More Than a Symbol

28 July 2026

If you want to understand what the Bible teaches about baptism, the first thing is to notice that the Bible uses baptismal language in a bunch of ways that we wouldn’t. We’ll come back to that. The second thing is to get a thicker understanding of symbols. Baptism is a symbol, but modern people hear that statement and don’t really understand what it means. We are trained to think “symbol” is a floating signifier arbitrarily related to the thing it’s pointing to, in the same way that there’s no necessary correspondence between a sheet of green metal and a city. A roadside sign that says “I-70 W Denver” is just pointing the direction to Denver. If you pull off on the shoulder next to that sign and say “We’re here!” to the kids in the back, you have kinda missed the point.

Thus far the modern grasp of symbols, which is accurate as far as it goes, but there’s more to it than that. The roadside sign at the municipal border that says “Denver Welcomes You” is related to the city in a different way. Both signs point to the same city, but the latter sign also means that you’ve arrived; it both indicates and accomplishes the welcome. At this point “We’re here!” is the right thing to say.

Similarly, placing a ring on my bride’s finger with the words “With this ring I thee wed” was a symbol that accomplished what it signified. Now, that ring had been on her finger before (to test the fit), and we did not suddenly become married right there at the jewelry counter. It required the proper context; we had to mean to be marrying. But in the proper context, the symbol both signified and accomplished a marriage, and responding with a loud snort and “It’s just a symbol!” would be…how shall I put it?…unwise.

Baptism is a symbol, but it also accomplishes a great deal of what it signifies. In the symbolic lexicon of the Bible, passing through water means a very particular thing: just as there is a “scarlet thread of redemption” that runs through the whole Bible, there is a blue thread of water and baptism that runs through the whole Bible, from the primordial waters over which the Spirit once brooded to the river of the water of life that flows from under the throne in the New Jerusalem. Being washed signifies priesthood; passing through water separates you from the wicked world and marks you as part of the new people of God. Christian baptism specifically follows Jesus’ example; in Jesus’ prototypical baptism, the water was applied, the Spirit descended and the Father spoke from heaven. At Cornelius’ home, Peter preached the blood of Jesus, the Father sent the Spirit…what was left but to apply the water? They did, at once, “and the three agree as one.” The fact that the water is administered by Christ’s visible representatives on earth means that there’s an earthly expression of the Body that is recognizing and accepting the baptized. Peter baptizing Cornelius not only signifies Cornelius’ full acceptance into the Body, it accomplished it: afterwards, Peter stayed and ate with them. (My essay “Washed” has all this in more detail and with biblical support.)

Our modern baptismal theology doesn’t exactly contradict any direct statement of Scripture, in the sense that we have a set of half-decent work-arounds for the passages that are a tough fit for our theology. However, it clearly remains the case that the New Testament readily uses baptismal language in ways a modern evangelical wouldn’t dare. That’s telling. When you find the Bible saying things you wouldn’t, one of you has wandered off the range, and I don’t think it’s the Holy Spirit! If we were writing Romans 6, we would feel a desperate need to clarify, hedge, pile up paragraphs of explanation about what baptism doesn’t do, and anyway it’s a metaphorical use here, etc. We can argue about the proper interpretation of the passage, but the one unassailable fact is that Paul, seeing no need for all the qualifications we would pile up, clearly does not see things the way we do.

Paul reminds them of the day they came to Christ, the day they were baptized. (Remember that the NT knows nothing of delaying baptism: converts are baptized immediately.) From the beginning, the act of baptism is communal; even Jesus didn’t baptize Himself. We are baptized by someone, into a Body, in the presence of the Father and under the ministry of the Spirit. We may get baptized by ones, but in baptism we are never alone. The Body put them in the water – that’s death; you can’t live down there – and brought them out again, initiated by resurrection into the Body and henceforth considered members. They come up out of the water and into something: fellowship with the believer that baptized them. On that day, Paul says, they were united with Christ in His death and resurrection, and therefore they should live like it. We should not be embarrassed to speak the same way. And we wouldn’t be, if we understood the this-worldly reality of fellowship in the Body.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Fig Tree Gospel

21 July 2026

Nathanael said to [Jesus], “How do You know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:48-49)

In John’s Gospel, life is first mentioned in 1:4, but the author doesn’t really unpack what he means by it until chapter 3. Meanwhile, John the Baptizer introduces Jesus as the one who “was before me” (1:15) and therefore as the Word (1:14), “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29), the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (1:33), the Son of God (1:34); Andrew introduces Him as the Messiah/Christ (1:41), as does Philip (1:45), and Nathaniel recognizes Him as Son of God and King of Israel (1:49) — which Jesus describes as Nathaniel believing (1:50). Following the first sign, the disciples believe in Him (2:11), and following His signs in Jerusalem, many “believed in His name” (2:23).

There’s no mention thus far of eternal life, but we have a small army of converts who believe in Him. Zane Hodges once pointed out that there’s a point where Peter clearly does believe that Jesus is the source of eternal life (Jn. 6:68) and clearly does not believe in the death, burial, and resurrection (Mt. 16:21-23), and yet we all think he’s saved nonetheless. Zane argued that established the primacy of the promise of life over Of course it would be much harder to make that same mistake today, but apply the same logic: all kinds of mistakes are still possible.

