TO BE HEALTHY OR TO BE HARDCORE?
The Gospels give us precious records and glimpses into the thirty-plus years “God With Us” dwelt amongst us.[1] The conversations, priorities, teachings, and reactions demonstrated by Jesus impressed His communities, offended His critics, and shaped His disciples. Wisdom compels us to meditate on these accounts and let them marinate our souls and infuse our conversations and table fellowship. But reading through these Gospels can sometimes give us something like emotional whiplash; consider the beauty of John’s Gospel, anchored as it is in so many “I AM” statements introduced following the author’s cracker of an opening paralleling Genesis one. It is also peppered with no few arguments and confrontations between Jesus and Jerusalem’s religious leadership. Or, alternatively, ponder the comfort of Matthew 11 and the jagged condemnation just a few pages later in Matthew 16:
At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”[2]
Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.[3]
Imagine for those living in the first century, reliant on either firsthand experience or eyewitness accounts. Mercifully, the internet and social media did not exist then. But if you’d only heard the Matthew 11 quote, you’d be under one impression. If you’d only heard Matthew 16, you’d probably think this Jesus guy folks are talking about is a bit rude and disrespectful. But having now the luxury of retrospect and the total text in hand, we are beckoned into the rest of His sovereign shepherding over our lives, and held responsible for watching the skies and responding accordingly.
Both matter. But how are both of these concepts and commands brought under the banner of obedience?
Forgive me for an oversimplification, but I’m using these passages as examples of two ideas and pursuits: the “healthy,” and the “hardcore.” Emotional health calibrated to the leadership of the “Shepherd of our souls”[4] and the zealous dedication to navigating the “signs of the times” preceding His return. Again, both matter, but I wonder if we struggle a bit with the balance. For our purposes here, I’ve observed a pattern of three paths in some Christian culture:
(1) We lean a little too heavy into the “Jesus-is-here-to-make-my-life-nice” idea
(2) We idolize the folks who seem to do the “hardcore” stuff & feel a pressure to do the same
(3) We get overwhelmed, check out, but still attend Sunday morning services and rely entirely on our pastor, generally assumed to be the most “hardcore” guy in the room
I’m reminded of the apostle John’s greeting to Gaius:
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.[5]
I don’t know who Gaius is, but as the letter expounds, we hear of a faithful, servant-hearted guy. He “walks in truth.”[6] He serves those in his local fellowship and strangers.[7] He was to some degree mentored by the guy who was nearly boiled alive, exiled to Patmos, and received the “apocalypse of Jesus Christ” in a vision—decades after being a member of Jesus’ innermost leadership development and friendship circle.[8] It’s safe to say both Gaius and John were “hardcore.” They went all-in on obeying Jesus.
But they were also healthy. It is their emotional and spiritual maturity—which Pete Scazzero has long theorized go hand-in-hand[9]—that compelled them to serve others and gave them the fortitude to endure both suffering and stress. I’d even argue it is their commitment to obeying Jesus that fashioned their health as men, let alone as leaders, to begin with. James also seemed to believe mature bondservants can become so undaunted by suffering that we can be empowered to freely serve others in their own trials. [10] The Ten Commandments, for example, are famously split into four commands related to a healthy relationship with God, and six commands related to healthy relationships with other people. Paul himself reflected that all the “do”s and “don’t”s of Scripture essentially boil down to loving God and loving your neighbor, which is exactly how Jesus distilled it when asked.[11] The Sermon on the Mount, furthermore, does not say “Blessed are those who fly away as missionaries and live amongst hostile people” or even “Blessed are those who sleeplessly run soup kitchens to feed the hungry.” It says “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit,” those who “mourn,” the “meek,” those with an appetite craving righteousness, the “merciful,” the “pure in heart,” the “peacemakers,” and those who suffer for sake of righteousness.[12]
Blessing, it seems, is an equal opportunity employer. Life in this “present evil age”[13] is difficult. And God is willing and eager to walk us through it.[14] Thus as Jesus expounds in this Sermon on the Mount, He advises us in real-life issues: anger management, financial integrity, conflict resolution, confrontation and accountability, purity, marital fidelity, charity and humanitarian aid, honesty and authenticity, cultivating a prayer life, meekness, and living without anxiety.[15] Solomon’s proverbs often address the same. This advice guides us to be conformed into the image of the One who rescues us from the deteriorating death of sin; “therefore [we] shall be perfect, just as [our] Father in heaven is perfect.”[16]
Notice how the famous sermon preached on a mountain in the Galilee is focused: it is not on “how to win friends and influence people,” not on how to build a bigger following, not on how to live fearlessly or go get yourself martyred somewhere. The Sermon on the Mount is itself an equal opportunity employer, accessible to everyone everywhere because the baseline of all obedience to Jesus is an interior life calibrated to the ethics of our Maker—which is to say, a calibration to a healthy soul. It is His desire that we be healthy. Disobedience to the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount can lurk in your interior life, but it will always expose itself—even as people applaud and esteem you. An unhealthy soul will leak out of your body like sweat through your pores. And other people will smell it, or begin to smell like you themselves.
