What ship is longer than the Eiffel Tower’s height and, when loaded, weighs more than twenty-two Eiffel Towers? 

A week ago, most of us would have had no idea. Today, you likely know the answer: the Ever Given, the massive vessel that ran aground in the Suez Canal last Tuesday.

In the days since, according to the Wall Street Journal, over three hundred and sixty vessels waited to pass through the canal. Since 13 percent of all maritime trade and 10 percent of seaborne oil shipments transit through the canal, this has been a global problem. Yesterday, salvage teams were finally able to free and refloat the megaship, allowing traffic to resume. 

As they worked over the last week, if you had been standing on the banks of the canal, you would probably have felt impotent in your own strength to solve such a massive problem. 

That’s the way many of us feel about the culture we are called to engage with the gospel today. 

Satan-themed sneakers and rising censorship 

The rapper Lil Nas X has been making headlines with his Satan-themed sneakers. Christian cakemaker Jack Philipps is back in court, this time facing a lawsuit from a transgender lawyer who requested a gender-transition cake. 

Meanwhile, an article in the Wall Street Journal reports that religious groups and figures have been silenced by tech companies at the rate of about one a week. The writer states: “It seems likely that religious groups and individuals will face mounting threats from tech companies. Their views on marriage, sexuality, life and other moral issues are unpopular among the Silicon Valley set.” 

However, he concludes: “Religious groups should refuse to silence themselves, change their views, or otherwise back down. Censorship is a symptom of a national collapse in civic culture. Curing the deeper disease will take all the courage and conviction we can muster.” 

Where do we find such “courage and conviction”? 

“When they heard it, they marveled” 

Today is Tuesday of Holy Week. On this day, Jesus faced his critics in a daylong series of debates (cf. Matthew 21–23). Perhaps their most famous exchange came when his opponents asked our Lord, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Matthew 22:17). This was a very hot cultural button in the day. 

The taxes to which they referred were the poll-tax or “census” tax paid by all males over the age of fourteen and all females over the age of twelve. It was paid directly to the Roman emperor. And it required the use of a coin which was despised by the Jewish people. 

This was the “denarius,” a silver coin minted by the emperor himself. It was the only Roman coin that claimed divine status for the Caesar. One side pictured the head of Emperor Tiberius with the Latin inscription, “Tiberius Caesar son of the divine Augustus.” The other side pictured Pax, the Roman goddess of peace, with the Latin inscription “high priest.” 

This coin was idolatrous in the extreme. The tax it paid led to a Jewish revolt in AD 6 that established the Zealot movement. This movement eventually resulted in the destruction of the temple and the Jewish nation in AD 70. In Jesus’ day, the Zealots were growing in power and influence. 

As a result, Jesus’ critics were challenging him to take a position on the most inflammatory issue of the time. If he said it was right to pay this tax, the Jewish public would turn from him and his movement would end. If he said it was wrong to pay the tax, he would be considered a traitor to Rome and the authorities would arrest and execute him. Either way, the hands of his enemies would be clean and yet they would be rid of their enemy. Or so they thought. 

You know Jesus’ timeless response. He asked for “the coin for the tax” (v. 19) and then asked, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” (v. 20). They said that it was Caesar’s. Jesus replied, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (v. 21). With this response: “When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away” (v. 22). 

Three lessons on Holy Tuesday  

How can this Holy Tuesday exchange guide us in responding to those who oppose our faith? Let’s consider three principles. 

One: Engage our critics. 

In the face of such vociferous opposition, Jesus could have retreated to the safety of Galilee or deferred on this controversial subject. Instead, he spoke directly to the question at hand, refusing to keep the salt of God’s word in the saltshaker or his light under a basket (Matthew 5:13–16). Like him, we are called to respond to those who reject our Lord, knowing that the greater their opposition to the truth, the more they need the truth. For more, please see my newest video below, “Caring for a culture that rejects the gospel.”

Two: Use reason to defend revelation. 

Jesus was wiser than the wisest man who ever lived (Matthew 12:42). Now “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16) and are indwelt by the Spirit who “will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). By submitting to the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and loving God with our minds (Matthew 22:37) through excellent scholarship (cf. Luke 1:3) and continued study (cf. 2 Timothy 4:13), we can stay “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). I plan to say more on this subject tomorrow. 

Three: Stay faithful whatever the outcome. 

Jesus’ critics were defeated on this occasion, but they were undeterred. On Maundy Thursday, they arranged for Jesus’ arrest and illegal trial. On Good Friday, they incited the crowds to turn against him, leading to his torture and murder. 

