Gentle and Lowly: A Review

Hey everyone, welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I finally have my office somewhat set up.

So I know some of you have been praying for me because I have so much going on. I don't talk about all of it but one of them is

I've been trying to do some repairs on my house and get moved in and I haven't had an office for like now three months almost, at least two.

So I haven't had like a central place to do podcasts and now I finally do. So this is my test run.

This is, hey, is this going to work? So let me know what you think. I might change some things in the background but this is kind of the background you're going to be, you can expect moving forward in the foreseeable future, as I do podcasts at least.

And I'm looking forward to having a place that I can just click a button and start recording.

It's been a challenge trying to do research, put PowerPoints together and then do recordings.

So I've been doing podcasts on my phone and anyway, this is much easier if I just have my setup.

I want to talk about something pretty short today and that is a book called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund.

This is a listener generated episode. Many of you reached out to me and said, John, can you talk about this?

And I think the reason is because people like Russell Moore endorsed it.

So there was this thought that maybe it has a social justice leaning in it or maybe there's something

I just can't see, but it's got some kind of a theme that's influencing me in some way towards that end.

And I'd say for those who asked this question, by the way, very good job being discerning and trying to just be on your guard because we do need to be on our guard.

I will say this though, just because Russell Moore endorsed something doesn't mean it's necessarily bad or you have to throw it out or you shouldn't participate.

I'll give you an example. Now maybe for some of you this doesn't work, but for me it does. Russell Moore likes

Johnny Cash a lot, or at least he says he does. Now some of Johnny Cash songs are blatantly against what

Russell Moore says he believes. I mean, Johnny Cash would be considered a Christian nationalist today. Johnny Cash, I mean, look,

Russell Moore just wrote this article against the Robert E. Lee statue. Johnny Cash wrote a song or sang a song called God Bless Robert E.

Lee. So, you know, I don't know that they're both, you know, Russell Moore and Johnny Cash had the same politics, but Russell Moore says he likes the music and I'm not going to go throw away all my

Johnny Cash CDs because I like Johnny Cash. So just because Russell Moore says he likes them, it doesn't mean we, you know, we just do the opposite.

Okay. I'm not saying anyone out there was saying that, but I have seen comments, not in this audience necessarily, but I've seen elsewhere

I've run into people who just automatically it's like, if someone they don't care for endorses or like something, they have to go the opposite direction.

And what I would say is if someone is a false teacher and they like something, maybe a little like a yellow flag should go up.

Hey, let's, let's ask questions about this. And that's exactly what many of you did. And so good job on that.

I would say that this book is, I don't think a heretical book or a book example of false teaching necessarily.

I will explain some questionable things in the book as we go forward. There's at the very least some yellow flags

I have, but I, and maybe I missed something by the way. So please put something in the info section.

If I miss something, let me know. But I did try to check right before I recorded this, I did try to check to see,

Hey, have any other conservative theological thinkers said anything about this? And the only thing

I could really find was that Grace to you did an article in the spring written by Jeremiah Johnson, who's

Phil Johnson's son, I believe. And so you have Dane Ortlund writing Gentle and Lowly.

His dad is Ray Ortlund, who writes for the Gospel Coalition. We've critiqued some of his out there wacky ideas that could be another reason.

Some people wanted me to look at this. And then you have Phil Johnson's son doing the critique.

So it looks like it just interesting, the second generation here kind of at least reflecting some of the views

I think their fathers probably have, but the Grace to you article was deleted and I can't find it.

I have not been able to read it for the life of me. I cannot find it anywhere. So I haven't looked at it.

I don't really know what it said other than I saw a few screenshots on Twitter. And from what the little I saw,

I think I'm probably in general agreement with the Grace to you article. I don't know though, I haven't read it completely, but I am gonna give you some of my just personal and fresh insights that I have into this.

I did listen to it on Audible as I was doing work on the house. So I didn't take notes. I wasn't being as careful as I am with some other books, but I was looking for general themes, trying to think through red flags if they came up or yellow flags.

And I have some general thoughts to share with you and then I'll illustrate some of this with some quotes.

So general concerns. The thesis of the book seems to be that if you drill down deep into the heart of Jesus and you see who he fundamentally is at a very basic level, like the real authentic Jesus, you're gonna find gentle and lowly.

And this is the heart of Jesus. And there's almost an, it's not even almost, there is an unspoken kind of,

I don't wanna get into my second critique yet, but my second critique is that it's kinda sloppy, so it's hard to nail them down.

