Doug Jones 

I. Introduction

 Vi prego di avere subito un po' di pazienza. Infatti, cercherò di parlare in italiano e ho chiesto a Leonardo De Chirico di tradurre quello che voglio dire. Sono molto riconoscente per la possibilità di partecipare a questo convegno. Lo considero un grande privilegio e un dono speciale da parte di Dio. Per molte ragioni, nutro un amore profondo per l'Italia e da tempo ammiro il lavoro di IFED. Sinceramente, credo che questa parte dell'Italia abbia molto da contribuire al futuro dell'opera dell'evangelo in Europa e negli Stati Uniti. Il profeta Zaccaria ci ricorda di non "disprezzare il giorno delle piccole cose". Credo che Dio si servirà di voi in modo potente. Vorrei dare le mie lezioni in italiano. Un giorno spero di parlare la vostra bella lingua, ma è difficile da imparare nell'Idaho. Così, anche se mi dispiace, torno alle sonorità un po' più aspre dell'inglese.

 The theme of this conference is God at the center of life, and I can’t think of a more important theme on which the contemporary church should meditate. We so easily believe the lies of the modern world, which tells us that we can have happiness without the Christian God, that we can figure out family life, meaning, beauty, business, education, history, math, science, politics without the Christian God, that God is an unnecessary, marginal, irrelevant feature of a dead era. We so easily believe these modern lies that the words of the Apostle Paul should echo in our ears: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). The spirit of the modern world is indeed another gospel, another religion, and it permeates everything we touch and hear and watch. It pretends to be so neutral and pluralistic and open, when in truth it strives to enthrone its own values as king and declare everything else a fiction.

            But in order to explain successfully that God is at the center of life, we first have to turn that theme inside out. Before we live as if God is at the center of life, we must know that life is at the center of God. The modern world has tried to persuade us that it is the source of light and laughter and that Christians worship a dead, boring, ugly, bureaucratic God. And all around the world, we Christians too often live as if that were true. We live life as resentful, petty slaves of a boring God, and then we naively wonder why unbelievers don’t run to our churches.

            We need to reverse the lie. We need to be able to show, instead, that it is the modern spirit that is a “whited-washed tomb” full of “dead men’s bones” (Mt. 23:27). We need to live lives that express the Triune God as He is – most intriguing, most brilliant, most playful, most noble, and most intoxicated with life. We will never be able to say that God is at the center of life, if life is not at the center of God. 

 II. Nietzsche Against Christianity

 The notorious yet fascinating anti-Christian, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), made famous the accusation that the Christian faith is an enemy of life. No other complaint should cut us to the heart like this one does. If it is true, then we should give up everything. If it is false, and it is, then we need to change our ways, our families, our churches, our culture. We need to be a people characterized by life, or as the Apostle Peter said, be a people who “love life and see good days” (1 Pet. 3:10).

            You must hear Nietzsche’s complaint itself, though. He had many objections to Christianity, but I believe this was his most basic, and it should haunt our day to day living. And it becomes more tragic because he grew up in a Christian family, with a pastor for a father. How did his family live before him such that he could break such a basic loyalty? What picture of God did they show him of Christ in day to day living? It had to be a picture of death.

            In his book, The Antichrist, Nietzsche wrote:

 “The Christian concept of God – the god as the patron of the sick, the god as the spinner of cobwebs, the god as a spirit – is one of the most corrupt concepts that has ever been set up in the world: it probably touches the low-water mark in the ebbing evolution of the god-type. God degenerated into the contradiction of life. Instead of being its transfiguration and the eternal Yea! In him war is declared on life, on nature, on the will to live! God becomes the formula for every slander upon the “here and now,” and for every lie about the “beyond.” In him nothingness is deified, and the will to nothingness is made holy!” – The Antichrist, 18

 In the Twilight of Idols he said:

 “Life ends where the ‘kingdom of God’ begins . . . . Once you have grasped the heinousness of such a revolt against life, which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian morality, then fortunately you have also grasped something else: the futile, feigned, absurd, lying nature of such a revolt” [i.e., Christianity]. . . . – Twilight of Idols, Ch. 5: 4,5

 Christianity as a “revolt against life”? In the Birth of Tragedy he said:

 “Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in ‘another’ or ‘better’ life.” – The Birth of Tragedy, p.23, Walter Kaufmann transl.

