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About the Book
"The Purpose of Failure" by Zac Poonen explores the concept of failure from a religious perspective, highlighting how failure can be a tool for growth, learning, and spiritual development. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding and embracing failure as part of life's journey and encourages readers to see failure as an opportunity for transformation and character building.
William Still
I recently read Dying to Live (Christian Focus, 1991), the autobiography of Scottish pastor William Still. I became interested in Still after reading his book The Work of the Pastor earlier this year.
The first half of Dying to Live tells about Still’s early years into young adulthood and his beginning in pastoral ministry. Still had an unsettled childhood. His parents were separated in his early years, and his father was an alcoholic. He was a sickly child who took refuge in music and became an accomplished pianist. He was part of the Salvation Army as a young man but then entered ministry in the Church of Scotland and served at the Gilcomston Church in his hometown of Aberdeen from 1945-1997.
The second half of the book deals with various aspects of Still’s pastoral ministry. Still was an evangelical. In his early ministry he worked with Billy Graham, Alan Redpath, and others in evangelistic events. With time, however, he moved away from what he came to call “evangelisticism” to develop a solid expositional ministry.
Still faced his fair share of hardships during the course of his ministry. When he moved away from pragmatic evangelistic methods, for example, more than two hundred people stopped attending his church almost overnight. In the preface, he references Martin Luther’s observation that there are three things which make a minister: study, prayer, and afflictions. He observes, “He who is not prepared to make enemies for Christ’s sake by the faithful preaching of the Word will never make lasting friends for Christ, either” (p. 93).
He describes one particularly difficult controversy early in his ministry when he confronted a group of disgruntled elders. At the end of one Sunday service, he read a statement confronting these men, which ended, “There you sit, with your heads down, guilty men. What would you say if I named you before the whole congregation? You stand condemned before God for your contempt of the Word and of his folk.” He adds, “The moment I had finished, I walked out of the pulpit. There was no last hymn—no benediction. I went right home. It was the hardest and most shocking thing I ever had to do in Gilcomston” (p. 124). That same week seven of his elders resigned and Still was called twice before his Presbytery to answer for the controversy. Yet, he endured.
Still maintains that in light of the unpleasantness one will face in the ministry that the minister of the Word must possess one quality in particular: “…I would say that this quality is courage: guts, sheer lion-hearted bravery, clarity of mind and purpose, grit. Weaklings are no use here. They have a place in the economy of God if they are not deliberate weaklings and stunted adults as Paul writes of both to the Romans and to the Corinthians. But weaklings are no use to go out and speak prophetically to men from God and declare with all compassion, as well as with faithfulness, the truth: the divine Word that cuts across all men’s worldly plans for their lives” (p. 140).
Still was a pioneer in several areas. First, he developed a pattern of preaching and teaching systematically through books of the Bible at a time when this was rarely done. He began a ministry of “consecutive Bible teaching” starting with the book of Galatians in 1947, calling this transition from “evangelisticism to systematic exposition … probably the most significant decision in my life” (p. 191).
He was also a pioneer in simplifying and integrating the ministry of the church. After noting how youth in the church were drifting away, even after extensive involvement in the church’s children’s ministry, Still writes, “I conceived the idea of ceasing all Sunday School after beginners and Primary age (seven years) and invited parents to have their children sit with them in the family pew from the age of eight” (p. 171). He laments “the disastrous dispersion of congregations by the common practice of segregating the church family into every conceivable category of division of ages, sexes, etc.” (p. 173).
Dying to Live is a helpful and encouraging work about the life and work of the minister and is to be commended to all engaged in the call of gospel ministry. As the title indicates, Still’s essential thesis is that in order to be effective in ministry the minister must suffer a series of deaths to himself (cf. John 12:24). On this he writes:
The deaths one dies before ministry can be of long duration—it can be hours and days before we minister, before the resurrection experience of anointed preaching. And then there is another death afterwards, sometimes worse than the death before. From the moment that you stand there dead in Christ and dead to everything you are and have and ever shall be and have, every breath you breathe thereafter, every thought you think, every word you say and deed you do, must be done over the top of your own corpse or reaching over it in your preaching to others. Then it can only be Jesus that comes over and no one else. And I believe that every preacher must bear the mark of that death. Your life must be signed by the Cross, not just Christ’s cross (and there is really no other) but your cross in his Cross, your particular and unique cross that no one ever died—the cross that no one ever could die but you and you alone: your death in Christ’s death (p. 136).