From one angle of view, searching for the right proposition, it would seem that they believed a splatter pattern of related things. From another perspective, they’re all focused on the same thing: Jesus. The propositions are there, sure, but you will ransack the Scriptures in vain trying to nail down The Saving Proposition with any kind of biblical authority, because it doesn’t exist. No passage of Scripture even poses the question, still less answers it. Different evangelistic encounters in Scripture employ different propositions. There’s one Person; many propositions that point out the Person in question. I could fairly say “The one who died for us and rose again” — that’s a totally reasonable answer, and the one Paul employs in 1 Cor. 15, but it doesn’t capture what Peter believed (Mt. 16:22), does it? We could say “The one who’s the Son of God” which captures what the man born blind believed in John 9, but the woman of Sychar in John 4 doesn’t seem to know anything of that. We could say “He’s the promised Messiah,” which is what she believed, but the man in John 9 doesn’t seem to be aware of it.

My claim is simple: what matters is that they’re all looking to the right Person, and what matters today is that we direct people to the right Person. The task is simple: start from where they are; point them to Jesus; share as much of Him as you can.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

A Grifter or a Mark

17 March 2026

One of the things about getting a little older is that patterns begin to emerge. They were always there, but the older I get, the harder it is to ignore them. One of them is the pattern of the a-little-too-wide-eyed take on Bible prophecy anytime a global crisis looms, or a war starts, or whatever. It’s the sort of thing where it’s easy to get drunk on your own passions.

There’s always a fresh supply of 20-somethings (and, embarrassingly, some older folks) who are just fit to burst with the way Things Are Lining Up Like Never Before. I remind them that people said the same thing in the 1980s…and they say things like, “Of course they did, but I’m sure we can all see things far more clearly lining up now than they did in the 80s.” Right, kid…but they said the same thing in the 80s, about the 1940s. And in the 40s, about the turn of the century. And at the turn of the century, too—although back then the postmillennial version was more popular, until WWI ruined everybody’s optimism.

“Sure,” they’ll say. “I’m not saying we should be dogmatic about it” while at the same time heavily implying that anybody who doesn’t think the rapture will happen within the year is just not taking things seriously. For my entire life, popular authors and conference speakers have been incredibly dogmatic about how we are “living in the last days.” (We are, too. Have been—if you’ll pardon a note of philistine biblicism—since the resurrection of Jesus, but that’s not what they mean, and we all know it).

Every generation of prophecy enthusiasts thinks they see something nobody’s ever seen before. And they’re right; every year’s a new year. But that doesn’t mean what they think it does. Every generation of prophecy enthusiasts thinks they invented not-quite-setting-the-date while managing to imply (nod, nod, wink, wink) that we’ll all be watching next year’s Super Bowl from the heavenly grandstands. Someday, somebody’s gonna be right about that, sho’ nuff.

But let’s be honest: this is like buying a Pick Six ticket. Can’t win if you don’t play, but how many times can you say “This is it! This is the one!” with total conviction? The answer to that question has a lot more to do with personality (and immaturity) than it has to do with the likelihood of winning, doesn’t it? Somebody will be right, sure enough; odds of it being you are not great. Live long enough, and unless you’re exceptionally credulous, at some point you grow sober-minded about it. There are a LOT more people saying “This is the one!” than there are winners—and the suckers are the ones so manically high on their own point of view that they can’t imagine they might be wrong.

In biblical prophecy, there have been plenty of people who pointed out all the things that were coming together and said “I’m not saying today’s the day—no man knows the day or the hour—I’m just saying that if you’re paying attention, things are coming together like never before, and I’d be very surprised if we’re all here in a year.” Or five, or thirty, whatever – pick your horizon. Or be cannier than that and never say a number while you imply to the youth group kids that they’d better win their friends to Christ now, because there’s no way they’re gonna graduate. To date, they’ve all been wrong; every last one of them.

And the sad part is, they’ve caused their hearers to become jaded and cynical about biblical prophecy, which is the real cost of the whole madness. Biblical prophecy is edifying and beautiful, and helps us to see our own times clearly even when our time is not the primary referent (as, say in Habakkuk’s case). The task before us is to read the text and the world, and be sober-minded about the whole thing.

Sober-minded people actually study the history, and learn that we thought Things Were Coming Together about the Ottoman Conquest, and the turn of the first millennium, and the Black Death and the Protestant Reformation and the Cold War and the turn of the second millennium—we didn’t learn our lesson the first time, apparently—and heaven knows what else. It’s not all bad; it’s good exercise to look around and think, “If it kicks off today, what might that look like?” (I know, if you’re postmillennial, you think it can’t happen today…but you could be wrong about that; somebody is.)

It’s good to feed your sanctified imagination on the thought that you might be wrong. If you’re the sort of premil that made Hal Lindsey and Tim Lahaye rich, consider what the world would look like if the postmil guys are right, and seven thousand years hence, seminary students will be struggling to remember whether Athanasius relied on C. S. Lewis’ thought, or the other way ’round, because all those early church fathers just run together in your head after a while. If you’re postmil, consider that if Jesus returns today, then the premil guys were right about a lot, and what might it look like for God to bring all things together in Christ in that way? (Do you think He can’t?) If you’re amil, maybe consider that even if you’ve read the mythic/symbolic dimensions of the text correctly from a literary point of view, what if God also realizes it all literally? Wouldn’t be the first time He’s ever done that—His Son did come up out of Egypt, after all.

