The Hallmark of Truth, Faith vs. Hesitation, How To Be Yourself
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #48 // December 23, 2023
Discipleship. Leadership. Mental Performance.
DISCIPLESHIP
“Simplicity is the hallmark of truth—we should know better, but complexity continues to have a morbid attraction. When you give an academic audience a lecture that is crystal clear from alpha to omega, your audience feels cheated. … The sore truth is that complexity sells better.”
Edsger Dijkstra (Physicist + Computer Scientist)
Simplicity has never sold as well as complexity. The idea that greater complexity is synonymous with higher wisdom is embedded into the DNA of the natural man.
Think about these two scriptural examples of disinterest born of simplicity:
Moses and the Serpent
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died ... And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Numbers 21: 6,8-9).
Nephi's commentary on this episode: "And (God) did straiten them in the wilderness with his rod; for they hardened their hearts, even as ye have; and the Lord straitened them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished" (1 Nephi 17:41).
Naaman and Elisha
"So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" (2 Kings 5:9-13).
In Acts 17, Paul travels to Athens. At the time, Athens was steeped in ideological and philosophical traditions, including stoicism and epicureanism. They loved intellectual life. "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing" (Acts 17:21; emphasis added).
To be sure, nurturing the life of the mind, or the intellect, is an act of godliness. "For a disciple of Jesus Christ,” Elder Maxwell once wrote, "academic scholarship is a form of worship." But intellectual exercise, stripped of truth, gets muddy. It gets complex. Remember, the hallmark of truth is simplicity. Paul, seeing this, called them out on it. He said, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious" (Acts 17:22).
Given their affinity for complexity, it might not come as a surprise that they rejected Paul, who taught them fundamental truths with crystal clarity.
"God ... made the world and all things therein" (Acts 17:24).
"(You) should seek the Lord, if (you) are willing to find him, for he is not far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27 JST).
"For in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
"We are the offspring of God" (Acts 17:29).
"(God) commandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30).
After his sermon, Acts records, "And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked ... so Paul departed from them" (Acts 17:32-33).
Quinten L. Cook has written, "Some people seem to be embarrassed by the simplicity of the Savior’s message. They want to add complexity and even obscurity to the truth to make it more intellectually challenging or more compatible with current academic trends. The Apostasy occurred in part because of this problem. The early Christians adopted the Greek philosophical traditions, trying to reconcile their own beliefs with the existing culture. The historian Will Durant wrote: 'Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life.' Some in their spiritual immaturity attempt to appear sophisticated and intellectual. Instead of accepting revelation, they want to dissect it and add dimensions and variations of meaning that distort its beautiful truths. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has pointed out, 'The Jewish people … rejected the gospel, in part because it lacked adequate intellectual embroidery."
Are we ever guilty of this? Maybe you don't outright reject the gospel due to its simplicity, but do you neglect it? Do you get bored with it? Is the primary source for your pressing concerns Jesus Christ? Or is He secondary to podcasters, writers, and experts who will surely give you a more complex answer?
Nephi wrote, "My soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn” (2 Nephi 25:4). A few chapters later, he teaches that “after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men” (2 Nephi 31:3).
The natural man feeds off of complexity. This is why the world sells it to you. In contrast, our spirit feeds off the truth. This is why God presents it in such a digestible way. This is His doctrine:
THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST
Exercise faith in Jesus Christ.
Repent daily.
Enter into, honor, and cherish covenants with God.
Experience the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. This is how Jesus Christ dwells in you. This is His power living in and flowing through you.
Intentionally and iteratively cycle through these steps.
It really is that straightforward. The more precise we live His doctrine, the deeper our understanding we gain of His gospel. Note, there is a big difference between depth and complexity. For someone full of the Holy Ghost, revealed, eternal truth is never complex. God works in plainness among us.
The fruit of the Tree of Life provides a great visual for this. Lehi tasted of the fruit that was, "(the) most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted ... it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy" (1 Nephi 8:11). The fruit (truth) that God offers is exactly that. It's delicious. It's life-giving. And it fills us with joy. The fruit the world offers us, on the other hand, is like a fruit snack. It doesn't taste nearly as good as the real thing, it provides empty calories, and it's complex. I mean look at how many ingredients are in one centimeter-sized fruit snack: Fruit puree (grape, peach, orange, strawberry and raspberry), corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, modified tapioca starch, gelatin, concord grape juice from concentrate, pectin, citric acid (acidulant), lactic acid, natural and artificial flavors, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), alpha tocopherol acetate (vitamin E), vitamin A palmitate, sodium citrate, coconut oil, carnauba wax, annatto (color), turmeric (color), red 40, and blue 1.
