Saved Like Paul

2 September 2025

How is it possible to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling?” And is that even compatible with assurance? That question came up this past week; let’s dig into it.

As to assurance, the answer is yes. You were never meant to even consider how to work out your salvation without already having full assurance. How do I know? Because that’s how Paul presented it. Read the whole context starting in 1:1. 1:1-7 present the assurance with which you are meant to read the rest of the book.

Paul himself is assured of his own salvation, as you will see in 1:19 — some translations render it “deliverance,” but it’s the same word as in 1:28 and the passage we’re discussing (2:12). The problem with the translation “deliverance” is it obscures Paul’s meaning later in the book. Note that as he elaborates in v. 20, he adds “by life or by death,” which means that he’s not actually talking about being delivered from tribulation. No, for him, “salvation” is a much bigger picture than getting out of jail. He ultimately concludes that for the present, he’d rather live and minister to them, which moves him into challenging them to also live worthy of the gospel, which–if one has eyes to see–is a demonstration of their salvation (1:28). He then challenges them to one-mindedness, following the sacrificial example of Christ, who laid aside divine prerogatives in order to give Himself for us, with the result that the Father enthroned Him over everything.

Having laid the foundation of assurance, set himself forth as an example of things working out for his salvation, and then transitioned to Jesus as the ultimate model of how these things should go, Paul now challenges the Philippians. “Work out your own salvation,” he says, because God is at work in them (as he’s been saying since the beginning of the book).

Many interpreters play games with “work out.” I remember as a kid being taught that God “works your salvation in,” and then it’s your job to “work it out,” as though salvation were a bit of food coloring dropped into a lump of dough or something. The Greek word there is κατεργάζομαι, and it means “accomplish.” Accomplish your salvation, because God is at work in you.

What does that even mean? If God is at work in them, then why are they supposed to accomplish it? And how it is possible for any Christian to accomplish their own salvation?

Good questions. In order to answer them, we need to pose one more question: What does “salvation” mean here? The Greek word is σωτηρία (soteria), and it’s usually translated “salvation” or “deliverance,” but that’s not actually all it means. Koine Greek often used the word to mean something closer to “prosperity,” “wellbeing,” or “peace.” Consider this example from the Greek Old Testament: “Then they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.” (Gen. 26:31) The word translated “peace” there is the Hebrew shalom, and when they were rendering it into Greek, they used soteria. Can you imagine translating that “…they departed from him in salvation”?

Of course not. You’ll see similar uses of soteria in Genesis 28:21 and 44:17. The Greek is translating the Hebrew shalom, which means “peace,” but in a really rich way — whole books have been written on the meaning of shalom. It’s not just the absence of conflict, but the active presence of wellbeing.

Hear it that way: “But I know that things will work out for my peace and wellbeing.” (1:19) “Which is to them proof of perdition, but to you of peace and wellbeing, and that from God.” (1:28) “Work out your own peace and wellbeing with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (2:12-13)

Makes more sense, doesn’t it?

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Preach the Word!

26 August 2025

Do we preach in church? No.

But isn’t that what Paul tells Timothy to do? “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season….” No. The word translated “preach” there is kerusso. It means public announcement, not private commentary to an in-group. (Check the lexicon; do the word study in Scripture; expand the word study to the secular literature – all the evidence points the same way, as I’ve argued elsewhere.) It’s not something you do with an in-group in a home; it’s something you do in the marketplace at the top of your lungs for anybody in earshot. That’s just what the word means throughout the literature (notwithstanding our English misappropriation of it).

2 Timothy 4:2 is not an exception to the general usage of kerusso. Absent a compelling contextual reason to read the Sunday meeting into the passage — and it isn’t there — Timothy would have heard the word in its ordinary sense. The only reason we don’t hear it that way is because we’re imposing our usage of “preach” on the passage. Public proclamation was a mainstay of Paul’s ministry, and it’s not exactly a surprise that he charges Timothy to carry on this aspect of his work. The inclusio with “do the work of an evangelist” in v. 5 clinches it, if we needed additional evidence of its public-facing meaning.