Speaking of: go back and look at the prophecies of the first advent, especially the ones highlighted in the New Testament. Get a lesson in how to read prophecy from the ones that are already fulfilled. Reflect on the literalness, on the symbology, on God’s twisty way of doing exactly what He promised in a way nobody quite anticipated. Then think to yourself: “If I’d had a mastery of Old Testament messianic prophecy, how much of Jesus’ life could I have predicted before the fact?” Some things, like being born in Bethlehem, sure. But how much?

Right. So a little humility is in order.

As to the second advent, then: no man knows the day or the hour. Some morning, the sun will come up, and Jesus will return before suppertime. That day surely is coming. If in God’s good providence, it’s today, what might that look like? Imagining that is a good exercise; keeps you limber. But there’s a big difference between keeping limber and thinking that you’re seeing your interpretation of Revelation coming to pass in the headlines of the Washington Post. Those guys….

Lemme put it this way: in history, there are very few trends that hold even for a century, let alone across millennia. Death. Taxes. Prophecy wonks being wrong about the Second Coming. It’s that level of consistency. Those guys have been wrong, every single one of them, every single time, without fail, for two solid millennia. That takes skill. And they will continue to be wrong, until one day, finally, they aren’t.

Today really might be the day—be sober, be vigilant, and share the gospel—or ten thousand years from now, so be sober, be vigilant, and pay your bills on time. If it could be any day, then there’s nothing special about today except that it’s the day I happen to be living in, and the only one I can have an effect on. Faithfulness tomorrow is a dream; faithfulness yesterday (if there was any) is a memory; faithfulness today is what actually matters. A grasp of prophecy that encourages daily faithfulness is a great thing! Sensationalism and hucksterism and overblown nonsense of the type that’s never yet been right…that doesn’t build faithfulness.

Biblical prophecy is edifying and glorious when read soberly, but foolish and unstable people twist it to their own destruction, “as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” If you’re cynical and blase about Scripture, you’re doing it wrong; if you’re drunk on your own passions, you’re doing it wrong; if you’re whipping up people’s emotions about it to sell your book, you’re definitely doing it wrong, and Jesus would flip over your table at the booksellers’ convention.

Two guys can both say “It could be any day,” but one of them means it could be today or tomorrow, or a thousand years from now, and the other one means it could be today, or tomorrow, but there’s no way we’re still around in five years. The former is honest and sober-minded; the latter is a grifter—or a mark.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Why Me?

11 November 2025

Usually we associate “Why me?”with self-pity.

  • The car breaks down: “Why me?”
  • A pipe breaks and floods your bathroom: “Why me?”
  • You come down with a wicked head cold right before you have to give a big presentation at work: “Why me? Why now?”

The answer to those questions is always the same: “Why not you?” The incarnate Son of God was lied about, subjected to a sham trial, mocked, whipped, nailed to a tree and tortured to death, and you want your life to be easy? Get over yourself.

But there’s another time we think “Why me?”

  • God puts it into your heart to lead an initiative to feed the homeless in your city: “I don’t know…I mean, I’ve never done anything like that before…All these other people are so much more qualified.”
  • Your friend is sick, and it crosses your mind how great it would be to pray boldly for her healing: “I can’t do that. Besides, what if it doesn’t work?”
  • The best company you know is hiring for your dream job, and you hesitate to put in an application: “I’m sure there’s, like, a thousand people applying for the job, and why would they pick me anyway?”

Do you hear the “Why me?” behind all those questions?

The answer to both versions of “Why me?” is the same: Why not you? The incarnate Son of God did not let Himself be tortured to death so that your life would be easy. He did it so that you would grow holy and mature, fit for the good works that He planned for you to do. When God built you in your mother’s womb, He built you with a purpose, and He means to see it done.

The Son of God did not allow Himself to be tortured to death because He had nothing better to do that particular Friday. He took all your sin and weakness to the cross so it could die there. He rose from the grave so that you would know that no matter how bad the problem seems right now, there is resurrection on the other side of it. He is ready, right now, to walk with you into the life He intends you to live.

“Why me?” wants to avoid real difficulty, preferring a life of petty comforts and hollow victories over sham obstacles. “Why me?” will settle for a life of mediocrity and smallness.

But you were born for a place in God’s great purposes.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Strong Enough to Dance

9 September 2025

I recently read a rant that started off “Horses built for war don’t dance at weddings.” It then goes on for many paragraphs about how men who are seeking the truth aren’t cut out for bread and circuses, how the system wants you frivolous and weak. When the day everyone thought would never come finally arrives, the author promises, the war horses will be ready. I’d link to the rant so you could read it for yourself, but I’ve already forgotten the guy’s name. (Just as well, I think.)