But what it seems to be is that God's character, Jesus' character is holiness and you can have wrath there and anger against sin and of course love, but all these different things.

But when you get into his heart, that's almost something different. There's a separation made between the heart of Jesus, who he most naturally is, if you peel back the onion, this is what you find, versus his character, which his nature, his character isn't exactly as fundamental to who he is.

Now there's no way that it says this, but that's the sense you get as you read it. And I'll give you,

I think I have some quotes written down that show you why you pick up that sense. That can be a dangerous thing, if you really take that away, if you prioritize this gentle and lowly aspect of Christ over everything else.

And even in the passage, Matthew 11, we find, and this verse is true, we find this verse, but it's in a context.

And the context doesn't, I don't know that it supports necessarily the thesis that I just gave to you.

So Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary, burdened, I'll give you rest.

My yoke is, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy, my burden is light. Absolutely true, precious truth, we need that truth.

But if you read the rest of the passage, let me just go a few verses back. Jesus denounces the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, Tyre and Sidon, he said would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes if the miracles that were performed in Bethsaida and Chorazin were performed there.

It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than it will for those cities where Jesus had performed his miracles.

So Jesus is rejected and he pronounces judgment on the cities rejecting him. Capernaum, same thing.

You will be brought down to Hades, for if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

So all these judgments he brings against them, harsh judgment, this side of Jesus, this character.

And then he says, Jesus says, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for this was well pleasing in your sight. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the

Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son. And here's the key, those to whom the

Son chooses to reveal him. There's exclusivity here. This is not a popular side of Jesus here.

Jesus is saying, I reveal to people who my

Father is. And I'm selective about it. The very next passage, the very next verse is, come to me all you who are weary and burdened.

So the weary and the burdened, there's a contrast here. You have the judgment being poured out on these cities that rejected him.

And then you have those who are weary and burdened, and Jesus is saying, I'll give you rest. Who's Jesus going to show the

Father to? The humble. And there's a bigger principle here, or it's an illustration of a greater principle, that God gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud.

He resists the proud, grace to the humble. You see this over and over in Scripture. And so, if what you say is that, well, at the core level, fundamental to who

God is, he gives grace to the humble, you'd say, yeah, that's right. That is exactly, but God also resists the proud.

That's also fundamental to who God is. And so Jesus says here,

I am gentle and humble in heart. And that phrase is what's taken by Dane Ortlund is to basically make the case that that is who

Jesus is on a fundamental level. And it's very, well,

I'm going to sort of slide into my second critique here, general critique. It's very vague, the way that he, some of the language he uses in the book.

So it's hard to pin down. It's hard to show if there's false teaching. It's just, because that is very true.

It's very encouraging. We need that encouragement right now. Christians need it, that there's no judgment in Christ. Nothing can separate you from his love if you are in Christ.

But this is the fundamental thing about Christ. The other stuff isn't quite as important or it's there, it's important, but it's just, it's not the heart of Jesus.

So therefore it's not as important. That's the thing. It's so murky, the way that it's written.

It's just not written well. I wouldn't recommend it just for that. I don't think it's written well. One of the reasons it's not written well, and this is my third, critique, general critique is

I think because it is very emotionally driven. It comes across, I think some friends of mine, a few friends of mine on the internet would maybe say it's effeminate.

That's probably the word they would use, but, and I'll show you some of the words, but there's a lot of almost semi -romantic kind of ways of describing the relationship between Christ and Christians.

And I think because it is so, it's so emotionally driven, it's not a precise theological book.

It is, it is a self -help book. Okay. Let's be honest. This book is a self -help book. And so there's nothing necessarily wrong, but you do,

I do see dangers for man -centeredness. I do see dangers for just sloppiness. And I do see an emphasis that I think is a little lopsided.

And here's my fourth general critique. The reason I think it's lopsided in part, and the reason it feels a little unusual and why

Russell Moore likes it is I think because right now, as we face on a macro level, like bird's eye view here, we face tyranny from the government.

So threat from without, and then from within the social justice movement is kind of ripping Christianity apart everywhere.

This is not necessarily the main thing that you would think would be popular under these circumstances.

