Latest / Reformed Thinking / Rooted in Grace: John Newton’s Enduring Tenderness and the Truth Spoken in Love

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Rooted in Grace: John Newton’s Enduring Tenderness and the Truth Spoken in Love · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of absolute
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precision. It feels like, I don't know,
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like engineering. Right.
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Yeah, very clinical. Yeah, if you fall and break your
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arm, you go to the hospital, they take an X-ray, and the
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doctor puts that film up on the light board.
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You see the black background, the solid white bone, and right
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there in the middle a jagged line.
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The doctor just points to it and says there's the problem.
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It's a completely binary situation.
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The bone is broken, or it doesn't.
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It's a clean line of sight, and the solution is straightforward.
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You set the bone, you put on a cast, and well, you wait.
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And that is comforting. We like things to be visible.
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We like things to be categorized with clear solutions.
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But then you step out of the physical realm and into the
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world of human suffering. You step into pastoral care and
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suddenly that X-ray machine is broken.
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Entirely broken. We find ourselves looking at a
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landscape of the human heart that is honestly incredibly
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murky. People do not come with an X-ray
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showing precisely where their soul is fractured.
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No, they don't. It is the absolute definition of
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diagnostic Muddy Waters. A person's suffering is tied up
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in their history, their biology, their theology, their
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environment, everything. So today we're taking a deep
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dive into a massive historical paradox.
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We're looking at the life of John Newton.
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Now for the listener, you probably know that name.
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He lived from 1725 to 18 O 7. And you know, he's most famous
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for writing the hymn Amazing Grace.
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Which everyone knows. Right.
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But our mission today is not to look at his songwriting.
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We are dissecting his legendary habitual tenderness in pastoral
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care. And we are looking at where that
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specific tenderness actually came from.
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Yeah, because it is fascinating. Yes, because this analysis is
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going to dismantle a very common modern assumption.
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There's this widespread cultural idea that strict, rigid
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theological doctrine makes a person harsh.
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Yeah, that's the stereotype. The assumption is that if you
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hold theology with sharp edges, you will inevitably use those
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edges to cut people. And conversely, the thought
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goes, that softening the truth or blurring those theological
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lines is the only way to be a loving person.
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We see this argument constantly today, don't we?
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I mean, the pragmatists and the architects of the seeker
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sensitive movement often argue that to win the lost and to
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comfort broken people, you have to soften the edges of God's
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sovereignty. You have to downplay the
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absolute depravity of man. You have to mute the thundering
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demands of God's holy law. The logic goes, harsh doctrine
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equals a harsh environment. But our goal today is to show
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you how resolute, unyielding Calvinist theology, specifically
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the doctrines of sovereign grace, actually created the most
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tender, patient pastor imaginable.
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It is so counterintuitive for a lot of people.
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It really is. So I want to ask you, the
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listener, a question. Have you ever felt forced to
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choose between defending objective truth and being a
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compassionate friend? Have you ever felt like you had
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to sacrifice one of those to keep the other?
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I think a lot of people feel that tension.
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Well, this historical look at Newton's life offers a biblical
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blueprint for holding both perfectly.
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But to grasp the theology, we first have to establish the man
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himself. We need to lay out the dramatic
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historical facts of the person who lived this out.
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We really do. Because his theology was not
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formed in some sterile classroom, it was forged in a
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very dark, brutal reality. So let's look at his origins.
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John Newton's background is 1 of unparalleled wretchedness.
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He lost his godly mother when he was just six years old, so.
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Young, yeah. He was left to a seafaring,
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irreligious father, and he just plunged into absolute moral
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ruin. The life of an 18th century
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sailor was unbelievably brutal, and Newton didn't just
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participate in it, he excelled in rebellion.
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He really did. He was pressed into Naval
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Service against his will, which was, let's be honest,
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essentially a form of legalized kidnapping by the British Navy.
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Yeah, impressment was awful and he hated authority.