As John’s brief letter to Gaius continues, he sheds light on what it looks like when we pursue the “hardcore” without the health. It is a brief glimpse into a very serious issue regarding a leader named Diotrephes, a man “who loves to have the preeminence among them,” who has achieved enough notoriety and prominence in the burgeoning Christian community to even warrant being named, but lacks the character and fruit John just praised Gaius for.[17] As we have well seen in our own day over the last few years, many have become “leaders” and teachers serving admirable “hardcore” ministry endeavors before being exposed as frauds, charlatans, and wolves. Remember that teaching is, itself, an irrevocable gift and as such something of a shortcut cheat code to prominence and leadership.[18] It is possible to seem like a “hardcore,” all-in, committed Jesus-follower without actually becoming the healthy individual that obedience to Jesus slowly but surely cultivates. That lack of health will expose itself one way or another.
We live in tumultuous days, to be sure. I’d even venture to guess we may be living through some aggressive birth pangs. We should watch the skies and respond accordingly. But doing so under our own jurisdiction is reckless. Doing so under Jesus’ jurisdiction is healthy. Our interior lives are the baseline, and they are the subject of scrutiny on Judgment Day—not whether or not we amassed followers and influenced people and did some kind of subjectively big thing.[19] At the end of the day, if you care about reading and registering the signs of the times (and you should; we are advised to),[20] the most important thing you must prioritize is the health of your own soul. Our “meek and lowly” King does. Caring about the things He cares about necessarily means we care for ourselves as well, and cast our interior lives before Him to shape and mold, calibrate and conform. All the other stuff we’ll do afterwards is secondary.
Maranatha.
Discussion & Devotional Questions:
1. Do I believe Jesus wants me to be healthy?
2. In prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to show you area(s) He wants to heal and/or mature you in. Share these insights with your spouse/trusted friends and discuss how you can pursue this, and how they can support you in this pursuit.
3. How can this conversation influence how you will “bear witness with a burning heart”?
[1] See Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23
[2] Matthew 11:25-30, NKJV
[3] Matthew 16:1-4, NKJV
[4] 1 Peter 2:25
[5] 3 John 1:2, NKJV
[6] 3 John 1:3-4
[7] 3 John 1:5-8
[8] See 3 John 1:1, 4; Revelation 1:1. What is translated as “The Revelation” in Rev. 1:1 is apokalypsis, or “apocalypse” (Strong’s G602). Tertullian recounted, as though then widely-known, that John the apostle survived execution attempts, including via immersion in boiling oil, before being sentenced to exile after he survived the execution attempts.
[9] Scazzero, P. (2017). Emotionally healthy spirituality: It’s impossible to be spiritually mature, while remaining emotionally immature. Zondervan.
[10] Consider James 1:2-4 and 1:27
[11] Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 22:36-40
[12] Matthew 5:1-11
[13] Galatians 1:4
[14] Psalm 25:8-11
[15] See Matthew chapters 5-7
[16] See Romans 8:29; Matthew 5:48
[17] 3 John 3:9-11, NKJV
[18] See Ephesians 4:11; Romans 11:29
[19] See Matthew 7:21-27
[20] Jesus’ admonition to the Pharisees in Matthew 16 and extensive exposition of events to answer the apostles’ question about the “signs of the times” in Matthew 24, not to mention the extensive literature given through the prophets, is more than enough encouragement for us to become familiar with the issues.
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is the founder and creative director of The Emmaus Table. She lives in the Golan Heights and hosts the TABLE TALKS podcast. Browse her free music, films, and books in THE EMMAUS TABLE App and at stephaniequick.org.