This is a man who has seen the problem, but doesn’t understand the solution. King David danced. Israel danced on the banks of the Red Sea. Psalms 149 and 150 (which we are all commanded to sing) teach us to praise the Lord with dance. But it’s not just Scripture: at the right times, warriors in every human culture feast and dance and sing. I’ve trained alongside people from the Army, Marines, various SWAT teams, British SAS, road patrol deputies in the Kentucky backwoods where backup is 45 minutes away — they feast. They dance and sing — not always well, but they seem to enjoy it.

But this fellow is too busy being The War Horse to dance at a wedding. He’s too serious to take a lesson from Scripture or history or culture. Don’t be like him. God has called us to be sober-minded, but this is the opposite of sober-mindedness. This is Being Very Stern, and looking at yourself in the mirror while you do it. It will make you grim, ungodly, brittle, and weak. God doesn’t want you to just be strong enough to fight; He wants you strong enough to dance.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Cessationism 101

1 June 2025

If you’re new to this discussion, the claim under consideration is that certain of the spiritual gifts (generally known to their foes under the heading “sign gifts,” e.g., tongues, healing, prophecy, etc.) ceased early on in the history of the church, around the close of the first century. Generally people will identify the cessation of these gifts with the fall of Jerusalem, the death of the apostles, the closure of the canon, or some such. This belief is known as cessationism. The belief that all the biblically attested gifts have continued is known as continuationism. Continuationists don’t typically see “the sign gifts” as a biblical classification; the gift of teaching in operation is just as much a sign of the Spirit at work as the gift of prophecy. (“Charismatic” implies some additional cultural markers that are beyond the scope of this discussion. For our purposes today, just know that anybody who describes themselves as “charismatic” will be a continuationist, but not all continuationists would call themselves charismatic.)

We’ve discussed this issue here before (and here), but I don’t know that I’ve ever summarized the defects of cessationism all in one place. To be clear, this is not my affirmative case for continuationism; that’s another conversation. This is my rebuttal to cessationism; the claim I’m making here is that the biblical case for cessationism makes Swiss cheese look substantial. In order to make my case, I need to clearly articulate the arguments I’m rebutting. To that end, here are the core biblical arguments cessationists will make (if I missed one, put it in the comments!):

  1. The gift of tongues was a temporary sign for (unbelieving) Israel, and is no longer relevant for today. This line of argument points out the connection between 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 and Isaiah 28:11-12, and argues that once Jerusalem was destroyed, the purpose for the sign had ended, and so the gift ceased to be given.
  2. The sign gifts were part of the historically unrepeatable foundation of the Christian faith, and now that the foundation is laid, there’s no further need for them. This argument will cite Ephesians 2:20, Hebrews 2:3-4, 2 Corinthians 12:12 and similar passages that describe the work of the apostles and New Testament prophets as foundational for our faith, and connect the signs to the apostles.
  3. Biblical tongues were discernible languages, not what we know today as ecstatic glossolalia. Here they’ll argue that every biblical occurrence of the gift of tongues was a known language, and argue that the gift of tongues was the ability to speak a language unknown to the speaker (as in Acts 2). They’ll point out (correctly) that Corinth was a busy port city with a ton of languages drifting through it, and argue that 1 Corinthians 14 is addressing how to handle a multilingual church body and the spiritual gifts God gave them to cope with their situation. Modern tongues, by contrast, are ecstatic glossolalia, a learned babbling that has no linguistic content, and also has no New Testament precedent.
  4. 1 Corinthians 13 says that the sign gifts ceased with the closure of the canon of Scripture. The claim here is that 13:8 says that certain gifts will fail/cease/vanish (which it does), and that “the perfect” in 13:10 is the canon of Scripture, so now that we have God’s full revelation, the partial revelation embodied in the sign gifts no longer continues.
  5. Continuing revelation would mean that Scripture is still being added to today. The line of argument here is that if you think modern-day prophecy is really a word from God, shouldn’t you be writing this down? And wouldn’t that be adding an additional book to the New Testament?

Thus far the arguments for cessationism. How do they stand up on examination? Let’s take them in order:

1. “The gift of tongues was a temporary sign for (unbelieving) Israel, and is no longer relevant for today.”

in 1 Corinthians 14:21-22, Paul quotes Isaiah 28 in order to justify his claim that tongues are a sign to unbelievers. In the original context of Isaiah, the sign under discussion is for Israel specifically. We can see that sign play out, for example, in Acts 2, where where the Spirit is speaking through Gentile languages in the heart of Jerusalem. Getting from there to “tongues have ceased,” though, presents some problems. First, work through the logic: Holy Spirit-given Gentile tongues as a sign to unbelieving Jews doesn’t in itself mean the sign is no longer happening. Do we still got unbelieving Jews? Do we believe Israel has a future? Then how does it follow that the sign to them no longer has a purpose? 

Second, the fact that it’s a sign to Jews doesn’t mean it has no other purpose. Paul’s commentary doesn’t say that tongues are a sign to Jews only; he says they are a sign to unbelievers, and this in the context of the Gentile city of Corinth. Do we still got unbelievers? Well, tongues are a sign to them. That’s what this text tells us. Logically speaking, it could be the case that the sign ceased after the first century, but that’s something you bring to this text, not something you get from it. 

2. The sign gifts were part of the historically unrepeatable foundation of the Christian faith, and now that the foundation is laid, there’s no further need for them.

