For today’s entry in the Friday Five interview series, we catch up with Joshua Harris. 
Pro quarterback Patrick Mahomes had just limped his way through a last-minute, game-winning drive in the 2023 AFC Championship when he gave the credit for his performance to someone that even the biggest Kansas City Chiefs fans had never heard of. “Julie WAS the reason I was the guy I was on the field today!” Mahomes wrote to his millions of followers on Twitter that night. Her full name is Julie Frymer.
Who is she and why is she so important to the team? She’s the assistant athletic trainer. Frymyer had one of the NFL’s most important jobs in the 2022-2023 season: She was in charge of putting Mahomes through rehab for his injured ankle and getting the star quarterback ready to play for a spot in the Super Bowl.
Hobbling through a nasty sprain that often requires weeks of recovery, Mahomes wasn’t just able to play against the Cincinnati Bengals. He was fantastic. He was clearly gimpy, grimacing through several plays, but he was mobile enough to make several key plays, including a crucial run setting up the last-second field goal that sent the Chiefs to the Super Bowl to face the Philadelphia Eagles.
Mahomes going out of his way to praise her was the first time most people in Arrowhead Stadium had ever heard the name Julie Frymyer, but the Chiefs knew her value long before the guy with a contract worth nearly half a billion dollars, might as well have given her the game ball.
Today we chat with Joshua and asked him to define “humble orthodoxy” and why he recently chose to reveal a very personal secret to his church.
-Daniel
Can you explain the idea of humble orthodoxy?
It’s a simple idea, really. Truth matters, but so does our attitude. It’s vital that we be committed to orthodox Christian belief, but we also need to defend and share this truth with compassion and humility towards others. I want to remind believers that to glorify Jesus we need both humility and orthodoxy—we can’t choose one or the other.
Many who champion orthodoxy may not see the need for humility, and vice versa. Can we be both civil and courageous?
It’s not easy. I know I certainly haven’t arrived. But, yes, I believe we can be civil and courageous because it’s what the gospel demands and Christ enables us to do. It’s so important to see that Jesus’ redeeming work for us is both the motivation and the engine of humble orthodoxy. Because the “truth once delivered” is so precious, out of love for a lost world we need to courageously contend for it and proclaim it. And because this gospel is of grace we have to make sure our attitudes and words and actions don’t contradict the love and mercy we’ve received. God has loved us and shown us grace, so we can show grace to people who disagree with us. If we don’t do this, we contradict and obscure the gospel with our lives.
This idea may be even more important in this Internet age. Would you agree?
Absolutely. There’s a lot of “arrogant orthodoxy” online. The internet makes it easier to forget that we’re interacting with human beings created in the image of God, whom Jesus came to seek and save. If someone is just a screen name, we can more easily justify words that are demeaning, disrespectful, and angry. We need to remember that we’ll answer to God for our online words, too.
In the last few years you and the Sovereign Grace family have endured quite a bit of public controversy. What has this experience taught you?
It’s been tough. Our church’s decision to end our formal association with Sovereign Grace and the events that led up to it were very difficult—particularly because it played out on a public stage. These past two years have been the most challenging of my life both personally and in ministry. But as a local church, we see the difficulties of this time as the fatherly, loving discipline of the Lord. He’s been refining and growing us through this in ways we never would have chosen, but desperately needed. There was pride in my own heart about our doctrine and methodology. I thought I knew better than other Christians and other churches. So the Lord has used this to humble me. I’ve also been the focus of a good bit of criticism, and that is helping to break my addiction to the approval and praise of man.
This past Sunday, while addressing the allegations against the Sovereign Grace organization in your Sunday sermon, you shared that you suffered abuse as a child. Did you wrestle with whether to share this and why did you think this was the best time?
Yes, I did wrestle with the decision to share that part of my story. Even as I was preaching I found myself thinking, “Do you really want to open this up?” But I made that choice because I hoped that my vulnerability would make it easier for other victims of abuse to step forward and get help. My hope is that a person would hear me and think, “Okay, if the pastor can admit that in front of the church then I can call the police and tell someone what is happening to me. I can get counseling. I can tell my story, too.” It’s very difficult because it feels like such a shameful thing, but we need to learn how to talk about sexual abuse in the church. We need to teach people who have been abused that it’s not their fault. And we need to believe that God’s grace is mighty enough to meet us and transform us even in this painful part of our lives.
Bonus Question: If you could give one piece of advice to young pastors and church leaders, what would it be?
Trust in the power of the gospel and the sufficiency of God’s word. And only wear skinny jeans if your wife says you can pull it off.