Should we thunder the Word from the pulpit? Absolutely. Arguably, that falls under the biblical headings of teaching and prophecy, but in any case there’s not much exegetical case for calling it “preaching.”

But let’s look more closely at the context here. In chapter 1, Paul addresses Timothy’s qualifications and his inner life/personal prerequisites for ministry. He continues that theme in 2:1-13, challenging Timothy to endure hardship for the sake of God’s chosen people. 2:14 forward specifically addresses the way Timothy should minister to those people within the church community, and then (3:1ff) begins to address the hazardous people Timothy will face in that endeavor. Beginning in 3:10, Paul returns his focus to Timothy, contrasting him to the people in 3:1-9 and challenging him to continue in what he’s been taught, knowing that the God-breathed Scriptures themselves will fully equip him.

4:1 begins Paul’s final charge to Timothy, and here he begins with a command that specifically means public announcement and concludes in v.5 with “do the work of an evangelist.” As with his instructions for Timothy’s conduct within the church in 2:14-3:17, Paul leads off with the command (2:14//4:1-2), follows with a warning that it’s likely to be ill-received (3:1-9//4:3-4), and returns to Timothy with “But you…” (3:10ff//4:5). He follows the same pattern of instruction as when he was talking about Timothy’s ministry within the church, but this time, he’s talking about how Timothy faces the world.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Why Complementarian?

19 August 2025

From the time I became aware that Christian egalitarianism was a thing (age 18 or 19), I have been self-consciously complementarian. The sexes are made with different and complementary natures, with corresponding complementary duties and biblical commands. Those commands are not arbitrary, but rooted in the realities of the world God created. It was not a new concept to me even then; it’s just that I was 18 or so before I knew there was a term for it. 

Learning the term was quite a discovery, because that meant there were other views. I looked into alternative views and concluded that they weren’t convincing. I remained complementarian. At the same time, over the years, I noticed various self-professed complementarians who I found appalling, either because they had no understanding of the natural world, or because they read the church epistles as though they had been written to Ward and June Cleaver (about which more later). Nonetheless, centering the complementarity of the sexes seemed to me the best way to describe the Bible’s teaching, so I stuck to the term complementarian.

Of course, people to the left of me have been trying to drive me away from both the term and the convictions it represents for decades, arguing that my adherence to complementarianism implied endorsement of various abusive and denigrating views of women that I don’t hold and never have. But I knew what the term meant, so I ignored them. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the conversation, but I’m not moving on the term.)

More recently, I’ve found myself on the receiving end of pressure from the right, which has been something of a surprise. These attempts argue that “complementarian” implies various defections from biblical authority that I do not hold and never have held. As with my favorite lefties, they can point to actual humans who profess to be complementarian and commit the defection in question. Certainly they exist — as one commentator famously noted, “The left wing of complementarianism is the right wing of egalitarianism.” This testimony is true, but I’m not going to be driven off a thick view of complementarity because somebody else is complementarian in name only. As with the lefties, I am happy to have the conversation, but I’m not much impressed with the attempt to drive me off the term. (And I would point out that their preferred terms also have some impressive vulnerabilities.)

Very recently, Aaron Renn has weighed in. (And you should read it!) He’s not involving himself in the gender debates so much as making some observations about the generational development of different ideas. He correctly argues that the Grudem/Piper version of complementarianism was not traditional, but an attempt to respond biblically to feminism while also self-consciously breaking with the past. On that basis, he considers his article title justified: “Complementarianism is New.” That’s quite a leap, considering that in the article itself, he also says “The traditional view that Piper, Grudem, and company rejected was also complementarian.” (emphasis his)

Just so. The traditional view was complementarian, the teaching of the Bible is complementarian, and no one need be embarrassed to use the word “complementarian” to describe their complementarian view.

