We recently interviewed Mike Wilkerson, one of the pastors at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, about his new book, Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry.
Who is this book written for?
It is written especially for those dealing with life-dominating troubles like addictions or wounds of abuse, past or present. But each of these categories are instances of the larger categories of sin and suffering, to which we can all relate, even if our experiences vary in degree.
For example, I know people who have benefited greatly from the book who have dealt with domestic violence, unwanted singleness, eating disorders, depression, homosexuality and chronic pain, to name a few.
Your book addresses both the sins we commit and the suffering we encounter in life—addictions and abuses. How are these two themes connected?
I’ll answer theologically first, and then practically.
First John 5:19 says “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Abuse and addiction are both devastating forms that evil takes. Abuse happens when an evildoer harms, betrays or violates an innocent. Addiction happens when we make a habit of giving in to evil desires, when we volunteer for slavery to evil.
Evil thus unleashed in either case does what it always does: it corrupts, disintegrates, contaminates and unravels what God created good. In the case of abuse, certainly the abuse victim is wounded and defiled; but also the abuser corrupts himself or herself. In addiction, the addict corrupts himself, but also brings chaos and pain into the lives of many loved ones who suffer in the wake of the addict’s folly.
Also, suffering brings temptation. Abuse can send devastating aftershocks of pain rippling throughout one’s life: emotionally, physically, socially, spiritually. Pain demands a response. How will we deal with pain? Our world offers many escapes, many means for coping, many ways to hide. Sometimes, in our flight from pain, we form sinful habits for dealing with pain that, before you know it, have become full-blown addictions.
Practically, this is what we have observed in our counseling at Mars Hill Church where I am a pastor. Often, those who have been abused develop sinful habits of life: sometimes a more typical addiction, like alcoholism; at other times it's some other sin pattern, like sexual promiscuity or people-pleasing.
Similarly, when those with addictions unpack their life stories, they often reveal how they’ve suffered: sometimes in traumatic ways like rape or physical abuse; at other times, in tragic losses, betrayals or social ridicule.
Conclusion: we are all sinner-sufferers. Our sins and our sufferings are quite often intermingled and influence each other. The solution for enslavement to sin and its effects—both the sin we commit and the sins committed against us—is the same: redemption in Jesus.
The outline of your book follows the outline of the Book of Exodus. Why have you ordered it that way?
I wrote Redemption from Exodus because it is the Bible’s back story for redemption in Jesus: freedom from slavery to sin and its effects, by a costly ransom, to a new life in God with forgiveness for sin, cleansing for shame, healing for wounds—and most of all—a restored relationship with God himself.
I generally followed the story line of Exodus from beginning to end because an important part of the strategy was to take readers and participants on a journey in the story of God, of which Exodus is a microcosm. There’s something powerful about immersing yourself in any story, but especially the story—God’s story, centered on Jesus— that makes sense of the chaos in our lives and reveals our Redeemer.
Also, Exodus begins with the suffering of God’s people and ends with God’s presence filling the tabernacle and pointing forward to the Promised Land. These were the perfect start and end points for our curriculum: from the darkness of slavery to the light of God’s presence. For the various points in between, though, I selected scenes in Exodus that would help me bring to my audience the theological framework they would need for the journey.
For example, in Chapters 3 and 4, I work from the Passover and the Red Sea. In the Passover, we encounter God’s grace and forgiveness for guilty sinners who deserve the same judgment as Egypt. At the Red Sea, we see that God vindicates his claim on his people, defeating their enemy, eradicating the source of their shame and making them a new creation. So the two chapters back-to-back deal with guilt and shame, two crucial issues for my audience. The same chapters also explore forgiveness and identity—two more essential subjects—all within the context of the exodus story.
Why did you write this book? What, if anything, does it offer that is not already out there?
In this case, necessity truly is the mother of invention. As I mentioned before, at Mars Hill Church, we used to have many different kinds of support or recovery groups, each targeting a different issue. Each had its own curriculum and ethos, and some of them clashed with others. A husband in one group and a wife in another group might learn opposing ideas that would create more tension at home, rather than increasing healing and harmony. Some of them drifted from the firm foundation of the gospel.
We knew we needed to unify these groups, not only for the sake of being more effective with limited resources, but also to make the theology and counseling philosophy more consistent and faithful to Scripture. If we’d only wanted to build groups for addictions, we probably would have used Ed Welch’s Crossroads curriculum. We love his work. However, since our ministry strategy was aimed at a broader audience, we needed a broader curriculum.
The only existing resources for mixed-issue groups we were aware of either lacked the biblical theological depth and gospel-centricity we were looking for or were tied to the twelve step model. We wanted something gospel-saturated, immersed in God’s story. So with my fellow pastors, Bill Clem and James Noriega, we started developing a prototype for a curriculum. Those prototypes were the starting points for Redemption.
What do you hope people will learn about God from this book?
It has been one of the most profound experiences of my life to encounter the God who abounds in steadfast love as I have immersed myself in Exodus for the writing of this book.
I hope people are surprised by his immense compassion and grace—not only to sufferers, but also to sinners. I also hope they are persuaded beyond all doubt that he is powerful to redeem from any slavery, however hopeless it may seem.