But the writer Susan Coolidge was right: “Earth’s saddest day and gladdest day were just three days apart!” Because of Easter, Paul could testify, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). 

Can you say the same today?

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My wife’s parents lived in Arkansas for many years; we think it is a beautiful state. I have visited the campus of Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa only one time; we drove around and then left. And yet, I really wanted Max Abmas‘ last-second three-point shot to go in Saturday night, as that would have given ORU the win over Arkansas in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and sent them to the Elite Eight tonight. But it was not to be.

My sentiments had nothing to do with athletes on either team but with ORU’s commitment to biblical sexual morality and the enormous criticism the school is facing as a result. 

A USA Today writer went so far as to condemn the NCAA for even allowing the team to play in the tournament, complaining about ORU’s “deeply bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ policies” that “can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.” In her view, the school’s policies are “wildly out of line with modern society and the basic values of human decency.” 

Over the weekend, I saw an interview with the university’s president in which he was asked about such criticism. He made the point that ORU simply believes in biblical morality and always has. He added that the school considers such morality to be best for all its students, faculty, and alumni. 

In other words, ORU embraces biblical morality because such morality promotes “the basic values of human decency.” 

“This is a stunning 180” 

To their credit, USA Today later ran a response by Dr. Ed Stetzer, professor and dean at Wheaton College. He describes the “new moral dogma” of our day which “teaches that tolerance must mean agreement, then brands all who disagree as intolerant and harmful. Not satisfied that we respect opposing views on human sexuality, all must affirm homosexuality as acceptable within our own theology. There can no longer be any disagreement, only compliance.” 

He adds: “This is a stunning 180 from the arguments we heard in 2009 when LGBTQ+ advocates maintained, ‘All we want is the right to marry. How will my gay marriage hurt you?’ Now it’s: ‘We want your college accreditation, your athletic participation and more.’ 

“Considering how much those who expressed concern a decade ago were mocked for advancing slippery slope arguments, the rhetoric deployed against ORU . . . suggests these concerns were underemphasized.”

Here’s the irony: as Christianity Today reports, ORU’s “involvement in basketball is part of a much longer story of Christian engagement with the game.” The article notes that James Naismith invented basketball in 1891 at a Christian college: the YMCA International Training School. He described the task of a YMCA physical director: “to win men for the Master through the gym.” 

From then to now, many Christian colleges and universities have developed outstanding basketball programs. In fact, the article notes that ORU is just one of six Christian schools which advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in this year’s tournament. 

A familiar yet stunning story 

My purpose in writing on the ORU controversy is not to vilify those who condemn biblical morality today. Rather, it is to elevate Jesus’ response to his critics on this day in Holy Week as our model. 

The story is familiar yet stunning: “Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.”‘ And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (Matthew 21:12–14). 

I explained the background of this event in last year’s Holy Monday Daily Article and have noted that “at no point did [Jesus] endanger or harm humans” by his actions. For today, let’s focus on two interrelated imperatives our Lord displayed on this day twenty centuries ago. 

One: Be courageous.

Jesus had already told his disciples that in coming to Jerusalem he was coming to die (cf. Matthew 17:22–23). He knew his actions at the temple would provoke the very authorities who would later arrange his torture and execution. 

A skeptic could argue that his actions would not effect permanent change—the moneychangers could go back to their sinful ways after he returned to heaven. What difference would or could he make? 

But God assures us that his word “shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). The temple would soon be destroyed and its moneychangers dispersed, but we are still discussing Jesus’ courage twenty centuries later.  

Two: Be compassionate. 

Note that shortly after Jesus cleaned the temple, “the blind and the lame” came to him and “he healed them.” His courage paved the way for his compassion. 

What’s more, his courage was an act of compassion. He knew that rebuking the sin of the moneychangers was best for the moneychangers. The doctor who tells the patient he has cancer is delivering difficult but essential news. The attorney who convinces her guilty client to accept his guilt is serving her client. The first step in every Twelve Step program is for the addict to admit their addiction. 

ORU’s president was right: biblical morality is best for all people, LGBTQ individuals included. We are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) knowing that love requires speaking the truth and that speaking the truth is an act of love. 

“There are two ways of spreading light” 

Jesus proclaimed, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Novelist Edith Wharton noted that “there are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” 

Jesus is the candle. Will you be his mirror today?

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March Madness, otherwise known as the NCAA basketball playoffs, continues to dominate sports headlines. Meanwhile, another basketball story deserves our attention today.