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He actually deserted his post, which was a capital offense back
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then. He was caught, brought back,
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stripped in front of the entire crew, and whipped.
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And the physical devastation of a Royal Navy flogging was
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horrific. It was designed to break a man,
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but instead of breaking Newton into submission, it just
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hardened his hatred for God and humanity.
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And it gets much worse. He eventually found himself on
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the coast of West Africa. Through a series of terrible
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decisions and betrayals, he ended up working for an abusive
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slave trader, essentially living as a captive himself.
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Wait, he was basically enslaved? Yes, completely destitute, he
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was starving, sick with malaria, and survived only on scraps of
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food smuggled to him by African slaves.
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He was a broken man in the dirt. I mean, he called himself a
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daring blasphemer. He was actively hostile to the
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Gospel. He made it his personal mission
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to invent new ways to swear and mock the Christian faith.
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It's hard to imagine someone that far gone.
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And even after he was physically rescued from West Africa by a
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ship his father sent, his heart remained completely calloused.
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He eventually became the captain of a slave trading ship,
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actively participating in one of the most horrific industries in
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human history. It wasn't until a massive,
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violent storm in the North Atlantic on March 21st, 1748
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that his trajectory shifted. The ship was caught in a
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Tempest. It was taking on water faster
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than the pumps could clear it. Terrifying.
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The Timbers were breaking apart. Newton was tied to the pump for
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hours, freezing and exhausted, expecting to drown at any
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moment. And for the first time in years,
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surrounded by the roaring ocean, he cried out for mercy.
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And God answered that cry. That moment on the ship is
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critical because it explains everything that follows.
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It's the turning point. Spot on.
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After his conversion Newton left the sea trade and the guy was
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completely self-taught. He had no formal seminary
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training at all. Really.
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None. None.
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Yet he taught himself Greek, Hebrew and Syriac.
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He devoured the best divinity writers of the Puritan era.
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By the early 1760s he had become a strict 5 point Calvinist.
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He held firmly to the Westminster Standards.
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Let's back up a second and pause right there because I want to
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make sure the listener is completely tracking with us.
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When you say 5 point Calvinist or mention the Westminster
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Standards, those phrases can sound like a foreign language if
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you aren't steeped in church history.
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That's a fairpoint. Can you break down what that
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actually means in plain English? Absolutely.
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When we say he was a 5 point Calvinist, we're talking about a
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specific understanding of how salvation works.
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The core premise is that human beings are so corrupted by sin,
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a concept called total depravity, that they are
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completely incapable of saving themselves.
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Or even choosing God on their own.
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Right. Therefore, God must act first.
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God unconditionally elects or chooses to save people, not
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based on anything good in them, but solely based on His own
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mercy. And the other points kind of
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flow out of that. Yes, they do.
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It includes the belief that Christ's death was a specific
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victorious substitution for his people, that God's grace is
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irresistible when he calls a heart to wake up, and that those
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who are saved will be kept safe by God until the end.
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And the Westminster standards. The Westminster Standards are a
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set of historical documents from the 1640s that layout these
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massive, God centered doctrines with incredible precision.
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They stressed the eternal decree of God, meaning God is sovereign
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over every single atom and event in the universe.
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So Newton adopted this massive, heavy theology.
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Yet look at his pastoral life. When he arrived as the pastor at
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his parish in the town of Olney, he didn't lock himself in an
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ivory tower to write angry theological treatises.
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Not at all. He started a Thursday afternoon
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meeting for children. He gathered nearly 200 kids.
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He taught them the Bible and he wrote custom hymns for them.
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He even sang naval songs with the sailor boys.
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He showed incredible habitual kindness to everyone he met.
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People look at that and they see a contradiction.
