From the Fruitful Three Show with Levi and Isaiah

It's Halloween, so we're doing something a little different: we're talking about ninjas. Not the pop-culture version with the black suit, the smoke bombs and the guy leaping across rooftops. We mean the real thing. And somewhere along the way, we realized the best example of a "real ninja" is Jesus.

Before you roll your eyes, hear us out. The Shinobi of Japan are real history. The Gospels are real history. Let's see where they overlap.

What a Ninja Actually Was

That all-black look? Historians say it most likely came from Japanese theater, where stagehands dressed in black so the audience would forget they were there. Same trick Broadway uses today.

The actual historical figures were the Shinobi, who mostly came out of the Iga and Koka regions of Japan. They were known for stealth, gathering information, patience, and unconventional methods. (A quick note: we don't speak Japanese, so apologies in advance for any butchered names. Corrections are welcome.)

A famous Shinobi manual from 1676, the Bansenshūkai, carries a big theme: the best Shinobi is the one nobody knew was there. Success wasn't about getting attention. It was about finishing the mission.

That gives us four traits to work with:

Silence
Smart communication
Timing
Knowing your mission

Let's see how Jesus lived each one.

**Lao Tzu:** "Silence is a source of great strength."

1. Moving in Silence

Jesus was always one step ahead. Part of that is because he's the Son of God, God in human flesh. But if you read the Gospels closely, he also kept disappearing on purpose.

He spent 40 days and nights alone in the wilderness.
Mark 1:35: he got up very early, while it was still dark, and went to a solitary place to pray.
Luke 5:16: he often withdrew to lonely places.
Matthew 14:23: he went up a mountainside by himself.
Luke 6:12: he prayed all night before choosing the twelve disciples.

This is the most visible person in the whole story, with crowds following him everywhere, and he keeps stepping away. But it was never avoidance. He always came back. Solitude was a reset, not an escape.

(Fair question: if nobody was with him in the wilderness, how do we know what happened? Christian tradition holds that Jesus told his disciples himself, and that the Holy Spirit would bring his teaching back to their remembrance. Matthew and John were eyewitnesses to much of his ministry, Mark drew on Peter's account, and Luke interviewed original eyewitnesses.)

Why silence is so hard

In a well-known 2014 study published in Science, researchers asked people to sit alone in a room with nothing to do for up to 15 minutes. Participants had also been given the option of shocking themselves, something they'd said they would pay to avoid. The result: 67% of the men and 25% of the women shocked themselves at least once rather than just sit with their own thoughts.

People chose pain over quiet. If you've ever lain in bed replaying something small from earlier in the day, you understand why.

But other research, including work by Netta Weinstein, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, suggests time alone can help calm high-intensity emotions like anger and anxiety, as long as you choose it. It's a reset button, not a punishment.

For us, this fits how Jesus used it: he went to pray before big decisions. Solitude was decision-making fuel. And spiritual growth lives there too. You can't hear a still, small voice while you're scrolling.

Don't announce it. Do it.

Jesus also moved in silence by telling people not to spread the word about what he'd done:

Mark 1:40-44: after healing a man with leprosy, he warned him, "See that you don't tell this to anyone."
Mark 7:31-36: a deaf and mute man is healed, and Jesus tells them not to say anything.
Mark 5:42-43: after raising Jairus's daughter, he gave strict orders that nobody should know.
Matthew 9:30: two blind men are told the same.
Matthew 16:20: after Peter says he's the Christ, Jesus orders the disciples not to tell.
Mark 1:34 and 3:11-12: he won't let demons speak because they know who he is.

You'd think he'd want the publicity. So what's going on? Scholars have a name for it: in 1901, German scholar William Wrede called it the Messianic Secret. People debate exactly why Jesus did it. One explanation that fits the text is that he didn't want to become a crowd-pleasing celebrity before his time. And Mark 7:36 notes that the more he told people not to talk, the more they did. That's human nature for you.

We'd add that he wanted God the Father to get the credit. The point wasn't "keep this a secret." It was "give the glory to God, go forward, be free."

There's a practical lesson here for the rest of us: doing good in secret protects you. Matthew 6:1-4 tells us to give so that our left hand doesn't know what our right hand is doing. Psychology backs this up. Researchers talk about moral licensing, where people who get credit for doing something good feel permission to slack off afterward. And Peter Gollwitzer's research found that when people publicly announce a goal, especially one tied to their identity, they can get a feeling of progress before doing anything, and then put in less effort afterward.

