believe. But that is not all.

Christ does not save men and women and then leave them to figure out what to do next. God guides his children to eternity. He walks with us as we struggle with temptation, failures, and disappointments, reminding us of God’s glorious promises. He protects us from false teachers, evil friends, and fools who seek to ravage our souls. And he empowers us to victory over sins and death. Theologian David F. Wells helpful captures the transforming hope of the gospel when he writes:

Hope…has to do, biblical speaking, with the knowledge that “the age to come” is already penetrating “this age,” that sin , death, and meaninglessness of the one is being transformed by the righteousness, life, and meaning of the other, that what has emptied out life, what has scarred and blackened it, is being displaced by what is rejuvenating and transforming it…hope is hope because it knows it has become part of a realm, a kingdom, which endures, where evil is doomed and will be banished.

Above All Earthly Powers

When we make the gospel our hope, we discover that our problems are not the measure of the power of God’s promises. Jesus is the guarantee of success. Micah proclaims, “He shall deliver us from the Assyrian (5:6).” God is at work. Friends do not despair of today’s problems, assuming you will be defined by brokennes. Place them into the gospel. Redemption, the return from exile, the new creation, is coming! The cosmic story of redemption will transform our lives. Don’t hide your problems from the gospel. Stick them right in the middle of it.

Do you trust the gospel with your problems?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Bedtime: A Window into the Soul

The human heart often seems to hide in a cloud of ambiguity. Jeremiah 17:9 famously declares that the heart “is deceitful above all things and desperate sick.” It appears to be beyond human comprehension, and yet Christians must still try to understand it. Proverbs 4:23 reminds believers to

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

The heart determines the destination of your soul. As your heart goes, you go.

The complexities of the heart can only be untangled with divine help. One of those divine helps are our bedtime thoughts. The Psalmist reports that the sinner “plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil (Ps 36:4).” Those with sick hearts spend their night dreaming of revenge, theft, and murder (Ps 104:21-22). The have to toss and turn all night because they do not trust the ruler of heaven and earth. The Reformer and pastor, John Calvin, noted,

So long as we fail to acknowledge the One who sustains us, we will always fear that the earth will fail us.

On the other hand, those who trust the Lord smile for joy as they break into their REM sleep cycle for they know that God loves them and has redeemed them (Ps. 149:1-6). Instead of trying to root out all the ‘inadequacies,” in their life through cunning schemes, they entrust themselves to loving, kind, and merciful hands of God’s providence. As the eyes the faithful close for the night, the enter “into peace; they rest in their beds (Is 57:2).” Nighttime thoughts reveal the health of the Christian’s soul. The healthy soul sleeps in peace.


Night time thoughts not only reveal the heart, they also predict the future. The dreams of yesterday inform the actions of today (Micah 2:1). The mind that spends the night plotting revenge against an old boyfriend, a disagreeable boss, or an unkind church member will produce slanderous phone calls, Facebook rants, and slashed tires. Conversely, the heart that spends the night reflecting on the salvation of the Lord gives birth to charitable donations, notes of encouragement, and focused work. The meditations of the night turn the believers life either to harm or good.


The ancient world understood this reality. The night watchmen of old used to cite Scriptures and prayers when crying the time. One old northern England chant proclaimed:

Ho, watchman, ho!
Twelve is the clock!
God keep our town
From fire and brand
And hostile hand,
Twelve is the clock!”

When Christians stop trusting the Lord, evil enters in. Even in the middle of the night, the believers should keep their hearts with vigilance, remembering the God who saved them.


To determine state if their heart, Christians do not have to run a million experiments. They need to examine this divine control group, their bedtime thoughts.

Thoughts filled with bitterness, anger, and vengeance reveal a fallen and desperately sick and in need of repentance. Pillow thoughts of brotherly love, salvific praise, and godly contentment reveal a heart resting in the arms of the Lord.


How is your heart? What will you be thinking about tonight?