Samuel’s Warning, the Rise of the King, and America’s Expanding Thrones

Dear Friends,

Every so often, a conversation drops like a key into the trembling lock of our best questions—questions about faith, the world, what we can hold onto, and what (if anything) is truly irredeemable.

This past Sunday’s “Created in the Image of God” brought one such conversation, as I sat down with Dr. Lyman Montgomery—speaker, author, business coach, and, if you ask me, a living illustration of the redemptive, surprising, sometimes upside-down grace at the heart of the biblical story. His latest work, Sacred, Not Sinful: A Biblical Response to the Black Greek Letter Organization Debate, maps ground many of us tiptoe around: Can God take what looks “pagan,” “broken,” or unfit—and claim it for truth, hope, or healing?

Dr. Montgomery’s answer, lived as much as written, is an unequivocal yes. But to see why, you have to begin with scars.

When the Wound Becomes the Way

To appreciate the full measure of Dr. Montgomery’s ministry, you have to first glimpse the cost. Born in Dayton, Ohio—speech-impaired, bullied, suffering setbacks that most children blessedly never know—he gave voice to a truth many quietly bear: For some, it’s easier to believe you’re weak, that you’re what the system or traumas say you are, than to believe in your own potential.

The world, and yes, the church, are often quick to tally up what’s “sinful,” what’s “off,” or “not right.” But a God who creates from dust and breath, a Messiah who forms His church from fishermen and doubters, is always, always in the business of redeeming what others have written off.

Dr. Montgomery’s journey from “failing student, cursed by a speech impediment” to global speaker and published author wasn’t some motivational tale of self-affirmation. It was mimicry at first—a boy who adopted Dr. Martin Luther King’s cadence, repeating the tapes until he could pass for someone he admired. It was survival, then adaptation. But, crucially, it eventually became authenticity—a recognition that what started as “curse” was the raw material for calling.

He describes, almost in passing, his ability to “see words in the air,” a quirk that left him isolated as a child but, decades later, let him create worlds, give speeches, and pen books. “What was deemed as a curse,” he says, “became a blessing once I understood I saw the world differently—and that’s okay because God had created me differently.”

Each of us, if we’re honest, bears some scar—public or private—that seems to disqualify, to mark us as “less than,” or to serve no real purpose. But over and again, life with God is the story of how wounds become the very tools for our greatest work.

Repurposed for Glory: When Symbols Move From Pagan to Sacred

Of course, Dr. Montgomery’s testimony doesn’t stop with his own biography. The very heart of his new book is the claim—supported by scripture and history—that God is in the business of redeeming not just people, but symbols, rituals, and even communities. Where others see only contamination, God sees opportunity.

“Redemption, reclaiming, repurposing,” he summarizes—the organizing motif not only of his book, but also, arguably, of salvation history.

He illustrates this with the cross itself: To the early church, a cross was not a sign of hope but a tool of torture, a mark of shame. For centuries, the cross signified the darkest human cruelty—until, through resurrection, it was transfigured into a symbol of hope, victory, and even love.

So too with the Greek letter organizations that Dr. Montgomery works within and writes about. Once identified by some as “pagan” because of their mythology or ritual forms (a charge not unique to blacks in America; many traditions have faced similar suspicion), he shows, with painstaking research, how God can reclaim the very things others insist are off-limits. “God…has reclaimed those things that were once considered pagan and repurposed them to now be aspects of our Christian walk,” he argues.

It’s a truth as old as the story of Passover, renewed each time the church baptizes a new convert or lifts a formerly “pagan” festival for a gospel purpose. The path isn’t always easy—there are real tensions, temptations, and necessary discernments. But if we draw our boundaries too tight, too early, we risk fencing out the very grace we claim to seek.

So What Are We Missing?

Here’s my urgent plea, for myself as much as for you:
What “curses” are you still seeing only as loss—masking the possibility they might become your vocation, your ministry, your doorway to connection?
What “symbols” or parts of your own story are you labeling as off-limits, too far gone, too tainted to redeem—forgetting that God has a history of using exactly what we fear or doubt for purposes we could never imagine?

Are you—like so many, like Dr. Montgomery once did—carrying wounds you’re still hiding out of shame, or clinging to rituals or affiliations cautiously, wishing you could let them be something more?
Or perhaps, like the man who scolded Dr. Montgomery for wearing “pagan letters,” have you been too quick to condemn the forms you do not yet understand, missing the possibility that Christ can transform all things—yes, even (and maybe especially) those things that offend our sensibilities?

Invitation: Re-examining the Line Between Sinful and Sacred

Every page of the Word of God is a record of things made sacred that once seemed hopelessly lost. Jesus touched lepers, dined with “sinners,” repurposed a cross—and made a church out of doubters, failures, and zealots.
The question isn’t whether some things are too sinful to be redeemed, but whether we are willing to direct our pain, our skepticism, or our suspicion back toward the One who can, if we let Him, make all things new (Revelation 21:5).

Dr. Montgomery found that what began as setback and shame became speaking, coaching, authorship, and leadership.
His own scars became a platform; his “impediment” became a source of creativity and vision.

What about you?

In your life, what’s waiting to be repurposed?

What wounding is whispering its readiness to bless others—if only you’ll risk bringing it into the light?

And what institution, group, or symbol have you written off, that God might long to reclaim?

Share your story in the comments. Forward this to someone whose “wound” might be tomorrow’s ministry. And—if this series prompts new hope in your own life or community—consider a paid subscription to fuel more voices of redemption and renewal.

Remember:
You are created in the image of God. The very things you fear may be the seeds of your greatest blessing.

With hope for what only redemption can do,
—Wade Fransson