 Christianity disgusted by life? In the Gay Science he says:

 “The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.” Gay Science

 The tragedy in these statements is not just the ugly picture of life his family, church, and culture must have shown him. The greater tragedy is that his writings could make these charges publicly and for over a century without being laughed at! Some truth must cling to them. Imagine if Nietzsche had claimed, for example, that “the Christian faith is bad because it forbids wearing hats,” or that “the Christian faith is bad because it denies the existence of chairs,” then he would have been laughed off and ignored. But something must have been and must be terribly wrong with us as the church, since these accusations have not been laughed off. They have become the ruling assumption of non-Christian thought.

 III. Centrality of Life

 The most astounding feature of Nietzsche’s objection that Christianity is an enemy of life is that Scripture, more than any book, is “obsessed” with life. I encourage you to survey all the appeals to “life” within Scripture. It is quite overwhelming. Once you start realizing how widespread it is in Scripture, it seems like God is concerned with little else. Life becomes the most fundamental category or reality in all of Scripture, and the distinction between life and death is the most basic antithesis in all of redemptive history. For example, Moses tells the people, “See I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” (Dt. 30:15), and Jeremiah declares, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.’” (Jer. 21:8).

            Scripture begins with a tree of life and a breath of life given to Adam, and it ends with the tree of life and the book of life. I don’t have time to go through all the passages, but I want to give you a taste of the waterfall. I’ve grouped them in line with the traditional divisions of king, prophet, and priest, but that is just a matter of emphasis here:

 A. Kingly references

• “the LORD commanded the blessing; Life forevermore. (Ps. 133:3)

• My covenant was with him, one of life and peace (Mal. 2:5)

• “Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye. (Prov. 7:2)

• The LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. (Jer. 10:10)

• Moses: “Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe; all the words of this law. For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life (Dt. 32:47)   [“e la vostra vita”]

B. Prophetic references

• Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.” (Ez. 37:5,6)

• Psa 27:1  The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

• Psa 34:12  Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good?

• Prov 12:28  In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.

• Prov 15:24  The way of life winds upward for the wise, that he may turn away from hell below.

• For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Rom. 8:6)

C. Priestly references

• Gen 2:17  "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

• “for the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11)

• “for the blood is the life” (Dt. 12:23)

• I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge and discretion. I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me finds life,  . . . . All those who hate me love death." (Prov. 8:12-36)  [trova la vita. . . . amano la morte]

• The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Cor. 15:45)

The last Adam, Christ, is the life-giver, not the enemy of life.

 IV. Life: Quality vs. Mere Existence

 But simple life by itself is not enough. Some of these passages could be taken to mean that God is concerned that mere biological life continues. This might suggest that merely having our hearts beating, regardless of anything else, is all that God cares about. But Scripture doesn’t let us draw that conclusion. Scripture speaks of a life for those who are already living, even the regenerate (Mt. 7:22; 1 Tim. 6:12). It calls to life those who are already alive. It calls us to a special kind of life. As Christ says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink. . . Is not life more than food? (Matt. 6:25)

            Consider the following passages that speak of a higher quality of life for those who are already alive:

 • Psa 16:11  You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

• You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light. (Ps. 36:8,9)

• [Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who take hold of her. . . [Wisdom] will be life to your soul and grace to your neck. (Prov. 3:13-22)

• Prov 8:35  Wisdom: For whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the LORD;

• Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

 Most powerfully, we have the very direct words of Christ:

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” — John 10:10 [esuberanza]

 But still what is this “abundant life” that these and other verses point us to? The verses themselves show us. They don’t just leave the notion of “life” empty. They show us what it is filled with.

            Psalm 16 and 36, as just two examples, connect life not to mere biological life but to joy and pleasure. The kind of life Scripture praises is not just existence and not just a trudging through life hating your job. It is not just being quiet, nice, and pleasing to those around you. It is the sort of joy that makes King David pant to be in God’s presence. Life is profound joy, and joy is profound life.

            Even more wonderfully, and in direct opposition to Nietzsche and those Christians who imitate his slander by living dreary lives, Scripture tells us that life is at the center of God, and that the life that is at the center of God is joy and pleasure: “in Your presence is fullness of joy” (Ps. 16:11) and “You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life” (Ps. 36:8). We tend to think that even when believers stand before God, He is a brooding, angry judge. But David says, no, in God’s presence is profound joy and pleasure. For the faithful, standing before God, we should expect to hear laughter, celebration, and dancing, not a judge’s growl.

 V. Life as Earthy Joy

 Still, when we speak of joy, we too often empty it of its blood. We quickly try to make joy very serious and rid it of its boisterousness. We start talking about intellectual joy alone, as if God were excited by mere ideas and not our whole lives. That is the typically Gnostic sort of answer very prominent in the church in my country. We tend to think that all we need to do is get the right ideas into our heads – read the right books, memorize the right words, make the right intellectual connections – and God will be pleased with us, no matter how wretched we may be to our children. But the Apostle James tells us, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe; and tremble!” (James 2:19).