You think a book about maybe Jesus being a brave, courageous, figure who decided to make the greatest sacrifice of all time and deprived himself of his own attributes, the ones that his non -communicable attributes that he had as being

God. He chose to humble himself as Philippians talks about, and then delayed gratification, doing it for a higher purpose, doing it for the

Lord. We need books about that. We need that emphasized. We have an issue right now with people being unwilling,

I think. I'm not seeing this in evangelicalism, people talking about sacrificing, people talking about the threats that we have right now and how hard it's going to be.

And look, we need men who have courage, who don't care if they're rejected from the cool kids table.

I'll say, look, I'm rejected from the cool kids table, even in conservative evangelicalism. And that's fine.

There's a higher purpose, and we need more of that. I think some podcasts, like A .D.

Robles would be a good example of this. I don't know how many times I heard his name when I was traveling to different churches. There's a bunch of smaller podcasts even out there.

I'm thinking of other names that just guys who are courageous or at least they're talking about courage.

There's kind of a masculine, I don't know if it's a neo -masculine movement or what it is, but they're starting to become semi -popular on podcasts.

But the Christian publishing industry isn't doing anything with this theme. The music industry in Christianity, not doing anything with this theme.

And it's the theme right now you'd think would be front and center because of the threats, because of the sacrifices people are already having to make.

And it's just not there. And so In Its Place is a popular book like this. In fact, I was just in a church recently visiting, it's not a church that I was at speaking, it was a different church.

I was there for a wedding, but I noticed that inside the church office was just stacks of these books,

Gentle and Lowly. Why is that so popular right now? Because we do need that. We do need to know that Jesus accepts us.

He receives us, He loves us, He takes away our sin. We can't do anything to separate His love from us.

But at the same time, why is that the emphasis? Why is that the big theme right now?

Maybe because of trials in 2020. But the thing is, this is popular all over the place.

This has been popular for a long time. This is a repackaged cycle of popularity with this theme.

So it's not very unique in my opinion, but it's always been popular.

And I think a Russell Moore can like it, because it doesn't contradict any of his beliefs. And this is the

Jesus that people want to portray to the watching world. It's a more attractive

Jesus. If you really emphasize that, if you really say at the core deep level, this is really who He is, the other stuff isn't quite as important.

And so I think this book helps accomplish that to some extent. Some quotes for you from the book.

Page 30. This is kind of weird, but it says, and if the actions of Jesus are reflective of who He most deeply is, there it is, most deeply is, we cannot avoid the conclusion that it is the very fallenness which

He came to undo that is most irresistibly attractive to Him. Jesus is not attracted to our sin.

Okay. I think the point Dane Ortlund, I'm giving him benefit of the doubt, he's trying to make is that Jesus' mission was to take away our sin.

And because of His love and His duty, probably before the

Father as well, He comes and His sin, the sin that we have is something

He's, because of the purpose of His mission, that is the reason that we have a connection to Him.

And we love Him and we worship Him is because of what He's done for us in taking away our sin.

At the same time, someone who believes in false teaching, or someone who really just knows how to read and doesn't know theology that well, man, they could come away with some really bad ideas, some false teaching from this if they wanted to.

Because it does seem to indicate that Jesus is somehow attracted to, irresistibly attracted to our fallenness.

So it's just strange. It's just very strange to me to phrase something that way.

But then it illustrates what I was talking about earlier too with this very emotional language that's almost romantic, irresistibly attracted.

I mean, this is the kind of thing I think in a romantic relationship, generally I think a female wants to hear this more.

That is like, hey, darling, even your flaws are attracted to me.

I'm so irresistibly attracted to even the things that you think are flaws. But actually our sin is very disgusting to Jesus.

And He came to defeat it, to rid the universe of it by taking it on Himself and bearing the punishment for it.

So anyway, it's an interesting quote to say the least.

Second, verse 29. In speaking specifically of the heart of Christ and the heart of God in the

Old Testament, we are not really on the wrath -mercy spectrum anyway. So he's discussing this whole thing about, hey, is it wrath?

Is it mercy? Who is God? And he says, look, if you're talking about the heart of Christ, you're not talking about wrath -mercy.

His heart is His heart. That is a sentence in the book. His heart is His heart. It's brilliant stuff.

When we speak of Christ's heart, we are not so much speaking of one attribute alongside others. We are asking who

He most deeply is, what pours out of Him most naturally. So this is what I was talking about earlier, that there seems to be almost a separation between the attributes and character of God and then

His heart. And do we see this in Scripture? I don't see this.

His heart, His attributes, who He is, what He does, it's all part of Jesus, part of God.

