As we move into Daniel 4, we’ll get another lesson supporting the main theme of Daniel. If you understand nothing else, you’ll be OK if you remember what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. (Daniel 2.44, ESV)

God is making sure that Nebuchadnezzar gets the message. In chapter 1, his best guys are those who worship the God of Israel:

And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. (Daniel 1.19, 20, ESV)

We saw the message from chapter 2. In chapter 3, this God delivers men who refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image:

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” (Daniel 3.28, 29, ESV)

But the king still doesn’t fully grasp the message until the events of chapter 4, narrated mostly by Nebuchadnezzar himself.

The chapter opens with the conclusion:

King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. (Daniel 4.1 – 3, ESV)

And how did he come to this conclusion? It started with another dream:

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering in my palace. I saw a dream that made me afraid. As I lay in bed the fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me. (Daniel 4.4, 5, ESV)

He saw a great tree that was cut down:

“I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches…” (Daniel 4.13, 14, ESV)

The language changes from “it” to “he”:

But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field. Let him be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven periods of time pass over him. (Daniel 4.15, 16, ESV)

Seven years…until he learns what lesson?

The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’ (Daniel 4.17, ESV)

Essentially, the lesson from chapter 2. And Daniel interprets the dream as a warning. “This will happen to you, king…Best you change.”

Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity. (Daniel 4.27, ESV)

But after a year, pride kicks in:

All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4.28 – 30, ESV)

Oops. All the predictions of the dream kick in:

Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws. (Daniel 4.33, ESV)

And we come full circle to the end of the story, forecast in verse 3:

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4.34, 35, ESV)

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation…” And…

…those who walk in pride he is able to humble. – Nebuchadnezzar, quoted in Daniel 4.37)

That final lesson applies today…to kings, dictators, presidents…business leaders, religious leaders…the rest of us.

We come to Daniel 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which every kid that ever attended Sunday School knows. (Although few would be able to tell you the historical context or whether the event was before or after, say, Samson or David and Goliath.)

Anyway, we’re here in the exile, Daniel and his three friends are captives, subjects of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar to whom God had given a vision. Apparently Nebuchadnezzar missed the part about “the God of Heaven” and heard only:

You are the head of gold (Daniel 2.38, ESV)

So chapter three opens:

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. (Daniel 3.1, ESV)

90 feet tall! And the command went out:

And the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. (Daniel 3.4, 5, ESV)

And you all know what happened next. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to play:

“There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3.12, ESV)

…

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3.16 – 18, ESV)

This, of course, is the most important paragraph in this story. The deliverance from the fiery furnace is nice and the presence of the fourth man “like a son of the gods” is encouraging, but what if there’s not miraculous deliverance? “…if not, we will not…worship the golden image…”

This is the choice that faced Alexei Navalany in Russia who was murdered for exactly the same crime. Refusing to bow to the king. And his testimony was clear:

Faith makes life simpler… are you a disciple… of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others…? If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left to worry about? – quoted by Joseph Nangle, October 26, 2024

There have been many…

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised… (Hebrews 11.35 – 39, ESV)

Daniel 2 is long and a lot of fun…

Two stories in one.

• Daniel gets a vision of the king’s dream.

Nebuchadnezzar wanted the wise men to tell him the dream, then interpret it!

In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.” Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation. ”The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. (Daniel 2.1 – 5, ESV)

The Chaldeans were wrong:

The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” (Daniel 2.10, 11, ESV)

No doubt no king had ever demanded such a thing, but a man can meet the king’s demand because God does dwell with people!

Daniel doesn’t presume. He goes to prayer:

Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He declared to Arioch, the king’s captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king. Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. (Daniel 2.17 – 19, ESV)

And Daniel praises God.

To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter. (Daniel 2.23, ESV)

• Daniel explains the dream to the king

First he explains who God is.

Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. (Daniel 2.27, 28, ESV)

Then he tells the dream. First, the image:

• The head of this image was of fine gold,
• its chest and arms of silver,
• its middle and thighs of bronze,
• its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. (Daniel 2.32, 33, ESV)

Second, the destruction of the image:

As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces…But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (Daniel 2.34, 35, ESV)

Then he interprets the dream: four kingdoms

• Nebuchadnezzar – gold
• An inferior kingdom – silver
• Another inferior kingdom – bronze
• A final, strong but divided kingdom – iron and clay

And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. (Daniel 2.40, 41, ESV)

And finally, the exciting part, and in my opinion, the theme of Daniel:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. (Daniel 2.44, ESV)

The iron kingdom? Rome! And in the days of that Kingdom, Jesus! …will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1.14, 15, ESV)

What was Jesus’ first declaration?

• The time is fulfilled
• The kingdom of God is at hand
• Repent and believe this good news

God reveals the dream, Daniel interprets the dream, Jesus fulfills the dream. Amen.

.

Many Christians in the US seem poised to take on a variety of issues from county clerks not processing same-sex marriage documents to what books should be included in school curricula. How do we decide? Do I boycott Starbucks as one brother encouraged me to do because of their support of same-sex marriage or do I applaud Starbucks for their use of ethically produced coffee beans?

Daniel was a captive in a foreign land. It would be like Russia taking our best and brightest and putting them in service to Putin in Moscow. What issue(s) did Daniel take on?

• “Literature and language of the Chaldeans”

Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. (Daniel 1.3, 4, ESV)

• “Daily food that the king ate”

The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. (Daniel 1.5, ESV)

When I was growing up, if I were faced with that choice, I’d said, “I’ll eat your bacon and pork chops, but don’t pollute my mind with your pagan literature!” With Daniel, however, it was the opposite. Jewish dietary laws anchored him to his Jewish heritage.

Daniel chose to battle over the food while excelling in the education program:

As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. (Daniel 1.17 – 20, ESV)

Yet he handled the food matter with wisdom and humility:

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself…Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” (Daniel 1.8, 11 – 13, ESV)

The plan worked:

At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables. (Daniel 1.15, 16, ESV)

And the chapter ends with a matter-of-fact summary:

And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus. (Daniel 1.21, ESV)

A lifetime of service to foreign governments. Daniel was most likely a teenager in chapter 1. When we get to the Lion’s Den episode in chapter 6, he’s probably 80. Thankfully, God has people everywhere, May we choose our battles carefully and fight them with wisdom and humility.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3.17, ESV)

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2.13 – 17, ESV)

The Reading Plan takes us into Daniel, starting tomorrow. Here’s the (dry) introduction from the ESV:

Exiled to Babylon in 605 B.C., Daniel was one of several young men chosen to serve in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. When Persia conquered Babylon in 539, Daniel was again given a position of power. He remained faithful to God in both of these hostile environments.

From the interpretation of dreams, to the familiar stories of the fiery furnace, the lions’ den, and the handwriting on the wall, to the prophetic visions, the recurrent theme is God’s sovereignty over human affairs.

In the historical sections (chs. 1–6) God supernaturally rescued Daniel and his friends. The rest of the book consists of visions of future judgment and deliverance by the Messiah. Some of Daniel’s prophetic themes are echoed in the New Testament, especially in Revelation.

I like this part of Peterson’s introduction as recorded in The Message:

Daniel is composed, in approximately equal parts, of stories and visions—six stories (chapters 1–6) and four visions (chapters 7–12). The stories tell of souls living faithfully in obedience to God in a time of adversity. The visions are wide-screen renditions of God’s sovereignty worked out among nations who couldn’t care less about him. Six soul stories; four sovereignty visions.

“Six soul stories” – a lot of fun and easy to understand. “Four sovereignty visions” – no fun and hard to understand, even for Daniel himself who labored over one vision for three weeks until an angel came to help him:

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflict. And he understood the word and had understanding of the vision. In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks…Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.” (Daniel 10.1 – 3, 12 – 14, ESV)

So here we go. See you tomorrow as Daniel starts his adventure in Babylon as a teenager.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.

Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. (Daniel 1.1 – 4, ESV, emphasis mine)

Well, our reading plan in Ezekiel comes to a close tomorrow, and we start Daniel on Tuesday. It’s been tough going, but I said from the beginning, it’s a book to be felt more than analyzed. Beginning with chapter 40, we have a detailed vision of the new temple and life back in the land. “We’re in exile now, but one day…we’ll be home!”

