One person died and more than thirty others were injured after a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence this morning. The jet was headed to Singapore from London when it was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

Even though flying is statistically the safest form of travel, all of us who fly read stories like this and shudder, knowing the deceased person could have been us. It could one day be us. What is true of air travel is true of every other dimension of life on this fallen planet: we are not in control of our lives. To the contrary, we are “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

This fact amplifies yesterday’s focus on the urgency of living in the power of the Spirit so fully that the Spirit changes us and changes the culture through us. We have only today to live for God in the power of God. Eternity beckons for us all.

A story making headlines today illustrates our theme powerfully and poignantly.

Why Dennis Quaid’s new movie grieves me

A few months ago, Dennis Quaid told People magazine that he returned to his Christian roots some years ago in the midst of an addiction battle. He even recorded an album titled Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners.

As a result, I was grieved when I learned that he is starring in a new horror movie in which, according to one reviewer, his costar is in “several scenes featuring full nudity.” (I won’t name the actress or the film or link to its content or reviews.)

When Christians act in ways that violate Christian beliefs, our secularized society is confused and misled even further. Then I looked more closely at Quaid’s interview with People. He tells us that amid his addiction struggle, he began rereading the Bible, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur’an, and other religious texts.

According to Quaid, “All of us have a relationship with God, whether you’re a Christian or not.” He says we’re all looking for “the joy in life, which is our gift, actually, the relationship with God that we all have.”

My purpose is not to disparage Dennis Quaid, but to respond to two related issues this story raises, both of which are pervasive among evangelicals and vitally relevant to our cultural influence (or lack thereof).

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

“Faith” is not an objective reality. We don’t “have faith”—we have faith in something or someone.

And the object of our faith is the crucial determiner for our faith’s validity and agency.

You can have faith that you are on the right road home, but if you’re not, your faith won’t get you to your destination. You can have faith that you’re taking the right medication, but if you’re not, your faith can make you sick or worse.

Our “post-truth” culture’s dogmatic (and contradictory) insistence on tolerance leads many to applaud the idea that “all of us have a relationship with God, whether you’re a Christian or not.” But Jesus disagreed, stating of himself: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

His first followers said of him, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, my emphasis).

Our lost culture also separates Sunday from Monday, the spiritual from the secular, and religion from the “real world.” It is therefore unsurprising that professing Christians can be involved in “secular” activities that contradict their “spiritual” beliefs.

For example, Scripture forbids public nudity, teaching that “women should adorn themselves in respectable attire, with modesty and self-control” (1 Timothy 2:9; cf. Matthew 5:28). But the pervasiveness of pornography and adultery among self-professing Christian men is just one tragic example of the way so many separate their Sunday religion from their Monday lives.

“The world will be amazed and astonished”

We cannot do the same thing and expect different results. As New York Times columnist David Brooks noted, “We’re not going to solve our problems at the same level of consciousness on which we created them.”

Brooks cites the work of Black theologian Howard Thurman, a contemporary of Martin Luther King Sr. who had a strong influence on the activism of his son, Martin Luther King Jr. According to Brooks, “Thurman reminds us that when networks of relationships in a society are broken and unjust, national transformation must flow from a tide of personal transformations.”

Such holistic transformation is truly possible only by the agency of the Holy Spirit. As Pentecost Sunday reminded us two days ago, the first Christians were “filled with the Holy Spirit” on the day of Pentecost and “began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). These were languages they did not know but could now use to share the gospel with people from fifteen different locales now gathered in Jerusalem for the holiday (vv. 8–11).

The people who heard them were understandably “amazed and astonished” at the miracle they witnessed (v. 7). Br. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston comments:

The wonder of Pentecost is not that people suddenly spoke in foreign languages. The wonder of Pentecost is that people suddenly spoke in the language of God, the language of compassion, unity, and understanding. And like those early disciples, the gift to speak the language of God is ours for the asking.

Then he adds:

“When we truly are people of the Spirit, we will be people of compassion, unity, and understanding, speaking the language of God, and the world will be amazed and astonished, once more.”

Whose “language” will you speak today?

Tuesday news to know:

• US national security adviser, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince meet to discuss “semi-final” security deal
• Container ship removed 8 weeks after Francis Scott Key Bridge crash in Baltimore
• Who is Mohammad Mokhber, Iran’s interim president?
• War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu
• On this day in 1881: American Red Cross founded

Quote for the day:

“To be a witness means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” —Madeleine L’Engle

Denison Forum

I planned to write today’s Daily Article about golfer Scottie Scheffler’s response to his early-morning arrest last Friday and the global coverage that has ensued. Then word came this morning that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash Sunday in northwestern Iran. A hard-line protégé of the country’s supreme leader, his death is likely to set off what the Atlantic is calling “a fierce scramble for power” in the Islamic nation.

The two stories offer the same reminder in starkly disparate ways: the time to prepare for the inevitable crises of life is before they happen.