Ephesians 2:20 does indeed say that the apostles and prophets laid the foundation. It goes on to say that Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone of that foundation. We all believe that Christ both laid the foundation and has a continuing ministry. The two simply are not mutually exclusive; why should we believe that apostles and prophets have no continuing ministry just because they were part of laying the foundation? 

Certainly various miraculous signs were associated with the apostles; in 2 Cor. 12, for example, Paul calls the works he did “the signs of an apostle.” There are only two interpretive possibilities here: either he is, or he is not, referring to works done by other people (such as the works mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14). If he’s speaking of miracles only done by the apostles (and not to miraculous works done by others), well and good; that’s got nothing to do with what the rest of us do. If he does have in mind the sort of signs mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14, then we all agree that people other than the apostles did them. In that case, “signs of an apostle” means the kinds of things an apostle did, but doesn’t mean that only apostles did them. That being the case, there’s no obvious reason to believe that people today could not do the sort of thing an apostle did, even if you don’t believe in contemporary apostles.

3. Biblical tongues were discernible languages, not what we know today as ecstatic speech.

First of all, these two things are not mutually exclusive. Acts 2 tongues certainly are discernible languages, but that doesn’t mean it was not an ecstatic event – read the description. (About which more below.) Second, the context of 1 Corinthians 14:9 is precisely that the genuine gift of tongues is being used and people are not understanding the utterance; hence the exhortation! Paul is making the case that prophecy is superior, because it can be understood. For the public use of a tongue, he requires interpretation (14:5, 27-28) so that the rest of the Body might be built up. He also gives testimony that he has this gift “more than you all,” and that when he uses it, “my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” That certainly seems to leave the door open to ecstatic speech that he does not himself understand. (Other interpretations are possible, but I don’t think we can rule this one out.)

Tongues in Acts 2 are described as languages comprehensible by various people present, but whether this occasion would meet modern church criteria for “orderly” is very much in question. They spilled out into the street all talking at once. Some people thought they were drunk – how did that happen? The point is not to advocate for that kind of ruckus in every public meeting, but to point out that ruckus does not mean the gifts of the Spirit are not present.

In fact, the very occasion for Paul writing 1 Cor. 12-14 was that tongues were not being interpreted or used in an orderly manner; his (Holy Spirit-inspired) diagnosis is not “this is not real tongues,” but that the real gift is being abused. The abuse is real, is sin, and absolutely needs to be repented of and corrected. There are present-day churches that very much have the problems the passage describes. Paul offers a diagnosis; “this is not the real thing” ain’t it.

4. 1 Corinthians 13 says that the sign gifts ceased with the closure of the canon of Scripture.

Various theological and practical arguments get offered in support of cessationism – arguments from dispensational consistency and the like (which are beyond the scope of this post; we’re talking about biblical arguments here). But when we set all the theological constructions aside and just focus on what the text says – when I ask a cessationist “Okay, but where does the Bible actually say that these gifts are no longer in operation?” – this is invariably the passage they come to. At least among the cessationists I know, if they’re going to bring (what they think of as) a knock-down exegetical argument, this is it.

Which is really ironic, because the passage simply doesn’t say what it’s claimed to say. It certainly does say that prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, and [words of] knowledge will vanish away. The claim is that this happens with the completion of the canon of Scripture, but in fact Scripture is not mentioned anywhere in the passage. Rather, the point at which these gifts cease, according to the passage, is when our knowledge is complete rather than partial, when we are fully grown, when we see with complete clarity, and know as we are also known. Anybody think the Church has reached that point? Me neither. 

5. Continuing revelation would mean that Scripture is still being added to today.

This objection confuses prophecy with inscripturation. If we examine the biblical record, we see prophets who never wrote a word of Scripture, from the 100 prophets Obadiah saved, 50 to a cave (1 Kings 18:4), to Philip’s four virgin daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9). We see prophets who were already known to be prophets before they ever said the thing they’re known for in Scripture (1 Kings 20:35-43, 2 Kings 22;14-20, Acts 11:28, 21:10). We see instructions for regulating the exercise of prophecy in the local church (1 Corinthians 12-14) with not a word about writing anything down. If “shouldn’t we be writing this down?” was not a major concern to anybody at times when we all agree that prophecy was active, then it’s not obvious why it should suddenly become a concern to us now.

Rather, the biblical picture of prophecy is that the vast majority of it seems to have been timely words given to God’s people for their moment. Only a tiny fraction of it was ever recorded in Scripture; there’s no reason to expect that finishing the process of inscripturation would automatically end all prophetic revelation forever. Practically speaking, ongoing divine guidance speaks to our lives in ways Scripture can’t and wasn’t intended to: Scripture tells us to do good and to share, but the nudge to take time out to buy lunch for this particular homeless guy at this particular intersection and tell him God hasn’t forgotten him – you can’t get that from Scripture. Or the nudge to text that long-lost friend right now. Or a sudden impulse to deliver the groceries you just bought to a family you happen to know in the neighborhood. Or…but the daily life of Our People is full of such things. All the examples I just gave came from my experience (the first led to a friendship that seems to have gotten a homeless man of the street; the second to a comforting text that “just happened” to arrive in a moment of extreme grief; the third fed my family when we had no grocery money). I expect you can supply more examples of your own.