Don't sacrifice the fruit Jesus Christ provides for a mere worldly fruit snack.
Lastly, I want to share a piece of writing by David Perell. He's one of my favorite writers and has been for years. This March, he turned away from his atheism and became a Christian. Here is part of his story, in his words, that is extremely relevant to this idea that complexity sells better, but simplicity is the hallmark of truth.
"I went from thinking the Bible was the most boring book ever to seeing the magic in it.
"Years ago, I realized that the Bible is the foundational book of Western civilization. If I was going to be an educated person, I needed to know what it said. Though I was motivated to learn about it, I didn't have the patience to read it or the knowledge to understand it.
"Generally, I try to follow my 4th-grade English teacher's advice to read things first-hand. But the Bible seemed too hard, too boring, and too confusing to read on my own. It was a snooze fest. The stories felt outdated in a world of smartphones and fast Internet. Living in the modern world, shouldn’t I be rooting my life in modern books, modern studies, and modern authors?
"At the time, I was living in New York when a friend introduced me to the work of Tim Keller. I reluctantly found time to put down the self-help and picked up two of his books instead: The Reason for God and Making Sense of God. It was around that time when I discovered Keller's Questioning Christianity lecture series.
"Instead of focusing on the Bible directly, Keller focused on Christianity's relationship with culture and the modern world. He spoke to career-driven Gordon Gekkos who were driven by the glories of the material world, but sensed the emptiness at the heart of such a single-minded pursuit. Instead of referencing scripture directly, he spoke about big-picture themes like identity and purpose, morality and meaning.
"This was back when I thought all Christians had the intelligence of sidewalk pigeons. I would scoff at church-goers because I didn’t understand why anyone would worship a sky fairy or follow rules from thousands of years ago. Keller was the guide I needed.
"For the first few years, I looked at faith through a cultural lens instead of reading the Bible directly. I literally knew nothing about Jesus or Christianity — and I came to realize how little I knew about my own atheism too. In school, while studying the Declaration of Independence, I’d learned that it’s “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.” Turns out, this defining American ideal is only self-evident if you assume that every person has inherent worth because they’re made in the image of God. I was stumped. Where did my moral compass come from? Do people have inherent value? And if so, is it because every human is a child of God?
"In addition to advocating for the life of Jesus and the truth of his message, Keller revealed the many assumptions underlying my own atheistic worldview. He taught me that every worldview requires a leap of faith. Sure, Christianity couldn’t perfectly explain everything in the universe, but then again, neither can any worldview. Astrophysicists say that much of the universe is made up of “dark matter,” which is a scientific-sounding way to talk about a leap of faith.
"Though I did some Bible studies, I never enjoyed them. They felt more like reading tedious academic papers than drinking directly from the fountain of God’s wisdom. Instead of reading Scripture directly, I joined a small Christian reading group where I was the only non-believer. By showing me coherent ways to interpret reality besides my science-based materialism, books like The Story of Reality and I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist loosened the screws on my atheism.
"My palate was beginning to change. Like a fine wine, the same flavors that were once repulsive to me started to appeal to my intellectual taste buds. I surrounded myself with wise Christians who were orthodox about scripture and eager to answer my hardest questions about faith. I asked them to dinner and invited myself to Church with them.
"This marked a new era. Once again, I found some guides: books, Internet sources, and an in-person leader to show me the way. On the Internet, I'd turn to The Bible Project to answer my big-picture thematic questions. I picked up the ESV Study Bible, which I still read every day on the white boucle couch in my living room (if you like reading on the computer, I recommend The Bible Study App by Olive Tree).
"For years, I’d stiff-armed the Bible. Now, I was skipping to a 7am Bible Study led by a devout believer who'd been reading God's word every day for almost a quarter-century, and wasn’t afraid to rebuke my theology.