Telling the world "I'm going to be a YouTuber" can feel like a mini win. Picture Jimmy, who talks about becoming a YouTuber for a year, collects all the applause, and still has no videos. He's gotten all the credit he's going to get for something that doesn't exist yet.

Don't be like Jimmy. Show the finished product, not the plan. One video beats a hundred announcements.

2. Encrypted Messages

Ninjas and other ancient teachers didn't always say things plainly. Jesus taught in parables. By many scholars' counts, roughly a third of his recorded teaching in the first three Gospels is parables.

So why not just tell people the truth directly? The disciples asked the same thing in Matthew 13:10-13. Jesus's answer is that to people who aren't ready, "though seeing, they do not see." The way we read it, he isn't hiding truth from people who want it. Some people just aren't willing to learn yet, so the story waits for them until they are.

Matthew 13:34-35 says he said nothing to the crowd without using a parable, and Mark 4:33-34 says he explained everything privately to his disciples. The people who really wanted it could lean in and ask. The door was open. You just had to knock.

This goes back to something our dad always taught us. When we'd ask him how to do something, he wouldn't hand over the answer. He'd make us work through it first, because if he just gave us the answer, we wouldn't really learn it. After enough struggle, he'd step in and show us. Parables work the same way, and people also relate to stories far more than to instructions.

The psychology of readiness

Psychologists talk about reactance. When someone tells you directly what to do, it can feel like they're taking away your freedom, and your first instinct is to resist. Think of any time a parent, a boss or a friend said "you need to change" and your walls shot up.

Research by Melanie Green and Timothy Brock found that when people get absorbed in a story, they tend to argue back less. You don't feel attacked, so you're free to see yourself in it. That's exactly how the prophet Nathan got through to King David in the Old Testament: he told a story first.

Here's how that looks in everyday life. If you're a boss or a teammate and you see someone struggling, skip "you're doing it wrong." Try asking, "Why do you do it this way? Is it easier for you?" Or: "I noticed you've been on this a while. Can I show you something that helped me?" If they say no, walk away. If they say yes, they'll be far more open to what you have to share.

The lesson isn't to be mysterious for the sake of it, even though mysterious is fun. How you say something matters as much as what you say. If you want someone to hear you, give them something worth thinking about instead of a lecture.

*"The key is in not spending time, but in investing it."-* Stephen R. Covey

3. Strategic Timing

A lot of Jesus being one step ahead came down to timing, and the difference between human timing and God's timing is worth knowing. Humans want things now. God has a process. You might hit checkpoint one, then two, then wait a year for three. It takes patience, and it often depends on how you pray. Sometimes the detour is longer than it needs to be, like Jonah, who could have skipped the whale entirely by just going to Nineveh. He still ended up exactly where God wanted him, exactly when God wanted him there.

Look at how Jesus handled his own timeline:

John 2:4, at the wedding in Cana: "My hour has not yet come."
John 7:6-10: his brothers pressure him to go public at a feast. He says his time hasn't come, then goes anyway, but not publicly. He went in secret. That's the ninja part.
John 13:1: the hour finally arrives, and John says Jesus knew it had come. He's not on anyone else's schedule.
Mark 11:11: on Palm Sunday he enters the temple, looks around at everything, and, since it was already late, leaves. He comes back the next day and clears the temple during the busiest, most visible time of the year.

A ninja scouts first, then strikes.

Timing is a discipline

You've probably heard of the marshmallow test from the 1960s and 70s: kids who could wait for a second marshmallow supposedly did better in life. A larger 2018 study found the effect was much smaller once you account for family background. The honest takeaway is that waiting isn't magic, but it is a skill, and skills can be trained.

We'd add that timing isn't about being passive. It's about telling the difference between acting on impulse and acting with intention. We live in a rage-bait world where everyone is looking for a reaction, and reactive people respond to whatever is loudest. Disciplined people wait for the right moment and are ready when it arrives. Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is a great read on this, with its split between fast, automatic thinking and slow, deliberate thinking. (We know a local farmer who pauses a full 30 seconds before answering even the simplest question. He's trained himself not to give the first reaction. Turns out that's wisdom, not weirdness.)

Know when to strike, and life gets easier.