The vision culminates in chapter 47 with a beautiful description of life-giving water from the temple. Again, let’s feel it, not analyze it:

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar…

Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river.

As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes…

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47.1, 5 – 9, 12 ESV)

The water flows and brings life. Trees grow, bearing fresh fruit every month(!). “Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

Trees…reminds me of people who meditate on the Word:

They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. (Psalm 1.3, NLT)

It was Ezekiel’s vision…and John’s:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22.1, 2, ESV)

Life’s a mess now, but one day we’ll be home.

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22.20, ESV)

There are those who say that God quit speaking when the canon of scripture was closed. I’m not one of them, and I’ve written about that before. For example, “Led by the Spirit” and “A Word of Knowledge.” That said, I’ve never had an experience quite like this one…

A friend of mine writes a blog, approximately weekly, and he usually sends them to me in advance for editing. I correct minor typos and occasionally suggest wording changes to clarify what he’s trying to say. We don’t always agree, and from time to time I make more substantive suggestions. Sometimes he takes them and sometimes not.

A few days ago, he wrote an excellent essay that was rocking along just fine until he inserted a paragraph, next to last, that echoed one of his favorite positions. It was completely unnecessary to the current essay, and including it distracted the reader from the points he was making. I told him so and recommended he delete that paragraph.

Imagine my surprise to receive this note the next day:

Morning Bob

I meant to get back to you to say thank you for your edits… and your suggestion re: deleting that one paragraph.  I took your suggestion, or rather, heard the Lord Jesus say to me last night as my wife and I worshipped Jesus at our church’s Friday evening Adoration service: “Bob is right. Delete it.”

Did it. Joyfully, I might add!

Thank you.

Wow. I responded, “Bless you, my brother. It’s not every day Jesus agrees with me and makes his agreement known!”

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

I apologize. I thought I was done ranting about the essay urging pastors to just “Run the Play” Jesus gave us. It’s the wrong play, and it’s not the one Jesus gave us!

Josh Howard, writing eloquently for discipleship.org, published “The 45-degree Shift that changes everything” on August 22, 2026. Please read it in its entirety. Here’s the idea: the 45-degree shift is changing a plus sign to a multiplication sign.

Here’s the heart of his blog:

Our team decided to make the shift—from addition to multiplication—and it changed nearly everything about how we operated:

• Our job description flipped. We went from players to coaches. Our job wasn’t just to do ministry, but to train everyone else to do it too.
• Our structure flipped. Leaders moved from the top to the bottom—lifting and supporting, not commanding.
• Training became universal. If you were breathing, you were being trained to share the gospel and make disciples who make disciples.
• Sunday morning changed function. Instead of treating our gathering as “the game,” we started treating it as the locker room—where the team gets equipped to go play the real game all week.
• We released control. And in exchange, our influence multiplied exponentially.

Note the fourth one: “Sunday morning changed function.” It wasn’t “the game” where we ran “the play.” It was “the locker room – where the team gets equipped to go play the real game all week.”

I rest my case.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 18.18 – 20, ESV)

Please note that “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” includes the command he just gave! And “teaching them to observe” is more than teaching the commands, it’s teaching them how to do the commands, i.e., training.

That’s “the play.”

This is the fourth in an unplanned blog series beginning with a pastor’s arguing for continuing to run the Sunday morning “play.” I think this is the final entry! Thanks to Sahil Bloom (again!), I’m reminded of another reason why it’s sometimes hard for churches and pastors to add in more intentional discipleship. They can’t add because they’ve already added too much!

Here are snippets about subtraction from Sahil’s August 21 newsletter:

Dr. Leidy Klotz, an engineering and architecture professor at the University of Virginia, pioneered the study of the psychological bias toward addition.

After watching his young son fix a Lego structure by removing a block, an action the boy took while Klotz was reaching for a block to add, he became interested in studying this effect in the lab.

…

Klotz and his co-authors summarized their findings across eight experiments, writing, “people systematically default to searching for additive transformations, and consequently overlook subtractive transformations.”