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How does a man who believes in total depravity and the strict,
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unyielding sovereignty of God become so remarkably gentle with
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children and broken people? And I think an analogy helps
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frame this. Think of a massive ship's
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anchor. If you know nothing about
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nautical engineering, you look at a gigantic heavy iron anchor
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and you think if I tie that incredibly heavy thing to a
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boat, the boat is going to sink. Yeah, it just looks too heavy,
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too rigid. Exactly.
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Society assumes that massive, heavy, unyielding theological
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doctrine will sink a person's compassion.
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It will drag them down into harshness and rigid cruelty.
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That is the natural human logic, right?
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Heavy things sink. Right.
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But in reality, when a violent story hits the ocean, that heavy
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iron anchor is the absolute only thing that allows the ship to
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float peacefully on the surface. The heavy anchor cuts through
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the turbulent water, catches the solid rock on the ocean floor
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and keeps the ship from crashing into the jagged shoreline.
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I love that image. The heavy, unseen doctrine is
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the very thing that secures the gentle floating on the surface.
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The heavy doctrine anchored his soul, which freed him to be
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gentle on the surface of lice. He wasn't tossed around by every
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emotional wave because his theology was anchored in
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bedrock. It makes perfect sense when you
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look at it that way. So to understand how this heavy
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doctrine created such a gentleman, we need to look at
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the actual biblical blueprint Newton followed.
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We have to move from his biography to the scriptural text
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that governed his mind. The historical records point us
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specifically to the Ephesians standard.
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This is found in the New Testament book of Ephesians,
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chapter 4, verses 11 through 16. Let's look at the historical
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context of that text. OK, let's set the scene.
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The Apostle Paul is writing to a church in Ephesus, which was a
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major metropolis in Roman Asia. It was extremely wealthy,
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intensely religious, and famously devoted to the
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fertility goddess Artemis. If you read the historical
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account in Acts 19, you see the spiritual background vividly.
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The church in Ephesus was surrounded by paganism, dark
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magic, and intense public hostility.
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It. Was dangerous.
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Very dangerous. It was not a safe place to be a
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Christian. Converts were literally burning
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expensive books associated with occult practices.
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The local silversmiths who made their living selling idols of
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Artemis started a massive, violent citywide riot because
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the Christian message was threatening their trade.
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So confessing Christ in Ephesus meant facing extreme economic
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and physical pressure from the culture in that hostile
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environment. Paul writes to them and.
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What did he tell them? He says that the ascended Christ
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gives ministers to equip the Saints for maturity and then he
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gives the specific brilliant command.
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He tells them to speak the truth in love.
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The Greek phrase there is alathiantis in agape, which can
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be literally translated as true thing in love.
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Notice that Paul does not put truth in love in competition.
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He doesn't imagine a church that matures by having warm affection
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without solid doctrine. He also doesn't imagine a church
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that matures by having pristine doctrine without warm affection.
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Truth and love are not enemies. They're supposed to be
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permanently joined together. The text describes false
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teaching as a violent storm. It says immature believers are
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tossed back and forth like children by waves and winds of
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doctrine. And this is where the dynamic
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between truth and love is so beautiful.
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Love gives truth its holy manner.
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Truth gives love its holy content.
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You need both to survive the storm.
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And this specific text directly rebukes a lot of modern extremes
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we see today. It rebukes theological
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liberalism, which treats objective doctrine as entirely
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negotiable and defines love as simple blanket affirmation of
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whatever society wants. Yeah, just agreeing with
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everything. Exactly.
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It also rebukes harsh orthodoxy. Harsh orthodoxy is the person
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who can win every theological argument, who has all the right
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definitions but loses the aroma of of Christ in the process,
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because they are cruel. It also rebukes the pragmatic
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seeker sensitive models. These are the church models that
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prioritize marketing technique, lighting, and smoke machines
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over actual biblical truth. Definitely it rebukes mysticism,
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which chases novel emotional impressions or supposed new
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revelations while ignoring the written word.
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And it certainly rebukes the prosperity gospel, which
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promises health and wealth, a topic we'll get into later.