Speaking for myself, I’m complementarian (and patriarchal); have been my whole life. I know what the word means, despite the various weirdbeards and feminists-in-all-but-name who wrongly claim it, and despite the various haters who wrongly try to tar me with one or the other of those groups. If I may put it bluntly, nobody needs the permission of some self-appointed gaggle of word police to use an appropriately descriptive term for their view. So let the word-scratchers say their bit, but don’t be disturbed by them. If you’re getting harrassed from the left and the right at the same time, perhaps you’re onto something.

Now it is true that all man-made symbols, including terms, have a lifespan. The day may come when for whatever reason, “complementarian” ceases to be useful, and it’s time to put it to bed. But it’s not today, and by my lights, it ain’t likely to be tomorrow either.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Order of Operations

12 August 2025

As an experienced minister, I sometimes find myself in conversations with younger ministers seeking a good way to handle a tricky pastoral situation. In one such conversation, the presenting problem was a man mired in serious sexual sin. I gave the (to me) standard answer: remind him that he was cleansed from his old sins, challenge him to live in his new identity, and support him intensively as he does it. My young interlocutor objected that surely you can’t tell an adulterer that he used to be an adulterer while he’s still cheating on his wife.

Well…yes you can. Paul did exactly that in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Consider the context of the whole book: Paul has to address their lawsuits with one another (extortion, theft, covetousness), their drunkenness (and at the Lord’s Table, even), their eating from the tables of pagan temples (idolatry), dallying with prostitutes (fornication, idolatry), and so on. The addressees of this letter manifestly still have the sorts of problems he’s talking about in 6:11, and what does he say? “…and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (And by the way, it’s not just Paul. Peter tells us that a believer who lacks virtue “has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”)

What my young friend was missing is no trivial oversight; it’s one of the major points of New Testament teaching. Paul does not say “You stopped all that nonsense, and therefore you’re now clean,” as though your cleanliness rests on your works. Paul says “Jesus cleansed you from all that nonsense, so stop it already.” If you belong to Jesus, your cleanliness is an accomplished fact, a gift you were given. Your practical holiness is based on that gift, not the other way around.

That’s not just a major theological difference (although it is that); it’s a major practical difference too. When I have a man on my hands who belongs to Christ and is committing adultery, do I tell him, “You used to be an adulterer”? Would I really say that? YES, YES, YES!!!! I would, Paul did, and if you would not, repent! He has been washed from his adultery, and made as clean as it gets, and therefore we help him enact his new identity as a son of God rather than his old identity as an adulterous son of Adam.

How is this defeated man, his life rotted out by adultery, supposed to confidently embark on a new course? Where would he get the chutzpah to believe that he could have a different life than the nightmare that he’s made for himself? From God’s assurance that he is no longer an adulterer, that’s where! The adultery was nailed to the cross with Jesus, died on the cross with Jesus, was buried in the grave with Jesus, and when God raised Him from the dead three days later, Jesus did not come out of the grave dragging the adultery with Him. It’s gone! Finished. Dead forever, and good riddance. So we tell him that, and we walk with him and make it stick.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Being a Blockhead

5 August 2025

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” So said Samuel Johnson, and he was a better positioned observer than most people. I’m certainly guilty of writing for reasons other than money, so I guess that makes me a blockhead. If you’re interested in being a blockhead too, and you want my advice, I wrote it up a while back.

I also want to draw your attention to a treasure trove of writing advice at The Marginalian. She’s taken the trouble to consult a pile of working writers, and the results are worth your time.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Introducing Humans

31 July 2025

I don’t usually announce our church podcast episodes here, but this past week’s episode focused on Genesis 2:4-7, and is right on point for our focus on physicality.

You can find it here, or wherever you procure fine podcasts.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Biblicist and Classical Theist?

29 July 2025

Ever since seminary, I’ve been suspicious of classical theism. Too many assertions that flatly contradict the Bible…or so I thought. To be fair, there was no shortage of classical theists who were happy to confirm my suspicions.