Conclusion

In summary, the biblical case for cessationism simply doesn’t stand up to close examination. The passages either don’t say what they are claimed to say, or there’s a huge leap in logic between what the passage says and the conclusion it’s supposed to justify.

That said, I recognize that my summary of the biblical arguments for cessationism is my summary. While a summary will never express every nuance or variation, it’s a position I used to hold, and I do understand the arguments. I hope I’ve summarized them fairly. How about it? If you’re a cessationist and you think I’ve left out a passage or mischaracterized an argument, add it in the comments! Let’s talk!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Drawn in the Wrong Place

15 April 2025

Framing eschatology as ‘optimistic’ or ‘pessimistic’ is deliberately tactical; it’s a postmil recruiting tool, and a really useful one, too! (At least for Americans; we are an optimistic people.) As an accurate descriptor of anybody’s Christian eschatology, ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ are lazy oversimplifications. We are surrounded by pagan eschatologies from Ragnarok to heat death; all Christian eschatologies are wildly optimistic.

When we’re talking about prophecy, I often recommend that we go back and look at prophecy that’s already been fulfilled in order to get our bearings. As a test case for the labels ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ within the biblical milieu, let’s consider the first advent. There’s a raft of prophecies that the coming Messiah would conquer and reign; this is what Peter, et al., expected Jesus was going to be about — an optimistic eschatology if ever there was one! There’s also prophecies that the coming Messiah would suffer and die. How pessimistic! But it turns out that both of those things are true, and it didn’t look how anybody expected.

Anyone who thinks that we win in the end, and knowledge of the glory of Yahweh covers the earth like water covers the sea — all those people are expecting victory, and have reason to live like it.

Of course, if you think that victory to be inaccessible now…I wonder. But that’s not a premil/postmil thing; it’s a “Is the Kingdom of God a present reality?” thing.

But that isn’t a package deal with your eschatology. I’m a convinced premil, because as far as I can tell that’s what the Bible says, and I know that the Kingdom is a present reality, because — wait for it — that’s what the Bible says. Jesus wasn’t embarrassed to talk about the Kingdom coming in the present; can’t think why I would be. If the Kingdom came when He cast out a demon, then it’s coming when we cast out a demon. It’s coming when an addiction gets broken. It’s coming every time we face a temptation and say no, and it’s coming every time God gives us an opportunity to serve and we say yes. We pray for it — “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” — and God is pleased to answer our prayers.

Premillennialism’s critics frequently characterize us as thinking that “we lose now, but we win in the end.” Unfortunately, there are actual premillennialists who really think that. But none of them — neither the shallow premil guys nor our critics — have thought about it deeply enough. If Jesus dying on the cross was losing, if Stephen being stoned was losing, then sure, premil means “we lose now.” What nonsense. God never wastes anything; every good deed done here lives forever, one way or another, and God is brilliant at victories that don’t seem like victories as the world reckons things. The final destruction of the world is one more such death, and it will be followed by one more such resurrection! It may be the case that every paper copy and recording of Handel’s Messiah is going to melt with a fervent heat, but do we seriously think we won’t have Handel’s Messiah — with a rousing polyrhythmic djembe section that’s not been written yet — in the Kingdom? And knowing that, is there any reason why we shouldn’t go ahead and write that bit today?

People who think the bright lines in eschatology are between amil, postmil, and premil are fundamentally mistaken about the discipline. It’s a common misconception bred by the fact that far too many of our theologians never get out of the classroom. Here’s what matters far more: When we wake up in the morning to a headline that tells us the kings of the earth have taken counsel against the Lord and His Anointed, what do we do? We know what God is doing — He’s laughing. Psalm 2 says so! He thinks it’s hilarious, mock-worthy. The question is whether we laugh with Him, or whether we go out in the yard and do our best Chicken Little imitation. THAT is the bright line in eschatology, and people who think it tracks with a-, post-, or pre-mil need to get out more. I’ve known postmil folk to fall apart at a headline, and my people here are overwhelmingly premil folk who join in the mockery.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Hacking Our Virtues

4 March 2025

“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues….The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.” – G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

For Christians interacting in the public sphere, it is often true that “the sons of this world are more shrewd…than the sons of light.” One common tactic Christian voters fall prey to is an appeal to hard cases. The enemies of the truth often don’t really need you to support wickedness; it’s enough that you’re silent about the common good. How do they achieve your silence? Easy. Given any proposal, find someone who will be adversely affected, and then make you feel uncharitable, unfair, and unchristian if you back the proposal. While you’re stymied into silence, a united block of opposition crushes the measure. In this way, Christians are repeatedly shamed into silence.

Simple response: Ask yourself, “Does this person share my values?” If the answer is no, then get really suspicious. If you’re letting someone who thinks it’s ok to dismember babies in utero appeal to your sense of fairness, for example, that calls for a closer look, don’t’cha think?

For example, take the current hullabaloo over the question of having to identify yourself in order to vote. In a country with our democratic system–only citizens can vote, and each person may vote only one time–voter identification seems like a very basic requirement. Yet political progressives have managed for decades to stymie multiple proposals to protect the integrity of the system by requiring voters to show a valid ID. It’s racist, you see. Or sexist. Or ableist. Or something.