Heaven Will Be Better Than Eden
When we read about the garden of Eden in Genesis 1 and 2, we can’t help but feel drawn to its beauty and abundance and innocence. It must have been wonderful to live in such a pristine environment, with every need met, to experience an intimate marriage full of delight in each other, and to have a satisfying sense of purpose in ruling over God’s creation together. In fact, we often hear people talk about the future in terms of a return to, or restoration of, Eden. But to speak of the new creation in terms of a restoration of Eden is actually a reduction of what God has planned for his people and for his world. Eden was never intended to be the end. It was always headed somewhere — somewhere even more glorious: new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1–2). Rather than thinking of Eden in terms of perfection, we should think of it in terms of potential. Eden was unspoiled, but it was also unfinished; it was unsullied, but it was also incomplete. As Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied, more offspring in the image of God would come to glorify God by enjoying him forever. As they worked and kept the garden, the boundaries of Eden would expand, and the glory of their royal rule would increase. Just as Eden was not yet all that God intended the home he shared with his people to be, so Adam and Eve were not yet all that God intended his people to be. They were sinless, but they were vulnerable to temptation. They were alive, but they were vulnerable to death. They were made in God’s image, and crowned with a measure of his glory, but they weren’t yet as glorious as God intended them to be. If they obeyed God regarding the forbidden tree, they would be able to eat of the tree of life and enter into the unending, glorious life promised by the tree of life. But, of course, that’s not what happened. Garden Gone Wrong “Rather than thinking of Eden in terms of perfection, we should think of it in terms of potential.” When Satan slithered into Eden in the form of a serpent, Adam did not crush his head then and there but listened to and obeyed him. So rather than extending the boundaries of Eden, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. Rather than more fully sharing the glory of the image of God, the image of God in them became marred. Rather than entering into the endless Sabbath rest, they were plunged into the restlessness of the wilderness of this world. But God’s plan for his people and the place he intends to share with them could not be hindered by human sin. God’s plan for his creation was then, and remains now, to establish his kingdom in a new creation, ruled by his Son and his Son’s bride who will share his glory and enjoy his presence in an eternal Sabbath rest. So why does this plan matter? Why does it matter that we understand that God’s original and still-in-place plan always has been headed toward an escalation of the excellencies of the original Eden? Understanding Eden orients us toward a better home. Sometimes we get sick of this world, and we find ourselves very homesick for the next. But what we long for is not merely a return to Eden. Eden was beautiful, but it wasn’t secure. Evil made its way into Eden and brought ruin with it. The new creation, where we will make our home forever, will be completely secure. “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false” (Revelation 21:27). It will be a vast garden city, filled with a “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). As the bride of Christ, we will share this home with our perfect Bridegroom. We won’t just hear his sound in the garden (Genesis 3:10); we “will see his face” (Revelation 22:4). Understanding Eden compels us to be joined to the true Adam. The first Adam failed in the work God gave him to do. Jesus, the second Adam, accomplished the work he was given to do, declaring from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). The first Adam failed to obey regarding a tree. Jesus obeyed regarding the tree of Calvary. The first Adam failed to love and protect his bride. But Jesus loved his bride by giving himself up for her. Understanding the failure of Adam in Eden compels us to take hold of the true Adam, Jesus. We all are born connected by our shared humanity to the first Adam, physically alive but spiritually dead. Unless something supernatural happens, we remain spiritually dead. It is when our eyes are opened to the beauty of Christ, and we respond in repentance and faith, that something supernatural does happen. We become joined to Christ by faith so that we are made spiritually alive with his life. Understanding Eden fills us with anticipation for future glory. To be joined to the risen Christ is to have the newness and glory and life of the greater Eden breaking into our lives in the here and now. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We find that the glory of the future transforms our sense of shame now. A settled sense of the security of the future soothes our fear of death now. A growing sense of our identity as citizens of heaven changes how we see ourselves now. Truly taking in the love relationship we’re going to enjoy forever warms our hearts toward Christ now. “We’re looking forward to the consummation of all that Eden was intended to be.” But the glory we experience now is nothing compared with the glory to come. One day Christ is going to come and call us to rise from our graves. He’s going to give us resurrected, glorified bodies that are fit for living forever with him. We’ll experience all that God has planned, and been preparing, to share with his people from the very beginning. We’re not merely looking forward to a restoration of what Eden once was. Instead, we’re looking forward to the consummation of all that Eden was intended to be. Jesus, the true Adam, our glorious Bridegroom, the Seed who crushed the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), will not fail to lead us into all that God is preparing for us — a home even better than Eden. Article by Nancy Guthrie