Hansel Emmanuel plays for Life Christian Academy in Kissimmee, Florida. Over a recent weekend tournament, the sixteen-year-old averaged twenty-five points and eleven rebounds per game. He can dunk and otherwise dominate a game. 

He also has only one arm, having lost his left arm when a wall accidentally fell on him at the age of six. 

Fireball meteor creates a sonic boom 

Living in a fallen world requires courage. For instance, a rare daytime fireball meteor created a massive sonic boom over the UK last weekend; it may have landed in the sea since there were no reports of a meteorite on land. But since several thousand fireball meteors burn through our atmosphere every day, one may be falling near you—or on you. 

In addition to acts of nature, acts of humans can be horrendous, as with the suspected gunman in the Boulder supermarket shooting who made his first court appearance yesterday. A lawyer told the court that the suspect has an unspecified mental illness; prosecutors vow to file more charges against him. The day before, several memorials were held for Officer Eric Talley, the hero who responded to the shooting on Monday and was killed. 

Acts in the present can lead to the need for courage in the future. For example, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed their historic peace agreement on this day in 1979, a commitment for which Mr. Sadat was assassinated three years later by Muslim extremists. 

Speaking of Egyptians, security forces in Cairo killed seven suspected militants this week. A police officer died and three others were wounded; the suspected terrorist cell was reportedly plotting attacks against the country’s Coptic Christians to coincide with their Easter celebration. 

Meanwhile, a Jewish high school baseball player is being profiled in the New York Times not only for his talent (he is a star pitcher and switch hitter) but for his dedication to the Shabbat (the Sabbath). He will not play games between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday, a commitment that may cost him in the future but one which he refuses to change. 

Evangelicals classified as “extremists” 

Courage is especially vital for those who follow Jesus in our post-Christian (some would say anti-Christian) culture.

A Marine Corps officer warned Congress this week against classifying Christians in the military as “religious extremists.” Mike Berry, who is also general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, noted that a US Army Reserve training presentation on religious extremism lists al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Ku Klux Klan as “groups that use or advocate violence to accomplish their objectives and are therefore rightly classified as extremists.”

However, Berry added that evangelical Christianity and Catholicism were also included in the presentation as “extremists.” He stated, “The Pentagon cannot possibly believe that because Evangelical Christians and Catholics hold fast to millennia-old views on marriage and human sexuality, they should be labeled as ‘extremists’ and deemed unfit to serve.”

And Jack Phillips is back in the news. The Colorado baker who won a partial victory at the Supreme Court three years ago for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple went on trial Monday in yet another lawsuit. This one involves a “birthday” cake for a transgender woman. 

“Antibodies to the virus of indifference” 

Courage has always been at the heart of Christian discipleship. 

When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would be the mother of God’s Son, she replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). She would risk her marriage, her future, and perhaps even her life to obey God’s call. And the world would forever be changed by her courageous service. (For more, please see the video I recorded yesterday: “How to have the power of God to fulfill the purpose of God,” embedded below.) 

Service often requires such courage, but it always makes a difference that transcends its cost. 

In Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, Pope Francis responds to the coronavirus pandemic by applauding healthcare workers who died fighting the disease: “They did not prefer saving their own lives to saving others’. So many of the nurses, doctors, and caregivers paid that price of love, as did priests and religious and ordinary people whose vocation is service. We return their love by grieving for them and honoring them. 

“Whether or not they were conscious of it, their choice testified to a belief: that it is better to live a shorter life serving others than a longer one resisting that call. That’s why, in many countries, people stood at their windows or on their doorsteps to applaud them in gratitude and awe. They are the saints next door who have awoken something important in our hearts, making credible once more what we desire to instill by our preaching. 

“They are the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves: not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service. 

“What a sign of contradiction to the individualism and self-obsession and lack of solidarity that so dominate our wealthier societies! Could these caregivers, sadly gone from us now, be showing us the way we must now rebuild?” 

When faith comes at a cost 

Are you paying a price to follow Jesus in our fallen world? If not, why not? 

We don’t need to encourage persecution, of course, but we should not be surprised when it comes. Jesus told us, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11). Notice that he said when, not if. 

When our faith comes at a cost, we can ask Jesus for the courage we need to be faithful. We can ask for the strength to love and pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44). We can ask for the compassion to forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). 

Scottish theologian and minister John Baillie prayed: “As I lean on his cross may I not refuse my own; but rather may I bear it by the strength of his.” 

Will you make his prayer yours today?

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