The Lion And The Lamb Order Printed Copy

Author: Andreas J. Kostenberger
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About the Book

"The Lion and the Lamb" by Andreas J. Kostenberger is a comprehensive study of the biblical themes of power and weakness as exemplified in Jesus Christ. The book examines the paradox of Christ as both a lion (symbolizing power and authority) and a lamb (symbolizing meekness and sacrificial love). Kostenberger explores how these dual natures of Christ are reflected in his teachings, actions, and ultimate sacrifice on the cross. Throughout the book, Kostenberger emphasizes the importance of understanding and embracing this tension in our own lives as we seek to follow Christ.

Hudson Taylor

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women … The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." In September 1853, a little three-masted clipper slipped quietly out of Liverpool harbor with Hudson Taylor, a gaunt and wild-eyed 21-year-old missionary, aboard. He was headed for a country that was just coming into the Christian West's consciousness; only a few dozen missionaries were stationed there. By the time Taylor died a half-century later, however, China was viewed as the most fertile and challenging of mission fields as thousands volunteered annually to serve there. Radical missionary Taylor was born to James and Amelia Taylor, a Methodist couple fascinated with the Far East who had prayed for their newborn, "Grant that he may work for you in China." Years later, a teenage Hudson experienced a spiritual birth during an intense time of prayer as he lay stretched, as he later put, "before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy." He spent the next years in frantic preparation, learning the rudiments of medicine, studying Mandarin, and immersing himself ever deeper into the Bible and prayer. His ship arrived in Shanghai, one of five "treaty ports" China had opened to foreigners following its first Opium War with England. Almost immediately Taylor made a radical decision (as least for Protestant missionaries of the day): he decided to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a pigtail (as Chinese men did). His fellow Protestants were either incredulous or critical. Taylor, for his part, was not happy with most missionaries he saw: he believed they were "worldly" and spent too much time with English businessmen and diplomats who needed their services as translators. Instead, Taylor wanted the Christian faith taken to the interior of China. So within months of arriving, and the native language still a challenge, Taylor, along with Joseph Edkins, set off for the interior, setting sail down the Huangpu River distributing Chinese Bibles and tracts. When the Chinese Evangelization Society, which had sponsored Taylor, proved incapable of paying its missionaries in 1857, Taylor resigned and became an independent missionary; trusting God to meet his needs. The same year, he married Maria Dyer, daughter of missionaries stationed in China. He continued to pour himself into his work, and his small church in Ningpo grew to 21 members. But by 1861, he became seriously ill (probably with hepatitis) and was forced to return to England to recover. In England, the restless Taylor continued translating the Bible into Chinese (a work he'd begun in China), studied to become a midwife, and recruited more missionaries. Troubled that people in England seemed to have little interest in China, he wrote China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. In one passage, he scolded, "Can all the Christians in England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [in China] are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly?" Taylor became convinced that a special organization was needed to evangelize the interior of China. He made plans to recruit 24 missionaries: two for each of the 11 unreached inland provinces and two for Mongolia. It was a visionary plan that would have left veteran recruiters breathless: it would increase the number of China missionaries by 25 percent. Taylor himself was wracked with doubt: he worried about sending men and women unprotected into the interior; at the same time, he despaired for the millions of Chinese who were dying without the hope of the gospel. In 1865 he wrote in his diary, "For two or three months, intense conflict … Thought I should lose my mind." A friend invited him to the south coast of England, to Brighton, for a break. And it was there, while walking along the beach, that Taylor's gloom lifted: "There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him." His new mission, which he called the China Inland Mission (CIM), had a number of distinctive features, including this: its missionaries would have no guaranteed salaries nor could they appeal for funds; they would simply trust God to supply their needs; furthermore, its missionaries would adopt Chinese dress and then press the gospel into the China interior. Within a year of his breakthrough, Taylor, his wife and four children, and 16 young missionaries sailed from London to join five others already in China working under Taylor's direction. Strains in the organization Taylor continued to make enormous demands upon himself (he saw more than 200 patients daily when he first returned) and on CIM missionaries, some of whom balked. Lewis Nicol, who accused Taylor of tyranny, had to be dismissed. Some CIM missionaries, in the wake of this and other controversies, left to join other missions, but in 1876, with 52 missionaries, CIM constituted one-fifth of the missionary force in China. Because there continued to be so many Chinese to reach, Taylor instituted another radical policy: he sent unmarried women into the interior, a move criticized by many veterans. But Taylor's boldness knew no bounds. In 1881, he asked God for another 70 missionaries by the close of 1884: he got 76. In late 1886, Taylor prayed for another 100 within a year: by November 1887, he announced 102 candidates had been accepted for service. His leadership style and high ideals created enormous strains between the London and China councils of the CIM. London thought Taylor autocratic; Taylor said he was only doing what he thought was best for the work, and then demanded more commitment from others: "China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women," he wrote. "The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." Taylor's grueling work pace, both in China and abroad (to England, the United States, and Canada on speaking engagements and to recruit), was carried on despite Taylor's poor health and bouts with depression. In 1900 it became too much, and he had complete physical and mental breakdown. The personal cost of Taylor's vision was high on his family as well: his wife Maria died at age 33, and four of eight of their children died before they reached the age of 10. (Taylor eventually married Jennie Faulding, a CIM missionary.) Between his work ethic and his absolute trust in God (despite never soliciting funds, his CIM grew and prospered), he inspired thousands to forsake the comforts of the West to bring the Christian message to the vast and unknown interior of China. Though mission work in China was interrupted by the communist takeover in 1949, the CIM continues to this day under the name Overseas Missionary Fellowship (International).