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But I have to stop here and push back on this idea of gentleness
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in the face of absolute danger. Go ahead, what's the hurdle?
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Well, if the stakes are as high as eternal life and death, why
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wouldn't harsh truths demand a harsh delivery?
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Think about it logically. If you are walking down the
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street and you see a house on fire and you know people are
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asleep inside, you don't walk up to the door, politely knock and
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whisper. Excuse me, I don't mean to
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bother you, but your curtains are combusting.
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No, you definitely don't. Right.
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You kick the door off its hinges.
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You scream at the top of your lungs.
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You drag them out by their collars if you have to.
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Human logic dictates that extreme urgency requires panic
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and force. How does Paul reconcile the
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urgency of eternal danger with the command to be gentle?
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That is the crucial question, and it pivots entirely on the
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mechanism of salvation. How does a person actually move
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from spiritual death to spiritual life?
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OK, lay it out. If salvation depended on human
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persuasion, if you could literally argue someone into
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heaven, then yes, you should scream.
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If human panic could wake a spiritually dead soul, you
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should panic. But human panic does not save.
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Christ saves that. Fundamentally changes the
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approach. It does.
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The heavy doctrine that anchors the ship is the reality that
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only the sovereign grace of God can raise a dead soul.
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Your vocal cords do not have the ability to resurrect the dead.
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And because human panic cannot save a soul, the minister is
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completely freed from using quarrelsome, forceful,
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manipulative tactics. This brings us to the specific
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pastoral command Paul gives to a young pastor named Timothy,
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which explains the precise mechanism behind this required
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gentleness. This is the Timothean command,
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Second Timothy chapter 2, verses 24 through 26.
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The setting here is intense. Paul is writing from a cold,
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damp dungeon under the Roman tyrant Nero.
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He's on death row, basically. Yeah, he's facing gangrenous
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false teachers who are actively upsetting the faith of the
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Church. He's expecting to be executed at
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any moment. The natural fleshly response to
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that kind of intense opposition, especially when you're facing
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death, is to fight fire with fire, to become pugnacious,
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bitter, and harsh. But look at what Paul commands
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Timothy to do instead. Paul says that the Lord's
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servant must absolutely not be quarrelsome.
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The Greek word used for the Lord's servant is doulos, which
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means a bond servant. It means you take your orders
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and your temperament entirely from your master, Christ.
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The word for quarrelsome is machestai, which literally means
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to engage in physical or verbal combat.
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Paul explicitly forbids a combative fighting spirit.
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Instead, Paul commands Timothy to be kind to everyone.
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The Greek word there is epios. Historically, in ancient Greek
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literature, that specific word was used to describe a nursing
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mother caring for her infant or a gentle physician handling a
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fragile patient. The Servant must correct
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opponents with meekness. And the reason why is the
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theological bedrock of everything we are discussing
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today. Paul says you correct them with
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gentleness because quote, God may perhaps grant them
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repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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We have to unpack that phrase. God may perhaps grant them
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repentance. This touches on the doctrine of
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total inability. The text says the opponent is
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captured by the devil to do his will.
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The opponent is not just confused, they are prisoner of
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war. They are spiritually blind and
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dead. Let's expand on that prisoner of
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war analogy. If you are trying to rescue
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APOW, who is locked inside a reinforced concrete cell, you
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don't stand outside the bars and yell at the prisoner for being
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trapped. That would be ridiculous.
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Right. You don't win an argument
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against the prisoner to get them out.
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The door is locked from the outside.
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Human logic, no matter how loud or how brilliant, cannot raise
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the spiritually dead or pick that spiritual lock.
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Only the sovereign grant of repentance from God can swing
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the door open. Think about what that doctrine
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does to a person's mindset. This belief completely kills the
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anxious, irritable need to win an argument.
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It takes the pressure off. Exactly.
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If you believe that conversion is a divine gift, a literal
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grant from God, you are freed from the frantic pressure of
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trying to argue someone into the Kingdom of heaven.