Of late, I’ve found myself in conversation with a biblically faithful classical theist that I respect: Chris Morrison. You can listen in on our first discussion here: “Is Classical Theism Biblical? Starting the Discussion.” Hope it’s helpful to you.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Simply Believe

22 July 2025

Belief is simple the way language is simple. If there’s a bunch of different sized and colored buckets in the corner of the garage, and you send me over there to get the big red one, you say it exactly like that: “big red bucket.” You never say “red big bucket.” Do you know why? Probably not; that’s just how it’s said. Simple, right?

Well…not exactly. When you start examining the order of English adjectives, you’ll discover that there’s a very strong, nearly inviolate rule. Linguists have mapped it, and use the acronym OSASCOMP (opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose). Size comes before color; there ya go. That’s pretty complicated, isn’t it? Who thinks about that? Nobody but linguists, and people learning the language as adults. If you’re a native speaker of English, you can live your whole life without ever being consciously aware of the rule — all the while keeping it.

Thus also with belief. We can get deep in the philosophical weeds on what belief is and how it all works — it’s complex the way everything in God’s world, especially everything human, is complex. But you don’t need to grasp all the deep philosophy to just believe something. We do it every day. Wake up, there’s light streaming in the window — you believe it’s morning. You glance at the clock, which reads 5:45 am — you just believe it’s true. Check the weather for the day and see that there’s an 80% chance it’ll rain this afternoon — you trust them enough to take a jacket with you when you leave the house. Of course you’re not sure it will rain (and the weather guy isn’t either), but you believe that it’s likely enough to be worth taking a jacket. And so on….

And that’s not even to speak of all the things you’re just assuming: the reality of the physical world, personal existence, causality…somewhere in the aether, the spirit of David Hume seethes with envy. (Not really. He admitted he assumed those things too — couldn’t seem to stop himself.)

The places where the gospel is presented in Scripture also don’t get deep into the philosophical weeds. The biblical accounts of human nature will stand up to deep and rigorous examination, but most people never go there, and never need to. So whether we look at a particular evangelistic encounter between Jesus and Matthew, say, or Nathaniel, or Nicodemus, or whether we’re looking at a work like John’s Gospel as a whole, we see a pretty commonsense presentation of belief.

That’s because the biblical accounts focus the reader on Jesus, not on the reader himself. The goal is not to gaze at yourself in the mirror as you believe in something. The goal is to look to Jesus. Focus on Him, not on your own belief.

As we encounter people who need to meet Jesus, that’s what we want for them, too. So again, we don’t get deep in the weeds over what believing is; we don’t need to. What we do need to do is live like Christians, which provokes the questions to which Jesus is the answer (1 Peter 3:15). Then we tell them who He is and what He did.

When you’re telling people about Jesus, don’t soften it with “I believe that…” In polite secular society, “I believe that…” is code for “you don’t need to agree.” We reserve that expression for matters of opinion, not matters of fact. When you’re announcing a fact, you just say it; you don’t lead off with “I believe.” Try it: “I believe that gravity works.” “I believe the sky is blue.” “I believe 2+2=4.”

Sound funny, right? Of course it does — because when you’re mentioning that 2+2=4, your belief is not important. Nobody cares if you believe it; they care if it’s true. So if you wouldn’t say “I believe” there, don’t say “I believe” when you’re announcing facts about Jesus either. Just announce the truth:

“Every evil thing you’ve ever done, every character flaw, every failing, was nailed to the cross with Jesus; died on the cross with Jesus; was buried in the earth with Jesus; and when God raised Him from the dead on the third day, He didn’t come out of the grave dragging a Hefty bag of your crap! It’s all done; He took care of it, and He offers you a new, clean, resurrected life that starts right now. You could quit wallowing in all that right now and be free for the rest of your life! What do you say?”

You don’t need them to say “I believe.” You just want them to believe. Too often, we focus our message on the act of believing. Don’t. Focus your message the way Jesus did: on Jesus Himself. We don’t want this person looking in the mirror watching themselves believe in Jesus. We want them looking at Jesus and believing in Him. Let the focus be on Jesus, not on their belief.