parenting is about treasuring

Everyone is looking for joy. Parents, this includes our children. The search for joy lies behind all of our kids’ desires. It informs and directs all of their hopes, feelings, and actions. It is the proverbial carrot hanging in front of our kids’ hearts. It’s why they make that face when you remind them that dessert belongs only to those who eat their vegetables, and why their world seems to hinge on having five more minutes of video-game time. Once we recognize joy’s formative power over our kids’ hearts, we are well on our way to knowing our children better and our role as parents better too. Stewarding Joy When God calls us to be fathers and mothers, he calls us to be stewards of our children’s joy. Which means that a lot of what we do centers on helping our joy-obsessed children find their greatest joy. Now, this might sound strange to many of us. Most parenting books and podcasts don’t spend a lot of time accentuating the influential power of joy in our kids’ lives. Yet, whether you see it or not, you are more than likely already stewarding your children’s joy toward some end. Just think about this week. What did you say to your daughter about her run-in with the school bully? What did you do when your middle child didn’t make the high school team? More than likely, you sought ways to replace their hurt with joy. And it doesn’t just have to be hurt that we exchange — we seek all the time to replace good with better, and better with best, such as when we tell our kids to power down their screens and pick up a book. These instincts show us that much of what we do as parents is driven by our innate commitment to help our kids find joy. This is a good thing, but it’s also where we can get into problems. Settling for Less The pursuit of joy itself is good. God created all of us to seek true and lasting joy because he knows that this search ultimately leads us to him. This is why Jesus uses parables to liken God and his kingdom to buried treasure and a beautiful pearl (Matthew 13:44–46; cf. Philippians 3:7–8). He knows we would sell everything to makes these priceless riches our own because of the happiness they promise us. Jesus then helps us see that the real treasure, and the real pearl of great price, is God and his kingdom. This is where joy ultimately resides, and making this joy our own is worth giving up everything. Pursuing joy, then, isn’t the problem. The problem is with where and how we find that joy, when we look outside of God for our delight. To be specific, the problem is with how sin twists our pursuit. Sin is, in many ways, simply misplaced or shortsighted joy. Sin works because it peddles counterfeit joys off as the real thing. Sin sets out to confuse and corrupt joy, and to make our hearts settle on anything other than God. This is exactly what the serpent did to our first parents in Genesis 3. He promised that the forbidden fruit was better than God and his promises. So, in taking the bite, Adam and Eve settled for a lesser, broken joy — a fruit that was good and delightful, but paled in comparison to the utmost good and perfect delight of knowing God as they once did (Genesis 3:5–6). So what does this have to do with parenting? Well, it redefines it. It means that God calls parents to more than just helping our kids discover any type of joy, anywhere. It means that God calls us to help show our children where and how they can find him , the very source and reason for every joy ever known (John 15:11; Psalm 36; Psalm 37:4). Parenting Redefined Now, if we let it, this can change everything about the way we raise our kids. For example, if we see ourselves as stewards of our kids’ joy, then our parenting finally has a destination. Everything