Dwight Moody noted that “character is what you are in the dark.” However, our character is revealed to a skeptical world when the bright light of adversity shines on us. And none of us knows when that moment is coming.

To be the people we most want to be, there is a choice we can make right now. Its consequences will shape this world today and echo in the next world forever.

“That’s what I admire the most”

As everyone who follows the news knows, the world’s No. 1 golfer was arrested Friday morning. A man had been struck and killed by a shuttle bus earlier that morning; Scheffler tried to drive around the crash scene when he was arrested by an officer and taken to jail.

Golf Digest has an in-depth account of what happened and what happens next; most observers seem to think this was a misunderstanding. According to the Wall Street Journal, other golfers at the scene “described a rare level of pandemonium.” One said of Scheffler’s arrest, “That could have been any one of us.”

After he was booked and released, Scheffler stated, “There was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions.” He added: “All of us involved in the tournament express our deepest sympathies to the family of the man who passed away in the earlier accident this morning. It truly puts everything in perspective.”

Amid all the controversy, Scheffler finished the tournament tied for eighth at 13-under. But my point was made by a commentator I heard respond to the story over the weekend: “Of all the things Scheffler could have said, you know what he didn’t say? He didn’t tell the officer, ‘Do you know who I am?’ He’s the world’s No. 1 golfer, but he didn’t try to use his status. That’s what I admire the most.”

“The physical organism through which Christ acts”

We cannot ask others to be what we are not or lead them further than we are willing to go. A dentist with bad teeth is unlikely to have a thriving practice. A lawyer in constant legal trouble will have few clients but himself.

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

This is especially true for Christians, since as C. S. Lewis noted, we claim that “Christ is actually operating through [us]; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are his fingers and muscles, the cells of his body.”

As a result, seeking to be godly is our first step in persuading anyone else to be godly.

After Scottie Scheffler won his second Masters championship last month, he told interviewers: “I believe in Jesus. Ultimately, I think that’s what defines me the most.” He added, “I’ve been called to come out here, do my best to compete, and glorify God.”

It’s one thing to honor the Lord when you win golf’s most prestigious tournament. It’s another to act with humility when you are arrested and thrust into the glare of the global media.

“The splendor that irradiates our understanding”

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, commemorating the day when early Christians were “filled with the Spirit” and launched the mightiest spiritual movement the world has ever seen (Acts 2).

St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315–c. 367) was a champion of orthodoxy and one of the most brilliant theologians in Christian history. In his treatise On the Trinity, he wrote:

We receive the Spirit of truth so that we can know the things of God. In order to grasp this, consider how useless the faculties of the human body would become if they were denied their exercise. Our eyes cannot fulfill their task without light, either natural or artificial; our ears cannot react without sound vibrations, and in the absence of any odor our nostrils are ignorant of their function. . . . It is the same with the human soul. Unless it absorbs the gift of the Spirit through faith, the mind has the ability to know God but lacks the light necessary for that knowledge.

This unique gift which is in Christ is offered in its fullness to everyone. It is everywhere available, but it is given to each man in proportion to his readiness to receive it. Its presence is the fuller, the greater a man’s desire to be worthy of it. This gift will remain with us until the end of the world and will be our comfort in the time of waiting. By the favors it bestows, it is the pledge of our hope for the future, the light of our minds, and the splendor that irradiates our understanding.

St. Hilary was right: we experience the power of the Spirit to the degree that we wish to experience it. That decision is best made at the start of each day, seeking to be “filled” and controlled by the Spirit as we yield our lives to him (Ephesians 5:18).

Scottie Scheffler had no idea when last Friday began that he would soon find himself in a jail cell. You and I have no idea how this Monday will unfold. Consequently, the moment to submit to the Spirit and seek his empowering direction and holiness is now. The time to prepare for the crisis—or the opportunity—is before it comes.

The question I’ve written this article to ask

Billy Graham wrote: “The Holy Spirit is God himself, as he comes to live within us.” He noted that the Spirit “comes to convict us of our sin,” he “gives us new life” as we trust in Christ, and he “produces fruit in our lives” as we reflect his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Dr. Graham added, “This fruit comes as we yield ourselves to the Spirit.”

Then he closed with the question I’ve written this article to ask:

“How yielded is your life today?”

NOTE: In a culture where ideologies on sexuality conflict with Scripture, our latest book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, offers the clarity you need. Addressing issues like homosexuality, transgenderism, and nonbinary identities with biblical truth and compassion, this book equips believers like you to guide the next generation with truth. Support Denison Forum by May 31, and receive this essential guide for navigating modern sexuality with our thanks.

Monday news to know:

• Iran’s Supreme Leader approves Mokhber as interim president, declares 5 days of mourning
• US and Europe move closer to using Russian assets to help Ukraine
• What it’s like being Jewish at Harvard
• The lunch rush is dead as Americans live for the weekend
• On this day in 1506: Christopher Columbus dies

Quote for the day:

“When we have the Holy Spirit we have all that is needed to be all that God desires us to be.” —A. W. Tozer

Denison Forum