            The Lord is much more earthy than we are. We get a further explanation of the sort of joy and life at the center of God in the famous blessing and cursing passages from Moses in Deuteronomy 27-30.

            What does the Lord point to there as the swivel point between blessings and curses? Faithfulness, obviously, but what sort? What sort of personality does this faithfulness have? Faithful in doctrine? Faithful in evangelism? Faithful in spiritual disciplines? Faithful in the sacraments? All of these are important, but what is the divine priority?

            In the midst of the long, detailed, and humbling list of cultural blessings and curses, we find a very intriguing line. We’re told that “all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you” not for any of the items the broad Christian community tends to value – evangelism, prayer, doctrine, sacraments, etc. The divine priority says that all the curses will fall “because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything” (Dt. 28:47). And because you lack “joy and gladness of heart . . . you shall serve your enemies” (Dt. 28:47, 48). Joy and gladness? Since when has that been the pivot of reality?

            I don’t pretend to understand the full weight of this claim in Deuteronomy, but we should be obsessed with finding out, obsessed with making it the very center of our lives and cultures. Nothing else appears as important, given the stark context of Deuteronomy 27-30. We must be experts in joy.

            The broad Christian community has many, many books on joy, but few to none of them appear to grasp the weight of joy. They tend to talk rather Stoically about how to feel pleasure in the midst of broken family relationships. In these books, joy is just a marginal psychological trait, not the center of the universe. And how is it that, for centuries, Christendom can write creeds and theological tomes that don’t tell us this simple point from Deuteronomy? Why haven’t we had giant Church councils on the nature of joy? Or different schools of thought, wrestling over the intricacies of joy? Why don’t our creeds dedicate long sections to exposit the nature of joy for the people of God? Is there a systematic theology that has this sort of joy as its chiastic center?

            Even the great first question of the Westminster catechism doesn’t line things up in the simple and earthy manner of Deuteronomy. The Westminster exhorts us that “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.” Wonderful. But Deuteronomy is far more earthy: serve with “joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything.” The stated motive for joy, here, could have understandably pointed explicitly to the grand character of Jehovah, meditating spiritually on that, but it doesn’t. It just speaks about joy for all the great stuff around us. Joy for the abundance. Even the surrounding blessing and curses in this passages are all focused on common pleasure, wine, bread, children, livestock, rain, health, city, country.

            The words used in Deuteronomy for joy and goodness (simchah and tuwb) work as synonyms in much of Scripture. The earthiness of their use in Deuteronomy shows up in their repeated use in celebratory contexts. These words rarely show up in the context of pure meditation. They are predominately surrounded by loud parties: “And all the people went up after him [Solomon]; and the people played the flutes and rejoiced with great joy (simchah), so that the earth seemed to split with their sound” (1 Kgs. 1:40). “For how great is its goodness (tuwb) and how great its beauty! Grain shall make the young men thrive, and new wine the young women” (Zech. 9:17). These are the sorts of joy and gladness about which God’s curses and blessings turn.

            In a wonderfully profound sense, the lesson of Deuteronomy turns out to be the earthy center of Ecclesiastes as well. There the exhortation becomes, “So I commended enjoyment [simchah], because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun” (Eccl. 8:15). Even more pointedly, Ecclesiastes says, “Go, eat your bread with joy [simchah], and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works” (Eccl. 9:7). This is the joy that continues from Deuteronomy as the pivot of blessing and cursing: eat, drink, and be merry.

            But this earthy joy is certainly not the eating and drinking that the pagans do (though sometimes they can teach us some lessons). The eating and drinking here is the noble sort characterized by overflowing, grateful laughter for the goodness of God. It may include grateful luxury and excess, but it may just as truly be a joy expressed in poverty: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred” (Prov. 15:17).

            The earthy joy that knows “nothing better” than to “eat, drink, be merry,” and receive the blessings of God serves as a part-for-whole connection to the theme of “life” so central in Scripture. Earthy joy becomes a picture of divine life itself: “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy [simchah]; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). In David’s vision, joy is not some pleasant, marginal feature of our existence on earth. It characterizes the personality of the Godhead: joy is life, divine life is joy. Interestingly, it is this same passage, connecting joy and life, that Peter cites in the Pentecost sermon for the new church (Acts 2:28).

