We have a culture that is image-focused and impulsive, which is contrary to disciplines that are required to produce character. Consequently, we have a society that does not produce many men and women of character. There are few individuals whose moral integrity make them stand out from the crowd and are worthy of emulation.

Over the past several months, I’ve taken a break from regular writing and blogging because I’ve been pondering the importance of Christian maturity. The apostle Paul himself stated that one of the central goals of his ministry was to “present every man complete in Christ” (cf. Colossians 1:28-29). This raises some basic questions: (1) What does it means to be “complete in Christ”? (2) Are we all aiming towards the same goal? (3) What is the role of the church and pastoral ministry in fostering maturity?

If we offered these questions to American evangelicals, I think that we would find that we often do not agree on these topics, and that many Reformed Christians would disagree with how those in our Reformed tradition have answered these questions.

A cursory glance of the New Testament shows that patience (along with the closely-related virtues of endurance and perseverance) is one of the most valuable Christian virtues in connection to Christian maturity. In the parable of the soils, we are told the seed in the good soil represents “… the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good hear, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with patience” (cf. Luke 8:15). The Apostle Paul tells us that God arranges the tribulations in our lives in order to produce patience (cf. Romans 5:3-4). Moreover, Christians are exhorted to be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (cf. Hebrews 6:12) with Jesus Christ being the pre-eminent example of patience (cf. James 5:7-10;

In contrast, our American society has been conditioned to expect immediate results. As Sinclair Ferguson writes,

…we are encouraged to become replicas of the icons of our time, molded by the transient fashions they create. A pathetic sameness and unoriginality emerges as we are swept downstream in the flow of society’s priorities.

In other words, we have a culture that is image-focused and impulsive, which is contrary to disciplines that are required to produce character. Consequently, we have a society that does not produce many men and women of character. There are few individuals whose moral integrity make them stand out from the crowd and are worthy of emulation.

However, If we were honest with ourselves, this criticism would apply to us as well. There are few Christians in our society whose integrity rises above mere societal norms. In what ways do we observe our lack of patience? First, we observe this in the lost disciplines of Christian piety, particularly of Christian meditation. Second, we observe this in the impulsiveness of Christian work and ministry.

Patience and Meditation

To put this bluntly, we fail to give enough time to prayer and Bible-reading, and we have largely abandoned the practice of meditation. The common feature of these three disciplines is that they require patience over an extended period of time in order to see their fruitfulness. For the Reformed tradition, meditation was a daily duty for every Christian that enhanced every other duty of the Christian life. Edmund Calamy describes daily, deliberate meditation as “a reflecting act of the soul, whereby the soul is carried back to itself, and considers all the things that it knows” and such deliberation dwells upon God, Christ, and truth like “the Bee that dwells upon the flower, to suck out all the sweetness.”

The Puritans stressed the need for meditation because (1) it is a Biblical command, (2) the preached Word will fail to profit us without it, and (3) our prayers will be less effective without it. In reflecting of the practice of the Puritans, Joel Beeke writes, “As oil lubricates an engine, so meditation facilitates the diligent use of the means of grace, deeps the marks of grace (repentance, faith, humility), and strengthens one’s relationship to others.”

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