Evangelicals & Dying Well

Introduction: Recovering a Lost Christian Art

Modern culture avoids death at all costs. It medicalizes it, sentimentalizes it, or denies it outright. Even within the church, conversations about death are often reduced to euphemisms or postponed indefinitely.

Yet historic Christianity spoke openly — even soberly — about death. The Scriptures present dying well not as a morbid fixation but as a final act of faith, hope, and witness. To recover a biblical vision of life, the church must also recover a biblical vision of death.

Death as an Appointment, Not an Accident

Scripture is unambiguous about death’s certainty:

“It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27)

Death is not a random interruption to life’s narrative. It is an appointed boundary. To deny this is not optimism — it is spiritual immaturity.

The Christian does not deny death’s pain, but neither does he flee from its reality. To die well begins with learning how to live honestly before God, knowing our days are numbered.

Dying Well and the Hope of Resurrection

Christian hope does not rest in avoiding death, but in defeating it through Christ.

Paul speaks with remarkable clarity:

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

Only a resurrection worldview can make sense of that sentence. Without resurrection, death is loss. With resurrection, death becomes a passage.

Dying well means entrusting one’s final breath to the same Savior who governs every other moment of life.

The Difference Between Fearless and Faithful

Modern discussions about death often confuse fearlessness with faith. Stoicism, denial, or bravado are sometimes praised as courage. Scripture offers something deeper.

Faithful dying acknowledges:

• Fear without surrendering to despair

• Pain without abandoning hope

• Weakness without losing trust

Jesus Himself models this tension — sorrowful, honest, yet obedient even unto death (Matthew 26:38–39).

To die well is not to pretend death is easy, but to cling to God when it is not.

Pastoral Care, Medicine, and the Temptation to Control Death

Advances in medicine have brought undeniable blessings, but they have also introduced new temptations: to treat death as a technical problem to be mastered rather than a moral moment to be stewarded.

The Christian tradition has always distinguished between:

• Preserving life

• Prolonging dying

• Actively hastening death

Dying well does not require rejecting medical care, but it does require resisting the impulse to control death at all costs or escape it through morally compromised means.

Preparing to Die by Learning How to Live

Scripture consistently links dying well to living wisely:

“Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Preparation for death is not a morbid obsession. It is spiritual clarity. Those who die well are typically those who have:

• Confessed sin regularly

• Reconciled broken relationships

• Anchored hope beyond this world

• Ordered loves rightly

The church does its people no favors by avoiding these conversations.

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Conclusion: A Final Act of Faith

Dying well is not a performance. It is the final testimony of a life shaped by truth. The Christian does not script his own ending — he entrusts it.

Death is not the end of the story. It is the last chapter before glory.

The church must once again teach its people not only how to live, but how to die — faithfully, humbly, and in hope.

With fear & trembling,
Ricky V Kyles Sr. DEd.Min