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It drains all the self righteousness out of the room.
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If you only understand the truth because God sovereignly granted
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you repentance, you cannot boast.
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You look at your theological opponent not as a target to be
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destroyed, not as an idiot to be mocked, but as a fellow captive
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who needs to be rescued by the same grace that rescued.
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You having laid out this biblical framework from
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Ephesians and Second Timothy, we can now look at how John Newton
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lived it out in the mud and dirt of daily life.
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Let's do it. The historical analysis
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identifies 3 specific tough roots in Newton's life that
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produced his gentle fruit. The first is the root of
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biblical realism. The root of realism.
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This answers a highly practical question.
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How does a minister apply this gentle patience when the people
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they are trying to help simply will not get better?
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When the counseling sessions drag on for years and the person
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keeps falling back into the same ditch.
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We need to look at another Greek word from Second Timothy and
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next to KCON. It means patiently bearing evil
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or holding up under bad treatment without retaliation.
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Newton understood this word deeply.
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He operated with a realistic cessationist view of the fallen
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world. Newton famously compared the
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world to bedlam. For the listener who might not
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be familiar with British history, bedlam was the
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colloquial name for the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, the
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infamous insane asylum in London.
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Not a pleasant place. No, in the 18th century, Bedlam
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was a place of utter chaos, screaming and confusion.
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Newton said that a physician walking through the wards of
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Bedlam does his best. He expects the patients to make
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noise. He expects them to pester him
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with nonsense and hinder his daily business.
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But the physician does his best and calmly gets through his
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rounds. That is not a pessimistic view
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of humanity. That is biblical realism.
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Newton knew that the curse of sin effects everything.
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It affects the mind, the body, and the emotions.
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He didn't expect a utopian church where everyone behaved
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perfectly. He knew the world was
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fundamentally broken. We see this most clearly in his
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pastoral care for the great poet William Cowper.
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Cowper lived in Olney and suffered from paralyzing,
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debilitating clinical depression.
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This wasn't just feeling a little blue.
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No, not at all. This was not just a season of
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sadness. For 12 years, Cowper sank into a
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darkness so deep that he genuinely believed he was
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eternally damned. He refused to attend church.
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He refused to leave the house. He attempted to take his own
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life multiple times. A lot of modern counseling
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models would lose patience with Cowper.
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They would try to aggressively argue him out of his depression
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or offer shallow moralistic platitudes.
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Just pray more. Just read your Bible more.
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Just choose joy. People say that all the time.
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But Newton didn't do that. He didn't demand instant,
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miraculous healing. He actually moved Cowper into
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his own home. For over a year.
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He walked pensively with him in his darkest shadows, day after
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day. The historical contrast here
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between Newton's realism and modern prosperity gospel
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promises is staggering. The prosperity approach promises
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that all diseases will be healed, all depression will
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vanish, and all bank accounts will be full if you just have
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enough faith. And that approach is incredibly
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cruel to the sufferer. When the healing delays or the
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depression remains, the prosperity gospel blames the
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sufferer. It tells them their faith is
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defective. It leaves vulnerable people
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feeling guilty, defective and abandoned by God.
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But Newton's solid, heavy theology allowed him to endure a
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friend's chronic, horrific suffering without becoming
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embittered against God and without becoming frustrated with
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his friend. He recognized the
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constitutional, physical nature of CalPERS affliction and
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provided steadfast, compassionate care.
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He bore the weight of his friends brokenness.
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This ability to bear with the brokenness of others was fueled
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by something else. Though you cannot maintain that
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level of patience on sheer willpower, it was fueled by
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Newton's constant active memory of his own brokenness.
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This introduces the second route.
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The root of humility. The rescued blasphemer.
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You can only handle the madness of Bedlam if you actively
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remember that you were once a raving patient there yourself.
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Newton never let himself forget his past.