 VI. Joy as Play

 In attempting to understand what it means to have God at the center of life, I have suggested that we need to first understand the life at the center of God. I have argued that, contrary to Nietzsche, life is the central theme of Scripture and the chief characteristic of the Christian God, “the living God.” In trying to understand this life at the center of God, I’ve pointed to the Scriptural connections from life to joy, and from joy to earthy joy at the center of God’s life. But we must go deeper and see that this earthy joy is an expression of one of the deepest attributes of the Christian God, namely, play and playfulness.

            What do we do when we heed Ecclesiastes’ command to “eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your works” (Eccl. 9:7)? In other words, what is going on in a meal? Unlike eating a wild berry or drinking plain water, bread and wine do not show up automatically in creation. As some theologians have noted, bread and wine require us to transform the earth creatively, to be patient over time, to live peacefully during the growth, to delight in the miracles of God’s hands. When we sit at such a meal in gratitude, we delight in God’s excesses. We could be more narrowly efficient and just eat spoonfuls of flour and grape juice, but God enables us to see his gracious excesses, even in simple things like bread and wine, let alone the wonders of a full feast.

            At a full meal we take part in a ritual, a ritual that is very odd if we weren’t so used to it. We sit and face each other in a circle, rather than walking away. We order the plates and utensils in a patter rather than scattering them around. We eat in a particular order and close the meal in a particular way. We try to make the meal pleasing to the eyes and nose as well, and don’t just obey the minimal rules of efficiency to merely stay alive. When we eat, we take part in a ritual, a small performance of grace and beauty. There is no need to do this. It is certainly not necessary. It is excess. It is gift. It is play, the sort of play that wonderfully reflects the Christian God’s own excesses and creativity.

            In the book, Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga described play as “a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. . . . It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.”

            The theologian R.K. Johnston adds that “though play is an end in itself, it has consequences: Chief among these are the joy and release, the personal fulfillment, the remembering of our common humanity, and the presentiment of the sacred. . . . One’s participation in the adventure of playing, even given the risk of injury or defeat, finds resolution at the end of the experience, and one re-enters ongoing life in a new spirit of thanksgiving and celebration. The player is a changed individual because of the playtime, his or her life having been enlarged beyond the workaday world.” In other words, play is characterized by freedom, creativity, excess, order, passion, adventure, and “trans-seriousness.”

            I believe we see the playfulness of God in at least two ways, one in His works of creation and language, and the other in the play-within-a-play of redemptive history. 

            Playfulness in Creation: The animal world is a fascinating expression of the artistic personality of God. It shows us both the sublime and the comic. We tend to forget the initial shock of seeing animals. But imagine seeing them for the first time, as an alien or a child. They are earth-shaking. What sort of artist’s personality would shape an elephant? We can see God’s nobility in lions, eagles, and horses. We can read God’s humor in otters, zebras, and a giraffes. What sort of person could create a giraffe? So much excess, so much free time, so much play. That is the God of Christianity.

            One of the great exhortations to Job is to look at the created order to help understand the personality of the Christian God. There, in the midst of Job’s complaint against his pain and tragedy, the Lord oddly and fascinatingly answers Job’s in an unexpected way. In essence, Job complains, “why my trials?” and the Lord answers “Have you seen the horse I made?” Job asks, “why the injustice to me?” and the Lord replies “Have you seen the Ostrich?” Job says “I loathe life,” and God says “Take a look at the Lion I made.” We often read God’s reply here as a bare assertion of his sovereignty, his right not to answer. But it is better to read it pointing Job to the deeper character of God to truly understand the situation. If we understand the sublime playfulness at the center of God, we can better understand the purposes of great trials: He wants us to be like Him, to take on His life, to understand what is truly important.

            God’s playfulness comes out explicitly and humorously when he speaks of the Leviathan in Job 41:

 Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you? Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you leash him for your maidens? (Job 41:1-5).

 I especially love those last two lines. God plays with his creation like a toy, and he shows off Leviathan to impress the girls!

            Playfulness of Redemptive History: Volumes could be written about the expression of God’s playfulness in creation, but I also want to point to a different sort of play in redemptive history. This is the play, not so much of joy in creation, but of the “trans-seriousness” that results from life as a play-within-a-play in which we live.

            Again, the book of Job expresses this form of play. We as readers see that behind the scenes God and Satan are working out a larger question, but Job doesn’t see this. Within the larger scene, we see Job acting out his life as a play inside a play. Shakespeare uses this sort of feature in many of his plays. A play inside a play is a great tool to reveal character.

