A Challenging Proverb for the Upcoming Election Season

I’m often a fool.

Recently I read Proverbs 18 to glean some wisdom. I didn’t make it far before I realized how much I was lacking it. Proverbs 18:2 reads, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” The implications of how often I’m being foolish are far reaching. How often in a discussion with my spouse or a friend am I just counting down the seconds until I get to speak? How often is my listening just to get their ear in return? Sadly, when I am doing those types of things, I am being foolish. The good news of a proverb like this one is that if I step into the Gospel wisdom it offers, I have the opportunity to demonstrate the goodness of God by genuinely desiring to understand others. By the Spirit, I can choose to trust the wise Son of God and be led by the wise Spirit of God as I abide in him and let his Word abide in me. This is the only way I can become free from the foolish drive to only want to express my opinion.

One such season where many will find themselves only wanting to be heard, and not seeking to understand, is during the ramp up to the November 2024 election. Here are a couple of the truths I desperately need from this proverb, and some perspective around how God might use his submitted followers to chart a new path this election season and beyond.

The Heart of the Fool

“Fools take no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing their opinion” (Proverbs 18:2).

This is not difficult to grasp and we must face it head on. We are born foolish sinners and if it were not for the grace of God, we would stay dead in our foolish sin. Even once made alive together with Jesus, we are tempted to operate as our old foolish selves. When we do, one of the ways the old self manifests is through wanting to be heard, but not seeking to learn from others. The person who takes no pleasure in understanding has no intention of changing or learning. They want an audience. They don’t want genuine feedback or a challenging community, but instead fans, eager students, and people seeking to understand them.

This verse makes it plain that this is fundamentally an issue of the desire factory of the heart. Our wills do not find it desirable to understand others, but only to let out what is in them. A fool has a big mouth and no ears. But our God, who made us with two ears and one mouth, wants us to truly listen - not just so we can say we listened. He wants us to listen as an act of neighborly love and because we don’t know as much as we think we do. People need to be heard and we need to listen. But until our hearts change, in some ways we can’t help it. We only want to be heard instead of understanding others.

The Strategies of the Fool

Fools find great pleasure in their quest to express their opinions, yet in the duty of listening to others, they have no intention of listening to understand. With that comes the cunning ability to look like you care. A fool has a wicked desire factory, but they aren’t dumb. They know if they lead with that desire, no one will want to be around them. So fools like me are experts at listening and nodding and asking good questions, but all the while they are not listening to understand, but only to gain an audience for when it is their turn to speak. Friend, are you a fool? Do you have this strategy and others? Do you know that deep down you don’t care to understand others, but only to express your opinion? You're not alone! Know that before Jesus calls you to humble yourself, he died your foolish death in your place that you might become wise and humble in him.

Why We Need This in an Election Season

The implications of foolishness during this election season are anxiety-inducing. Its consequences will doom us to several months of people not really listening to each other. In many ways this can express itself in two kinds of people; the angry and the anxious apathetic hiders. The angry tend to be defined by those who share their opinions through angry outburst (both in person and online) with the goal of ripping down their opponents. On the other hand, many of us will be anxious and apathetic, not wanting to come out of our shell as we wait for the election cycle to be over.

The answer for both of these groups is wise listening and not foolish, fake listening. Why should we pursue wise listening? Because the next few months offer valuable windows into the beliefs and worlds of the people around us. Our friends and family won’t just be sharing who they will be voting for, but revealing personal things about their family or origin, what they believe it means to be human, and so much more!. We cannot learn all of these gems if we are too busy waiting for the opportunity to express ourselves or too apathetic and anxious to listen to others.

How God Could Use This in an Election Season

So, here's the good news for the followers of Jesus who want to glorify God in the coming months of hyper-charged non-listening.

We don’t have to hide for a few months and come back out. We don’t have to be a doormat and let people walk all over us. We can do some deep heart work now. That heart work is getting yourself to such a place before God that we don’t need our opinions heard. We don’t mind sharing them and we’re not scared. In fact, we’re proud of where God has led us uniquely through our stories and the Scriptures to be convinced of what would be best for your city and our country. That being said, we don’t need an audience. We can genuinely listen to our friends and coworkers. We can use phrases like the following:

“Tell me more about that.”

“When did you first begin to think that way?”

“How has your position evolved or become more concrete over time?”

“How has it been around your family now that your views are different?”

And if our hearts are genuinely free from needing to be seen, heard, and validated, something amazing can happen. In an environment where people will increasingly become aware that no one is listening to them to understand them but only in order to express their opinion, they might have a friend or coworker in you who seems to genuinely care and want to understand. You might become a friend like they’ve never had before. It’s almost like you’re a true neighbor.

A true friend. A wise friend. Not a fool.

The Power of Easter

Easter is one of those times of the year that the church gets really excited. At some level, I get it. It’s an awesome occasion. But at the same time, taking off the Pastor hat, I don’t get it. What’s the big deal? Isn’t Jesus always risen from the dead? Why do we need one day to specifically remember that? This year I’ve spent a little more time reflecting on that question, and here’s what my mind keeps being drawn to.