"What surprised me most was how carefully we read. I admired the integrity of our study. We live in a culture of binge-reading where people boast about how many books they can complete in a given year. We did the opposite. We never read more than ~20 verses in a single session and dissected every word, every verse, and every story. (I once spent two hours studying John 1:1-4 — just four verses at a strip mall Schlotzsky's in the Texas Hill Country.)
"Never in my life had I read so deliberately. I spent months in the books of Ephesians, Romans, John, and 2 Corinthians, and there's no way I would've known how to read the Bible so diligently on my own. I learned to look beyond English translations, and I use the BibleHub to look up the original Greek and Hebrew whenever possible ...
"I used to be a serial consumer who’d brag about how many books I read every year. I’d pick up anything and everything. The more, the merry. But the more I study the Bible, the more careful I’ve become about who I read and listen to. Gone are my days as a serial consumer. Frauds, charlatans, and false teachers abound, so be skeptical and vet your sources. In all this time, I’ve had no more than ten serious teachers. Fortunately, that’s all you need.
"I became a believer on March 20th of this year, four years after attending my first Tim Keller lecture, and the Bible is alive for me now like no book I've ever read.
"These days, I read the Bible and basically nothing else.
"Opening it up is the best part of my daily routine. The words twinkle. The stories are supernatural. It's a living, breathing document, and I wholeheartedly believe it's the Word of God, which makes every other book feel dim by comparison."
LEADERSHIP
“You who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day; you who are keeping wretched quarrels alive because you cannot quite make up your mind that now is the day to sacrifice your pride and (settle) them; you who are passing men sullenly upon the street, not speaking to them out of some silly spite … ; you who are letting … (someone’s) heart ache for a word of appreciation or sympathy, which you mean to give … some day, … go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do.”
Phillip Brooks
Love is the first law of leadership. One of the core tenets of this law is that leadership is not about you. As a leader, your life is not about you. Others are your mission. Jesus, the perfect leader, taught this principle:
"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister" (Matthew 20:26-28).
"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
The most fundamental reading of this verse interprets laying down your life as dying for your friends. But surely, another and equally accurate reading of this verse would interpret "laying down his life" for his friends to mean "living for" his friends. Jesus himself taught, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt 16:26). Certainly when Jesus said "whosoever will lose his life" in this instance, he wasn't meaning physical death. Similarly, physical death is just one, but not the only meaning of the verse in John. Laying down one's life and losing one's life are synonymous.
Phillip Brooks stresses great urgency on the things in life that might not seem urgent. "Go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do."
There is serious motivational power in thinking about death. Things you might never have another chance to do. That is a subject for a different newsletter though. It's important here to realize that urgency is an attribute of faith.
James 1:5-6 reads, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."
The word waver in this verse is translated from the Greek word διακρίνω which means "to hesitate". So when James says, "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering", he's saying if you hesitate, you're actually not acting in faith. Hesitation is antithetical to faith. Conviction, conversely, is analogous to faith.
So as someone who has faith in Jesus Christ, here's your challenge moving forward. The next time you have a generous thought, good idea, or strong conviction, do two things.
Recognize the Source of that thought. "Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God ... that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God" (Moroni 7:12-13).
"Go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do." Act in faith. Don't hesitate. Stop talking yourself out of it. If God is your source—which He is if the thought is good—you can't go wrong.
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
“A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”
Steven Pressfield
The Mental Performance section today is an excerpt from Jeff Bezos' 2020 letter to Amazon shareholders, which was his last as CEO.
Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical
"Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins’ (extraordinary) book The Blind Watchmaker. It’s about a basic fact of biology.
'Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.'
"While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?
"I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, 'Can’t you just be normal?' They both smile and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal.
"This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.
"We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to 'be yourself.' What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.
"You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of 'be yourself' is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.
"The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.
"To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings."
DISCIPLE-LEADERSHIP ON DISPLAY
"Never give up an opportunity to testify of Christ."
Bonnie H. Cordon
This is Mark Pope's post-game interview on Dec. 22. His team is 11-1. Ranked #17 in the nation. Just beat their opponent by 40+, despite missing their 2 leading scorers. They are just throttling teams.
In a post-game interview where certainly he could've put the spotlight on himself and how well his team is doing, this is how Mark Pope chose to close it out.
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.