4. Knowing What You Are

This is the trait that ties the rest together. Most of us don't really know ourselves. We talk big, then reality hits and we cower. Jesus knew who he was before he did anything.

Look at the order of events:

Matthew 3:16-17 (also Mark 1:9-11 and Luke 3:21-22): at his baptism, the Spirit descends and the Father says, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
This happens before his public ministry, before the sermons, before the miracles. His identity was given, not earned.
Matthew 4: the very next thing that happens is the devil shows up in the wilderness and says, "If you are the Son of God..." He goes straight after the identity. Jesus doesn't need to prove a thing. He quotes Scripture and stays calm. That's what a secure identity looks like.
John 8:14: "I know where I came from and where I am going."

Even as a boy, when Mary and Joseph couldn't find him, he was in the temple. He knew where he belonged.

The treadmill of earned worth

Psychologists like Jennifer Crocker have studied what happens when people tie their worth to grades, looks, money and approval. It can work for a while, but it creates a treadmill. Every success has to be repeated, and every failure feels like a verdict on you. That's why so many successful people are still anxious. Achievement is great, but it makes a terrible foundation. If you spend your life chasing what the world wants, you can have all the money and fame and still feel an emptiness that never fills.

The Christian view is a different foundation: you're loved before you perform. That's not permission to be lazy. It's what lets you take risks, take responsibility, and fail without being destroyed. And knowing yourself doesn't mean thinking you're better than everyone else. It means knowing your values, accepting your responsibilities, and sticking with your purpose even when nobody's clapping.

Jesus never expected you to be perfect before coming to him. He wants you to come broken, with all your problems, right where you are. You don't have to fix something first. You don't have to go to church first. And if you feel like you're getting lazy in your faith, that's okay. Pick up the Bible. He'll meet you where you are.

How to Put It Into Practice

If knowing yourself is the key, how do you get aligned in mind, body and soul? Mark 12:30 says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That's the whole person pointed in one direction, and when you're aligned like that, a lot of the inner noise quiets down. ("Peace be with you" is how Jesus greeted his disciples in John 20.)

Here are four ways to live it out:

Move in silence. Stop announcing, start finishing. Pick one thing you've been talking about doing, and take the first step this week without telling anyone. Show the finished product instead of the plan.
Speak with purpose. Before giving someone advice, ask yourself whether a question or a story would land better than a lecture. Talk so people can actually hear you.
Learn your timing. Scout, wait, then act. Ask yourself: am I doing this because I'm ready, or because I feel pressure? Impulse is loud. Intention is calm.
Know yourself. Read your Bible and give yourself real quiet time. A quick note on meditation: Christian meditation isn't about emptying your mind. It's about filling it on purpose. Psalm 1 describes the blessed person as one who delights in God's word and meditates on it day and night.

Your Challenge This Week

For seven days, spend 10 minutes each morning with no phone. Read one passage from the Gospels. Write down one thing you notice. And do one good thing this week that nobody finds out about.

Ten minutes. If 67% of men would rather shock themselves than sit alone, imagine how powerful it is when you actually do it.

Not into the Gospels? Our advice is to read Romans. It's the book that opened Martin Luther's eyes to the fact that following man-made traditions, even devoutly, isn't the same as living according to God. (We're not here to bash Catholics. There are plenty of good ones.) If you do want a Gospel, we'd recommend John, since it was written for non-believers.

A Quick Disclaimer

Becoming a "ninja" in this sense doesn't mean disappearing, manipulating people, or speaking in riddles to sound deep. It means working without constantly needing applause, communicating with wisdom, waiting for the right moment, and standing on a spiritual foundation. Jesus is the example. The ninja is just the unusual lens that helps us remember it.

That's why we went back to the original Japanese meaning of the word. Skip the black suits and swords, and a lot of what the Shinobi were really about lines up with how Jesus lived.

Final Thoughts

We live in a world that rewards visibility, instant reactions and self-promotion. Maybe the most valuable lesson is that not everything meaningful needs to be announced. Not every truth needs to be forced on someone. Not every opportunity needs an immediate response. Sometimes the greatest strength is knowing when to walk away, when to speak, when to act, and when to trust God with the outcome.

Or, as Kenny Rogers put it: know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

If you made it to the end, congratulations. You've earned your ninja badge.

How to Move in Silence Like a Ninja (and Why It Works)