(For the record, I’m not against getting into the philosophical weeds in order to look more closely at how belief works — it’s fascinating, and it’s part of the world God made. We’ll learn good things from the examination if we conduct it well. But that’s a whole other layer, and we don’t need to drag unbelievers through it.)

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Utterly Ordinary Men

15 July 2025

Becoming a good man absolutely requires input from both men and women. Not everybody’s blessed with a mom and a dad, and fewer still are blessed with functioning examples in both of them, but we need to find that input somewhere if we’re going to grow well. Think Proverbs: literally a dad writing a manual for his sons, and it repeatedly exhorts them to heed their father’s advice, and not to forsake the law of their mother. It presents Wisdom as a woman throughout, and all the things that are true of Wisdom early in the book are true of an excellent wife later — a good woman is Wisdom incarnate, and that’s essential to making a good man. And there’s Dad, writing the book that says so, imparting a pile of his own masculine direction in the process.

Our culture has absolutely failed to embrace this dynamic of older men teaching younger men how to be. Men have contributed to that failure by refusing to step up and exercise a measure of moral authority, preferring to mind their own business and let the “experts” take the stage. Dunno if you noticed, gents, but the experts are how we got where we are. It’s time we quit leaving a vacuum for them to fill.

It’s not all on the men, either. Too frequently, otherwise decent women have contributed by privately loving, but publicly disrespecting their husbands. “They never do grow up, do they?” “He’s the only one of my kids that didn’t move out!” Ladies, the culture has given you these tropes to play with; do not be conformed to the world. When you indulge in these tropes…well, let me put it like this: do you want more men to be like your husband? Then stop running him down. No young man listens to a wife insult her husband and thinks “I really want to be him when I grow up.” If you want your daughters to have good men to date and marry, then quit driving the young men away from good men.

Young men will seek advice, and if we insist on leaving a vacuum, various toxic idiots — pickup artists, professional athletes, influencers and the like — will fill it. Even for the young men who have the sense to steer clear of those folks and seek a better class of podcaster, there are hard limits on what mass media can teach. You can’t get wise counsel tailored to your specific situation from a podcast. So what are we to do?

The answer is actually simple. Not easy, but simple enough. We don’t need a Christian Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson or whoever. We need an army of utterly ordinary men willing to care for the young men within their reach. Not one influencer that can reach 50,000 young men at a time, but 25,000 ordinary, admirable, salt-of-the-earth guys that can reach 2. Which is to say that the answer is the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of God is like leaven….

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Posted by Tim Nichols

How Important is Theology?

8 July 2025

I was corresponding with a fella about practical ministry and seeking Christian fellowship. In passing, he asserted that soteriology is really the heart of it all. I had an intense, visceral reaction to that line, and it made me stop and interrogate it. Soteriology really is important, after all. Different Christians focus on different aspects of theology, and that’s as it should be; if soteriology is his focus, why is that bothering me so much?

Upon reflection, here’s where I’m coming from: Soteriology is not the heart of it all. Jesus Himself is the heart of it all, which I hope is what he meant, but the language matters here, so bear with me in a little folly! The distinction is not trivial: soteriology is an ever-more-detailed set of ideas and convictions; Jesus is a Person. People who prioritize Jesus will work at getting along with other people who prioritize Jesus; they find ways to handle their differences charitably for the sake of serving their mutual Friend and realizing His righteousness in the world. People who prioritize soteriology will turn on their fellow believers over a series of ever-smaller distinctions, all the while congratulating themselves loudly on their keen discernment. I could name names here — I certainly have some in mind — but what for? You can probably think of your own examples, and if you’d recognize the names I would mention, then you can see what I’m talking about anyway. The temptations may be subtle in the moment, but the results are visible from orbit.

I’m easy friends with people who put Jesus at the heart of it all. Whatever their foibles, I got mine too, and we get along all right. Folks who put soteriology at the heart of it all, on the other hand…no. Not even if we agree on the soteriology. They need to repent, hard. I pray that they do. If they won’t, then they can’t backstab their way into irrelevance fast enough to suit me, and I certainly don’t wanna be standing within reach while they do it.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

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