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He even wrote his own epidaphrous tombstone so that no
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one else would forget it either. It's carved into the wall at
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Saint Mary Wollnoth Church in London.
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It begins John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and Libertine, a
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servant of slaves in Africa. Wow, putting that on your own
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tombstone? Yeah, he never got over the
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sheer shock that he was saved entirely by Grace.
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He knew exactly what kind of Wretch he was, and the
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historical records share 2 incredibly vivid analogies from
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Newton to illustrate how this specific humility shamed his
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interactions with difficult people.
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I love his analogies. The first is the analogy of the
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travellers in a pit, Newton said.
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Imagine a company of travelers who fall into a deep, muddy pit.
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They're all trapped. One of them manages to get a
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passing stranger to drop a rope and drawing out now that he is
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standing safely on the edge. He shouldn't be angry with the
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rest of the travellers for still being stuck in the pit.
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Makes sense. He shouldn't yell at them for
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falling in, he should look down at them with intense pity,
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knowing he was just in the exact same mud.
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The second analogy is even more striking.
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It's the analogy of the blind man.
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Newton said that a person whose eyes have been opened by Christ
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does not take a heavy stick and beat every blind man he meets
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just because they cannot see the sun.
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Those visuals perfectly illustrate how the doctrine of
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total depravity destroys fair arrogance.
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If you truly believe you are completely dead in sin, entirely
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blind, and saved only by unmerited grace, you simply
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cannot look down your nose at someone else who is still in
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sin. The ground is level at the fit
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of the cross. The author of the historical
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analysis we were reviewing brings up a fascinating contrast
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here. They point out modern
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sociological frameworks, things like critical race theory or
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intersectional studies. OK, this is an interesting
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parallel. The author points out that these
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secular models attempt to manufacture humility by
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assigning societal guilt based on group identity, historical
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power dynamics, or immutable characteristics.
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They divide humanity into rigid categories of oppressors and
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oppressed. The author contrasts that
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secular approach with Newton's theological approach.
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According to the analysis, secular frameworks try to
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enforce humility through assigned guilt, but Newton's
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theology levels the playing field entirely.
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True lowliness, in Newton's view, doesn't come from
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sociological categories. It comes from recognizing
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yourself as a cosmic traitor against a holy God who was
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spared solely by unmerited grace.
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Newton rejected shallow moralisms because he knew the
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absolute, terrifying depths of his own sin.
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Setting aside the debates over sociology, the theological point
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is razor sharp. I have to point out the tragic
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irony we see so often today. You see people who discover
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these thick, heavy theological books.
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They learn about sovereign grace, election, and total
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depravity, and instead of becoming humble, they
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immediately use those heavy books as the very sticks Newton
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warned about. Oh, we see this all the time.
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They use their pristine theology to beat the blind instead of
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pitying them. We sometimes call this the cage
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stage of theology, where a person is so oppressive they
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need to be locked in a cage until they calm down.
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It is a complete contradiction of the doctrines of grace.
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If your knowledge of sovereign grace makes you arrogant,
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combative and argumentative, you have fundamentally misunderstood
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the doctrine. You have taken the medicine of
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the gospel and turned it into a club to batter people.
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So humility prevents us from beating the blind, but what
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prevents us from panicking when the blind actively attack us?
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What happens when you are the one being targeted?
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That brings us to the final root, the root of Providence.
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Humility handles the past, Realism handles the present
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suffering, but Providence handles the unexpected attacks
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and the sudden interruptions of life.
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Let's look at Newton's interactions with a man named
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Thomas Scott. Scott was a neighboring
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clergyman, but his theology was completely liberal.
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He denied core Christian doctrines.
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For example, he denied penal substitutionary atonement.
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That's a big one to deny. Yeah, for the listener, penal
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substitutionary atonement is the biblical teaching that Christ
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took the exact penal consequence, the punishment for
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our specific sins upon himself on the cross.