Leidy Klotz has written a book: Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. Here’s the promotional paragraph from Amazon:

We pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings.” We create incentives for good behavior, but don’t get rid of obstacles to it. We collect new-and-improved ideas, but don’t prune the outdated ones. Every day, across challenges big and small, we neglect a basic way to make things better: we don’t subtract. Klotz’s pioneering research shows us what is true whether we’re building Lego models, cities, grilled-cheese sandwiches, or strategic plans: Our minds tend to add before taking away, and this is holding us back.

Do I need to tell you that most churches continue to add programs and ministries while not taking away any existing ministries, even if they’re not effective? My friend and former pastor John Ed Mathison succinctly articulated the solution:

If the horse is dead, dismount. – Dr. John Ed Mathison, Pastor Emeritus, Frazer Church, Montgomery, AL

The Apostle Paul said it first:

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent… (Philippians 1.9, 10, ESV)

In our personal lives, our churches, our businesses, we need discernment to “approve what is excellent…” and I would add, “subtract that which is not excellent.”

We’ve observed the past two days that pastors like to run the Sunday morning “play” with hymns, preaching, and Communion without necessarily giving thought to whether Sunday morning alone is sufficient or even primary for disciple-making. One brother, when he was the Minister of Discipleship of a large church often questioned the effectiveness of Sunday morning. Now, he’s the lead pastor of a small church, and doing Sunday is all he seems to have time for.

So there’s definitely inertia going for the traditional Sunday morning form, so much so that if a slight modification is considered, the response is “That’s Not Church!”

Sometimes, pastors themselves see no need for change other than to try to constantly improve the Sunday morning presentation. Why? Maybe because ALL their training and ALL their experience leads them in that direction.

On August 19, 2026, Sahil Bloom told this story:

In 2013, a group of researchers at the Visual Attention Lab, a collaboration between Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, asked 24 trained radiologists to ​review chest CT scans​ for the appearance of lung cancer nodules.

On the final scan, an image of a gorilla, 48 times larger than the average nodule, was inserted into the scan image. 83% of the expert radiologists (20 out of 24) failed to see it. More damning was the fact that eye-tracking data showed the majority of the radiologists who had missed the gorilla had actually looked right at it.

Sahil explained:

The radiologists weren’t blind. Their attention had just been specialized and refined over years of dedicated effort to find one specific thing. It worked exactly as designed for the task they were trained for. It found what they were looking for. But missed what they weren’t.

It’s called inattentional blindness. The term was coined in 1992 by cognitive psychologists Arien Mack and Irvin Rock to refer to the mental lapse where you fail to notice an unexpected event or object in view because your focus was trained on a specific task.

Inattentional blindness is the source of your internal gravity. Each year you spend narrowing in on one thing is a year that builds the gravity that blinds you to everything else. It’s a sort of gravity you never even feel. Because it’s not that the change feels too heavy. It’s that it never occurs to you in the first place.

You can’t choose a door you can’t see.

Chilling: “You can’t choose a door you can’t see.” The Pharisees and other religions leaders missed Jesus:

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. (John 9.39 – 41, ESV)

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. (John 12.9 – 11, ESV)

Why did they miss Jesus? Because they were looking for a different kind of Messiah. Why do some pastors miss disciple-making, at least the kind of disciple-making that involves skills training and character transformation? Because disciple-making doesn’t fit the Sunday morning model, and they can’t see it.

If you’re a pastor and you don’t have my book That’s Not Church!, write to me, and I’ll give you a copy. You don’t even have to read all of it: it’s filled with standalone blogs from The Ewellogy.

If you’re a (lay) church leader, don’t force your pastor to spend all his or her time on the Sunday morning service. Encourage your pastor to get in touch with me or someone from Navigator Church Ministries to get some coaching on how to add some new plays to the playbook.

He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. No prolonged infancies among us, please… (Ephesians 4.11 – 14, MSG)

PS The gorilla is black and near the top of the right-side dark gray area.

PPS Dolly Parton passed away yesterday at the age of 80.

The country music legend combined great talent with gratitude, generosity, humility, and good humor. Erica Andersen, “Dolly Parton’s Legacy,” published by World Magazine, August 26, 2026.

The only thing I would add to Erica’s tribute is that she was married to the same man, Carl Dean, from 1966 until his death last year. Nearly 60 years, quite an accomplishment and an inspiration for us all.