So this, I think, is convenient for the Russell Moores of the world. They can kind of like, yeah, there's that wrath stuff.

But we're really most concerned about the really important thing to emphasize, which is the heart of Jesus.

And that's not wrath. It's not wrath -mercy. Don't even think about that.

Just think about His gentleness, His lowliness. Here's another quote from page 186.

And what does the Gospel say? It puts the following words in each of our mouths. The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me.

His heart for me could not sit still in heaven. There's that. I don't find that in Scripture.

His heart for me could not sit still in heaven. This is written from, it sounds like the perspective of a damsel in distress.

You know, the night, He just couldn't rest, knowing that I was in distress. His heart was just tugged because of His love for me.

Even my flaws. You know, this is the kind of thing that you would see in a fairy tale.

But you don't really see that in Scripture. But this is the language that's given. And I would be so curious.

No one's probably done a study, but I'd be so curious to see, okay, how many groups that are like female Bible studies are using this book as opposed to men's groups.

I think it probably would be overwhelmingly women's Bible studies.

Page 187. The gospel is the invitation to let the heart of Christ calm us into joy. For we've already been discovered, included, brought in.

We can bring our up and down moral performance into subjection to the settled fixedness of what

Jesus feels about us. There's so much of that I like. There's so much of that that's true.

There's so much of that that we need. We need to know that we're accepted by Christ. Nothing can separate us.

But why does it rub me wrong at the end of what Jesus feels about us?

I mean, our feelings change so much. And it's just not very rooted.

It's so vague and just, again, it just feels romantic instead of,

I would say, the very deep love God has for us where he chose to sacrifice that agape love.

Anyway, I don't see this as very biblical language. But the book is riddled with this kind of language.

And so we really need right now the courage to stand up. And I'm not seeing that that's a popular theme in today's evangelicalism.

This is the theme, though. This more feminized theme is what we see repackaged over and over and over.

And so on a macro level, it does concern me. That being said, I don't know that I would say that there's false teaching.

There's just really kind of vague stuff in here. And there's really just, I don't know.

If there is false teaching, it's kind of hidden. It's hard to figure out exactly where it is because it's not precise.

So that's my take on Gentle and Lowly. If you disagree or think I missed something, please let me know in the comments section.

Maybe I did miss something. And maybe if someone could send me that article by Jeremiah Johnson because I can't find it anywhere.

And I do not know why Grace Du got rid of it. I really wanted to read it. Anyway, more coming later this week.

I'm trying to think what announcements. I know I got some. I have to have some announcements out there. I'll say this because there are some things coming up that I do need to talk about, but not quite yet.

But I'll say this. For those who have watched the American Monument documentary on YouTube, if you liked it, please write a comment.

Just say you liked it and share it. Share it with people that you know would appreciate it. Share it on your social media platforms.

We really want to get the word out about this. It is increasing. Every day there's more people viewing it, but it's kind of a slow burn.

It's kind of going out there slowly. I haven't advertised it anywhere, but I am looking into that possibly doing some advertising.

I won't do it with Facebook, though, and I won't do it with Twitter. I won't do it with any of those conventional social media platforms that a lot of other

Christians, including conservatives, ironically are using to promote their stuff. No, we're not going to do that.

But I am looking into some alternatives to that possibly. And then the other thing is if you like the book,

Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, please leave a review on Amazon. And I know it might take a minute out of your day, but it does make a difference.

Even if you got it from me, leave a review on Amazon. It does help. I am most likely, if I can get to it,

I think I can, going to be announcing a special on some books later this week. Anyway, stay tuned for that.

But please, leave a review. Share it with the people you know. I think it's going to be a good

Christmas gift. What I've tried to do with that book is really compact. It's short, but it's compact.

There's so much in it. There's so many end notes. I've tried to put everything essential to understanding the social justice movement and responding to it in one book.

And I think from what people have told me, even on the road, is that, hey, John, you did it. This is the book.

If I had to recommend one book about social justice and how to respond from a Christian perspective, it would be this one.

And that's an honor for me to be hearing things like that, because that's exactly what I was going for. So please check it out.

Christianityandsocialjustice .com. If you don't have a copy, you can get it on Amazon, the Kindle version. I will be recording at some point an audible version.

We have determined that. It's just a matter of when. And I will be putting out a study guide, too. So if you have the book and you read the book and you want your church to know about it, there will be a study guide eventually coming out as well.

those are my announcements. I hope this was helpful for you. God bless, and bye now.