we do — teaching, talking, commanding, loving, correcting, comforting — can be a step toward helping our children find their greatest joy in our great God (Psalm 16:11). This doesn’t change just our parenting strategies, however; it changes us as parents too. When God becomes the target of our children’s greatest joy, we no longer have to be. When we see every interaction with our kids through the lens of helping them find delight in God, our work as parents is bigger than just having well-behaved kids with perfect test scores. Which means we don’t have to be perfect moms and dads. Our calling is a better one. What we are called to do is lead our kids to joy in their perfect heavenly Father. And with that as our goal, we find freedom, and so do they. We are free to make mistakes, and so are they. We are free to live in God’s grace, and we want our children to live with us there too. Getting to the Heart How do we do this? How do we help our kids find their ultimate joy in God? Here are a few tangible ways to be good stewards of our children’s hearts. 1. Start with your own joy. Remember, everyone is looking for joy. Parents, this includes us. So before we can guide our kids’ hearts, we must first know the way ourselves. We as parents have the privilege to hold our kids’ hands on the way to our greatest joy. So before diagnosing your kids’ idols, make sure to face your own. Ask yourself, What have I put all my hope in today? What am I worshiping? What stands between God and my real joy? 2. Reshape the do’s and don’ts. If you are like me, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds as a parent. Sometimes we don’t have a good reason why we say no to our kids, and sometimes we say yes out of sheer pragmatism or exhaustion. But setting our sights on joy helps us recalibrate. Our do’s and don’ts should have distinct and eternal reasons behind them. We’re after more than behavior modification; we’re after our kids’ long-term happiness. Our commands and instructions don’t have to be speed bumps to our kids’ happiness; they can be signposts that point them to their ultimate joy. So take a moment before your yes or no and consider how your response will affect your kids’ search for joy. 3. Ask why . As your kids grow, teach them how to spot joy’s formative power in their lives. One of the best ways to do this is with the question why . “Why did you hit your sister?” “Why didn’t you study for that exam?” Now, of course, you’ll have to wade through their “I don’t knows” and “just becauses.” But when you do, you’ve helped them to drill down into their motives, where they can finally see how their joys affect their feelings and actions and begin to evaluate them rather than just be enslaved to them. 4. Make connections. One of the most important things we can do as parents is ask our kids what makes them happy, and then just listen. Getting a bead on your kids’ joy is like having an all-access pass to their hearts, and when you know what your kids love, you can help them put their loves in the right place. God isn’t in the business of simply removing our kids’ earthly joys, which means that shouldn’t be our business as parents either. Instead, God calls us to help connect our kids’ earthly and temporal joys to him, the divine and eternal one. So play basketball with your kids and, when you can, help them see how this earthly gift points to greater joys. Sure, Legos and American Girl dolls can become idols, but they can also pave the way to conversations that can help our kids hope in their heavenly Father. And when (not if) our kids seek joy through sin, we have the divinely given privilege to help them see they’ve actually sold joy short by seeking it outside of God and his ways.