In recent conversation with a friend, one of the common objections came up: “My mother is disabled and can’t really leave the house. Does that mean she shouldn’t be able to vote anymore?” This is exactly the kind of thing that trips Christians up. We want to be fair, and we want to value the disabled members of our community. So far too often, all it takes is a question like that, and we wilt.

Don’t wilt. Of course the disabled woman should still be able to vote! She’s disabled, and that means this is going to be harder for her than it will be for other people who don’t struggle in that way. It may take a major effort and some help. It may be that she really does need an absentee ballot (as various Americans abroad will also). That sucks! It’s not ok. But it’s not ok that the poor woman needs help to get to the toilet, either. Let’s stop pretending that this is some insurmountable barrier.

We live in such a convenience-addicted culture that we forget: inconvenience is just inconvenience. “Difficult” does not mean “impossible.” And the truth of the matter is, the inconvenience here is pretty minimal. We make you show a valid ID to buy beer, a pack of cigarettes, or even cough syrup. That’s not because there’s a smoke-filled room in Washington where they’re plotting to deny women and people of color access to cough syrup.

So yeah, an ID requirement might make voting a bit more inconvenient. So what? Meaningful community participation is often inconvenient. Pretty much everything worth doing is inconvenient. Hard cases are hard; no one is saying otherwise. But let’s be real: this is not remotely an impossible problem, and there’s no reason to pretend that it is. We have always had people with a legitimate need for an absentee ballot, and we’ve long had the ability to accommodate that. I don’t see that going away; in fact, internet technology has made it even more possible to satisfactorily demonstrate your identity at a distance. In fact, just recently I had to set up a financial account online that required a scan of my ID plus other identifying information, and then compared that to government databases. I never left the couch except to get my wallet. If we can manage this sufficient for tax/banking purposes, we can manage it for voting.

Inconvenience is not really a sound argument against protecting the integrity of the system. The argument here is that it’s worth the inconvenience. I remember voting being inconvenient for my parents, too. I grew up so poor we ate the seed potatoes–breakfast, lunch, and dinner–one winter because we had literally no money to buy food. My parents always found a way to get to the polling place, because it was important, worth sacrificing for. I remember, because they certainly didn’t have money for a babysitter — I got dragged along with ’em, right into the voting booth.

In a nation of 300 million people, are we going to be able to find someone who should have been able to vote, but couldn’t because of this law or that one? Yes. No matter what the law, there will be such a case somewhere, no question. And it will be a travesty, and we should fix it. But exceptions are exceptions, and ought to be treated that way. Most people will have no such difficulty, and there’s no reason to use a fractional minority of hard cases to avoid taking the same sort of commonsense precautions we routinely navigate to buy beer, cigarettes, and cough syrup — particularly when we’re facing a massive (and thoroughly justified) drop in public confidence in institutions.

Do not allow people who do not share your values to hack your virtues in order to paralyze you. A policy need not be perfect to be an improvement on what we have now. Support common-sense reforms because you love all your neighbors, but don’t stop there. No matter how good the policy, some people will fall through the cracks. So step up yourself and do your best to take care of them, too.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Reason, Excuse, and Apology

10 December 2024

A friend recently explained a situation that keeps recurring for her. In the wake of some situation or other, someone will ask her, “Why did you do it that way?” She’ll begin to answer the question, only to get cut off with “I don’t want to hear your excuses!”

“What is going on with this?” she asked. “What’s the difference between a reason and an excuse, anyway?”

Defining reason versus excuse is fairly straightforward. In a nutshell, a reason is just a factual account of the process: A led to B led to C. An excuse has an additional moral dimension to it; it’s an attempt to exculpate yourself. Put another way, “reason” is the historical explanation for why you did what you did; “excuse” is a moral explanation for why something isn’t your fault.

But of course it’s more complicated than that, because most people asking “the “Why did you do it that way?” aren’t all that clear on the distinction between reason and excuse, and often aren’t consciously aware of what they want from the conversation. There are pitfalls to navigate both in the question they ask and the answer you give.