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Scott denied this. He also openly mocked Newton's
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faith. He actively tried to provoke
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Newton into a bitter public debate.
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The 18th century was famous for nasty pamphlet wars.
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A lot of pastors would have taken the bait.
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They would have fired back with a fierce, sarcastic publication
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to defend their honor and prove their opponent wrong.
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But Newton flatly refused. Instead, when Scott neglected
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his own dying parishioners, Newton quietly went and visited
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them. Newton wrote Scott friendly,
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gentle letters. He avoided bitter controversy
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and simply presented the truth of the Gospel with warmth.
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Newton had two great analogies for this noncombative approach.
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The 1st is filling a bushel, he said.
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Imagine a man proposes to fill a bushel basket with tears, which
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are weeds, Newton said. Now if I can fill the bushel
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first with wheat, I shall defy his attempts.
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That's brilliant. He knew that the human heart is
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rarely changed by a combative, screaming debate.
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You have to establish the truth first.
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Fill the mind with the beauty of the gospel and there will be no
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room for the weeds of false doctrine.
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The second analogy is just as good.
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He compared his Calvinism to sugar in a cup of tea.
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He said you shouldn't hand someone a dry, hard lump of
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sugar and force them to swallow it whole.
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They'll choke on it naturally. Instead, you dissolve the sugar
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into the tea to sweeten the entire cup.
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He dissolved his heavy, strict theology into every
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correspondence, sweetening his words rather than choking his
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opponents with dry academic arguments.
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And this peaceful, steady confidence came directly from
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his belief in the exhaustive sovereignty of God over every
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single atom in the universe. He believed that even the
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violent assaults of his opponents were limited and
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directed by the infinite wisdom of God.
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Nothing was outside of God's control.
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He had this amazing peaceful view on daily interruptions.
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He said that a sudden knock at his study door is a message from
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God. It might be a lesson of
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instruction, or it might be a lesson of patience, but because
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it is ordained by God, it must be received with grace.
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Because Christ is King and governs all outcomes, the pastor
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can afford to be extraordinarily patient.
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You don't have to force the outcome through manipulation or
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anger, because the final outcome belongs entirely to the Lord.
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And the interaction with Thomas Scott is the ultimate proof that
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this strict, gentle theology works.
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Scott was eventually won over. The gentle, noncombative, steady
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approach of John Newton broke his hardened heart.
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It's amazing. Scott was converted.
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He embraced the very doctrines he used to mock, He became a
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solid preacher, and he actually succeeded Newton as the pastor
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at Olney. The wheat kept out the tares.
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It is a stunning historical vindication of the Apostle
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Paul's command. In second, Timothy Newton
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corrected his opponent with gentleness, and God granted
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Thomas Scott repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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So as we bring this deep dive to a close, let's summarize the
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core thesis for your own daily application.
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True pastoral care and frankly any interaction you have as a
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Christian requires a backbone of absolute steel and a heart
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totally melted by grace. Watering down the truth does not
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make you more loving. If you remove the necessary
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offense of the gospel, you are not being tender, you're just
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making yourself useless to a person who is trapped in a
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snare. The heavy iron anchor of solid
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doctrine is the only thing that secures the ship in the storm.
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It keeps you from crashing into the jagged rocks of harshness on
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one side and the deadly rocks of compromise on the other.
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You need roots that go deep into sovereign grace, so that the
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fruit you bear is a firmness that doesn't splinter under
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pressure, and a tenderness that doesn't fade when people fail
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you. Which leaves us with a final
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searching thought for you to Mull over on your own this week.
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If you find yourself constantly agitated, irritable and
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pugnacious in your defense of objective truth.
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If you were always looking for a fight, is it possible you have
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fundamentally misunderstood the very grace you claim to be
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defending? True grace never produces A
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cruel heart. A bruised Reed.
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He will not break. We leave you with that
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diagnostic question. Until next time, keep your
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anchor heavy and you're floating gentle.