            But it is not just with Job that God does this. We see countless plays in redemptive history. God puts his people in situations in which the immediate concern is not really the ultimate concern. Think of Abraham sacrificing Isaac or Nathan before David or Jonah and the whale. The Lord could have been straight in each of these cases. He could have told them up front what he wanted them to do. He could have just openly told Abraham not to sacrifice or David what his sin was or spoke to Ninevah out of the sky. But he didn’t. He was indirect, mysterious, creative. He made a play within a play, and the duty of each was to grasp the deeper life of God. The Lord rarely plays straight; He plays.

            Christ Himself came “playing” in parables, stories, and images, not speaking straight to the people. He played with His parables and metaphors. Even the center of redemptive history, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, are described as a sort of serious play. At 1 Corinthians 2, the Apostle Paul tells us that

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:6-8).

 Notice the game, the indirectness, the foolishness: “for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Paul speaks as if the cross were an elaborate hoax on the enemies of God, a game they missed. He summarizes God’s redemptive action in the language of play, namely foolishness: “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Cor. 1:27). The Lord uses foolish, weak things to confound the wise. He plays, as is His character.

  VI. Play as Trinitarian

 Yet to classify anything in terms of playfulness is already to sneak the Trinity into the discussion.

            Genuine playfulness requires a real Other, an equal you can press against, wrestle with, and respect. Even a game of solitaire does this indirectly. But we most often highlight the social, plural aspects of playfulness in terms of team games, board games, festivals, and stage plays. To play against someone woefully inferior in some game might be a teaching opportunity, but it lacks the adventure and freedom of real play. The superior one has to hold back something.

            Playfulness naturally resides at the heart of the Triune Christian God. There we find not merely a mysterious oneness but also a community of equals and genuine difference. As Lewis Smedes surmised in response to the ancient query, What was God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – doing before creation?

The three of them were simply enjoying being with each other. Three persons with nothing much to do, no time schedule to keep, no superior’s orders to obey, no problem of survival, and no creatures to worry about. If in some impossible fantasy we could have looked on, we might have scolded the holy trinity for wasting time. But we would have been outsiders, unable to understand the freedom of the Trinity to have their own rules to play by. And we would have been mystified, perhaps, by the enormous pleasure that they seemed to have in what they were doing. I cannot think it wrong to suppose that if anything on earth could be an analogy of the eternal goings-on, it would be children at play.

            In Trinitarian reality, the godhead mysteriously, freely, and sovereignly, but certainly controls the paths to the end of history. The Trinity guarantees a comedy – a happy ending – rather than a tragedy. Trinitarian history is always a play within a play, an ultimate unseriousness on stage. Like Job, we fight our battles, shape our communities, love our lovers, but the inside battles aren’t the ultimate story. They are just the interior play. The broader frame sets the real goal – shaping a people to join the fellowship of the Trinity – but all the inner battles are ultimately unserious, though often heated. Those who take the inner play too seriously begin acting like secularists – legalistic, dominating, humorless. Those who don’t take the inner play seriously enough are condemned to boredom and resentment.

            Secularism or the Modern spirit cannot offer a play within a play. Their world is not an artwork, just a series of accidents. The Modern world is committed to a never-ending seriousness because it has no backstage and forestage. There is only one story whose ending is undetermined. Every battle of life is in principle a fight to the death; every personal slight is a final attack on the “Deathstar.” There is only one frame, no guarantee of the play of life being a comedy, and so true playfulness becomes a dangerous, artificial tangent. And, thus, power, not play, becomes their manner of dealing with life. When they rejoice in play, they have to ignore their worldview and live within the world of the Trinity, even while denying it.

In closing, then, we can start to understand what it means to have God at the center of life, once we see that amazing, joyful, playful life at the center of the Triune God. We will not really live with God at the center of life until we are amazed with His life.

            We worship the God of giraffes and eagles and beetles, and this most fascinating God invites us to be like Him, to imitate the profound joy at the center of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We become what we most love. The poet Robinson Jeffers wrote, “Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes . . . . For what we love, we grow to it, we share its nature.”

            Once we become enthralled with Triune life, we can’t help but see it spill out in day to day living, in family life, meaning, beauty, education, business, history, math, science, politics. Triune joy at the center of life causes us to view every area of life differently than the Modern world does. We will come into conflict with secularism at every area of life. This is natural and good. For “what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:15, 16).

            The Modern world offers us a “whited-washed tomb” full of “dead men’s bones” (Mt. 23:27). We need to live lives that express the Triune God as He is – most intriguing, most brilliant, most playful, most sublime, most noble, most joyful, most intoxicated with life.

            In my lecture tomorrow, I hope to explain the four pillars of secularism or Modernity that so often subtly trip Christians into not having God at the center of life, and I plan to explain by further example how the Trinity is at the center of the most interesting parts of life.