  1. The question can mean two very different things.
    1a. Sometimes “Why did you do it that way?” is a rhetorical question, grounded in the assumption that “that way” was a self-evidently foolish decision. In that case, the question is functioning as a demand for an apology, and the expected response is something like “I’m sorry; I don’t know what I was thinking.” From within that frame of reference, describing your thought process registers as an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for your actions, and therefore triggers the “Don’t make excuses” response.
    At that point, you may be tempted to respond in anger: “If you didn’t want to know, why did you ask?” As you probably already know, that’s not likely to be productive. Rhetorical questions are a pretty normal communication strategy, even if you don’t happen to like them. Making war on an entire category of normal communication isn’t likely to take you where you want to go.
    The best way I’ve found to navigate that is to just ask: “Are you actually asking about the thought process, or are you hoping I’ll just apologize so we can move on?” If I’m not sure I did anything wrong, I’ll often add, “I’m not making any promises here, I’m just curious about what you’re hoping for.” Then we can navigate from there.
    1b. Sometimes the question really is a request for information, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. Often, even when the asker is genuinely trying to understand, they are also seeking assurance you won’t do the thing again. They often won’t explicitly tell you that’s what they’re hoping for; it’s so self-evident to them that it just won’t occur to them to articulate it. If your explanation does not provide the hoped-for reassurance, the asker can grow frustrated, and that frustration can trigger the “Don’t make excuses” response.
    If you started with the recommended clarifying questions in 1a, above, then at this point you can loop back to them. “You said you were asking about the thought process; I’m telling you, and you’re clearly frustrated with it. What are you hoping for at this point?” Please note that this response does not accuse them of hypocrisy or blame them for being frustrated; it just situates the present moment in the conversation and invites them to clarify what they want.
  2. All of the above can be rendered far more effective by three additional things.
    2a. Be the sort of person who simply doesn’t lie about this stuff. That means you don’t say you were wrong if you don’t think you were, but once you think you were wrong about something, you don’t avoid saying so, even if other people aren’t owning their part. (You can take time to calm down, sleep on it, seek wise counsel, retain an attorney, etc., as appropriate to the situation. There’s a certain personality that’s tempted to immediately assume the blame for everything in order to ease the tension in a situation; you shouldn’t give in to that temptation either.) You can and should be exquisitely clear about what you are and aren’t taking ownership of, but if you’re sure it’s wrong and it’s yours, don’t shilly-shally around, looking for a way out. This is a superpower that leads to other superpowers, and over time, it dramatically cuts down on the nonsense in your life. Being willing to take responsibility for your errors attracts like-minded people, and clearly refusing what’s not yours repels those who are trying to evade responsibility.
    2b. Have a deep understanding of apology. Not everybody is looking for the same thing. “I’m sorry” is an expression of regret. (It usually helps to be very clear about what you regret. “I’m sorry I did that” and “I’m sorry you got hurt” are two very different sentiments.) “I was wrong” is a moral or factual determination. “Please forgive me” is a request for forgiveness. “I see that my actions resulted in __ for you” is an expression of empathy. “I won’t do it again” is a reassurance. People seeking apology and reconciliation often are seeking some blend of these, and usually won’t be consciously aware what they’re looking for. Know that it can be any or all of the above, and navigate the conversation accordingly.
    In my family of origin, a proper apology was “I was wrong when I [clearly state what you did]. Will you forgive me?”
    2c. You can pre-empt a good bit of all this by being clear up front in how you answer the “Why did you do it that way?” question. I often start by saying, “Listen, if I was wrong, I’ll have to own it. I’m not making excuses for myself. But since you asked, here’s what happened….” At crucial points in my account, I often insert little reminders: “Again, I’m not making excuses here; I’m just telling you how this was for me” or “Of course I now see things differently, but at the time, here’s what I was thinking.”

Now, all this comes with an important caveat. If you need everything to be someone else’s fault, none of the communication strategies I’ve laid out above will do you any good, because in the end the problem is not in the communication, it’s in your heart. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope; it just means you need Jesus to free you from your sin and nonsense. Ask Him to; it’s a prayer He delights to answer.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Reading Both Books

29 October 2024

Read the first few chapters of Matthew, and take note of the Old Testament prophecies he cites. When Matthew cites Micah 5:2, the meaning is very clear. God made a predictive prophecy about where the Messiah would be born, and that prophecy is fulfilled when Jesus is born in that exact town. But that’s not the only thing “fulfill” means here.

Consider “Out of Egypt I called My son.” The son in question in Hosea 11 is Israel—not just the man Jacob (although he’s included) but the whole nation that came from him. “When Israel was a child I loved him” might refer to the man Jacob, but “out of Egypt I called My son” can’t mean just that one guy, because that guy died in Egypt, and what was called out of Egypt was not that one man, but all his descendants, 400 years later. So “Out of Egypt I called My son” is the utterance of a prophet, but it’s not a predictive prophecy; it’s a comment on Israel’s history. In what sense can it be “fulfilled”?

In order to grasp Matthew’s point here, we must first pay careful attention to the meaning of Hosea. Knowing that Israel is God’s son, Matthew shows how Jesus walks in the steps of Israel. He’s making two points: first, that Jesus is Israel (in a meaningful sense that Matthew will spend the whole book exploring), and second, that the land of Israel has become spiritual Egypt—a point that would be reinforced by John the Baptist when he calls the remnant out into the desert to pass through water. Jesus adds to Hosea; we can’t read Hosea 11 anymore without also thinking of Jesus’ flight from Herod as well as the Exodus. The words of the prophet have been “fulfilled,” made more full than they were before.

We don’t want to read something into the text that isn’t there. At the same time, we don’t want to miss something that is there—and the New Testament writers show us repeatedly that there’s a lot more there than one might think at first glance. From Jesus Himself proving the resurrection by exegeting a verb tense in Genesis to the fulfillments of the first few chapters of Matthew to the dizzying displays of Hebrews, the New Testament authors show us a way of reading the Old Testament that we wouldn’t have come up with on our own. It had to be revealed to us.

In theologically conservative circles, we have gotten our hermeneutics from the Book of Nature (mostly as read by E. D. Hirsch), which is very useful as far as it goes. But there’s two books, and the Book of Scripture also has something to teach us about how to read. We should read both books.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

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