1.The power of the calendar

A calendar is a really powerful tool. If you see someone’s personal calendar, you can tell what they value most by what they spend their time doing. So it has been with the Christian Church since Jesus ascended over 2,000 years ago. During the season of Lent that leads up to Easter, we see the Church put the crucifixion and resurrection on the calendar. Perhaps many of the Protestants who would even read something like this article don’t practice Lent. That’s okay. This is not an article about Lent, per se. You see, the resurrection is a big deal precisely because of the brokenness that existed and required our Lord to suffer and die. So the season of Lent is a 40-day period in which the Church globally chooses to mourn, weep, fast, deny themselves, and anticipate the need for Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection. If the Lent season is a time for fasting and lamenting, Easter is the day for feasting and celebrating. We appreciate the resurrection and its celebration on Easter most when we remember the reason Christ needed to be resurrected. It’s because he was pierced for our transgressions on Good Friday. So quite literally, the Easter season is a 40-day period of intentional reflection out of 365 days in a year. 40 days of weeping and denial that should not be a mere tradition, but something more like participation.

2.The power of participation

Participation is getting in on the action. Unfortunately, many see Easter as primarily like a party thrown to remember an event. In some ways it is, but in other ways it is much more than that. Easter isn’t a party for a family member we know we are supposed to love, and obligingly get together to pay our respects to. No, Easter isn’t just Jesus’ story, it is the Church’s story. We too have died with Christ. We are now risen with him, and by the Spirit we walk with him. Therefore, Easter is the Church’s way of remembering that we are no longer the old Adam. The old is gone. The new has come. We are new in this Christ. In Jesus. In the new Adam. And to the extent that we enter into Christ’s journey to the cross and his subsequent resurrection, we will be sent back out in the Spirit’s power the way the original disciples were. If we participate with him in a death like his, surely we will participate in a resurrection like his.

3. The power of remembrance

There is nothing quite like memory to stir up one’s sense of identity. Whenever an athlete is having a rough stretch, they simply need to remember who they are, watch old clips, and remember the habits necessary to gain their old form. You see, memory can be a tool of great pain or great glory. Memory is glorious when it serves the purpose of anchoring one to his true self more and more. That’s what happens at Easter. We remember what Christ has done. We remember that our sin put Christ there. We remember that on the cross Christ chose to die for us. We remember him being taken away as Barabbas goes free. We see ourselves in the story. We see ourselves in Peter’s denial. We see ourselves in Thomas’ rash declaration that he will never believe. Easter isn’t about remembering we are the good guys. Easter is about remembering that Jesus has saved us at the cost of his life when we had nothing to offer, and we still don’t apart from him.

4. The power of the cross

There is nothing quite like the cross of Calvary, where Jesus bled and died for me. On that tree, Jesus died for the sins of the world. That tree is not about the good guys. It’s about the good guy. Trading places with the bad. The cross is not about good people promising to do better next time. The cross isn’t about progressing forward in our morality. The cross is about transformation from death to life. There is nothing else like it. There is no one like Jesus.

This Easter, on the actual day of celebration, go and meditate on the wondrous nature of the cross and the resurrection. Think about the lengths to which God has gone to show he wants to live with you. And may I be so bold as to suggest how to approach Easter next year? Don’t limit yourself to one day to get in on the action.

From Prayers to Planting: A Launch Story

“Why are you excited about the launch?”

It is a culmination of God faithfully guiding our family’s steps into his plan for us. 

It was the summer before the announcement of Port City Church, and my wife and I were living in Boston, MA, for an internship I had before my senior year of college. This time was especially difficult. Not only were we freshly married and thrown into a new environment, but we also had to make the tough decision of whether we wanted to move 15 hours away from our family and friends to Boston. After three months of prayer and hard conversations, we ended up agreeing that Boston was not the right move. However, that left us with no options to consider as I entered my senior year.

I distinctly remember one conversation from that summer though. It was about what kind of church we would want to attend once we inevitably moved from Greensboro. We both agreed that we wanted to be within a five-hour radius of our family. We wanted to be in a diverse area. We loved college ministry, so we wanted to be in a place with a strong college presence. Finally, we wanted to find a smaller church where the community would feel tight-knit. A few weeks after we returned to Greensboro, Port City Church was announced.

Upon researching Norfolk, we found it to be almost exactly five hours from my wife’s family and just three hours from my family. Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University’s sports and college presence radiate through the area. The population is incredibly diverse. Finally, what is more tight-knit than a start-up church?! 

It was as if the Lord was saying, “Here it is!” For that reason, we spent one evening talking about it, and we decided to go.

A year and a half later, we are two days away from launch. I said before in my answer that the launch is a culmination. That is because the goal is not for us to say that we did it but to point upward in recognition that this is a microcosm of God’s work. The launch is a continuation of God’s plan to use us to restore the world, Norfolk included. He is restoring while we encourage the discouraged person at work, while we make our appeal to atheists on a jog, while we are grabbing lunch with that apathetic neighbor in our complex. The launch announces to Norfolk that there are people ready to befriend them, serve them, and invite them into God’s family.