PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

RUNNING THE RACE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Josiah A. Bennett

Running involves mental concentration. You have to be focused. I do not run, but my friends who run talk a lot about the mental state they have to be in before they run and while they run. However, running certainly is not all about the mind. You need to worry about your heart and feet as well. If your mind, heart, and feet are not working together, you are going to trip. The Christian life is the same way. We have to keep our minds, hearts, and feet all in check. It is not enough to merely think about running. You need to want to run and you actually have to run.

As students of theology, it is really easy to think about theology but not actually put it into practice. It is a lot of fun to read heavy tomes over coffee and bagels. It is stirring to our minds to locate theology in God. But if we don’t put what we study into practice, we are like runners who never run. The Christian life is far more than intellectual understanding or knowing; it is practical living as well.

What Is Practical Theology?

This portion of the blog is going to dedicate itself to the discipline of practical theology. Practical theology is “apply[ing] the text to yourself, the church, and the world.”[1] This involves conveying mental comprehension (often referred to as “head knowledge”) to your heart and feet. First, this means taking a concept, which can often be ethereal or distant and bringing it to your heart—so that you love God and others more because of it. Finally, the concept must move to your feet and hands—so you move and act differently because of it. The disciplines of theology and Bible study are merely the first essential portion of application. Before we can apply, we must know.

Why Should You Do Practical Theology?  

Knowing is certainly an essential beginning to application, but it is not enough to merely come to memorize a flash card or a list of verses. As can be seen from many Sunday schools, even a child can memorize portions of Scripture. However, our understanding is not complete until that knowledge transforms us. God’s word, which is authoritative to the Christian life, should make a marked effect on our day to day lives. May we not be like the children who can repeat “Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right,” yet are unable to behave in such a way throughout their week. Knowing should move to application.

Since knowing should yield action, all theology is practical. Yet, while all theology ought to yield to application, often it does not.[2] This is usually people’s greatest aversion to theology. They hear the egg-headed discussions, the multiple languages, and the logical progressions, and feel like it has no bearing on their day to day lives, and therefore is of little use. Since they don’t see immediate payout, they resist spending the time and energy to truly learn. Yet, whether we mean to or not, what we think about God affects the way we live. After all, we are all theologians.[3] In fact, regardless of how few theological books you have read, you “have a working theology that shapes and informs the way you think and live.”[4] A poor or incomplete understanding of theology is inconsistent with the Christian life. God has revealed himself in Scripture, and the Bible has authority over the Christian life. If we fail to hear God’s word and fail to apply it, we are ignoring God’s word. Therefore, we should be all the more diligent in pursuing rigorous theological study and complete application to our lives.

How Do You Do Practical Theology?  

In order to do practical theology, you do not need a B. A., M. Div, or a Ph.D. Those degrees are certainly helpful (I am grateful for my own degree, and for many others who have gotten others), but they will not guarantee that the text will affect your heart. The Spirit must do its work. Therefore, practical theology rests on prayer and the Spirit’s work. Apart from the Spirit’s stirring of our hearts, we cannot come to love God’s words or desire to apply them to our lives. Apart from the Spirit’s enlightenment, the sweet, deep truths of Scripture will be cold and bitter to us. Therefore, the first step of practical theology is prayer. Every time we open our Bibles or a theology book, we ought to pray that the Lord would move our hearts to love and respond in faith.

Practical theology is not divorced from the other disciplines. In fact, all the other disciplines (Bible reading, systematic theology, historical theology, and Biblical theology) find their end in practical theology. It is through reading the Bible and doing other exegetical and theological disciplines that we find ourselves at practical theology. Our daily Bible reading should end with applying the text to our lives. In Biblical theology, viewing how themes in the Bible are fulfilled in Jesus, we will come to a better understanding of how texts apply to our lives. Our daily Bible study should lead us to the other disciplines, and the other disciplines should lead us to practical theology.

Conclusion

Practical theology is essential to the Christian life. As we read through the Bible, we will find areas that we must systemize in order to make sense of it, and other times we will have to look to our fathers of the faith and seek to understand how they applied and interpreted the text. All of this should bring us to asking the final question, “How shall I live in light of all this?” Once we understand how the text applied to the immediate context (the original audience), we can then seek to understand how the text should be applied in our later context. As we run the race of the Christian life, we must engage not only our minds but our hearts and feet as well.

[1] Naselli, How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2017), 3.

[2] Ibid, 312. Here Naselli bemoans the fact that there are very few works on application, despite the plethora of books on interpretation.

[3] R. C. Sproul, Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Pennsylvania: Maple Press, 2014).

[4] Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciplines (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 13.

Posted at: https://godandthegospel.com/articles/practical-theology-god-and-the-gospel

God's Loving Law

Erik Raymond

Wrapped in shiny wrappers, sin promises life but delivers death. Because God is loving, he warns us against sin by instructing us in the path of life.

In the Garden of Eden, God warned our first parents, Adam and Eve, with these sober words that echo through the ages, “the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). We know how the rest of the story goes. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s Word and ate from the tree. They plunge themselves and their posterity—all of us—into sin.

When we think about God’s warning here, we have to observe his love. It’s love that warns Adam and Eve what not to do.

Love for Adam and Eve

By warning us of what is wrong, God shows love for his creation. This is love because what is wrong is what will hurt us. Sin corrupts God’s good gifts. It perverts his gifts and harms us. Think of the pain and suffering that you have experienced in this world. Now consider how you may have hurt others. What, at the root, is the cause of this? It is sin. Sin brings separation, pain, and death (Rom. 6:23; Col. 1:21).

These warnings also preserve God’s blessings. We know that following this sin, Adam and Eve were ushered out of the Garden (Gen. 3:17-24). Banished from the happy and intimate fellowship with God, they were relegated to a world plagued by their sin. Had they obeyed, they would have remained in the garden and squarely in the realm of blessing.

When you think of God’s words of warning to you, remember that they are words of love. He wants what’s best for you. Your joy is not found by opening the shiny and forbidden wrappers of sin but through the trusting and treasuring of God’s Word.

Love for God Himself

God’s warnings also reflect a love for God himself. Yes, God shows his love for himself by warning us not to sin. How so? God’s Word, the Bible, reflects God’s character and will. Doing what God has commanded brings honor and glory to God (John 15:7-8). This pleases God. Disobedience to God’s Word dishonors God. This displeases God. God, out of love for his glory, commands his people to obey him.

It should be obvious if we are thinking in a way that reflects God’s thoughts, then we would want to obey his Word. This is what gives him glory. It also reflects our love for God.

As you read God’s commands to you in the Bible, remember the goodness of them (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The Word of God not only protects us from hurting ourselves, but also preserves his blessing and good to us. Disobedience to God’s Word has a double evil: it assaults God and injures us.

Consider how Jesus brings both of these together. Motivated by love for his people and in obedience to his Father’s will, Jesus became a man and lived in perfect obedience to God’s Word. He never sinned (Heb. 4:15; 2 Pet. 2:22). Then he died upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sin (Isa. 53:5-6). So in Christ, we have the highest love for people and the highest honor to God (Gal. 2:20; John 10:17). He secured our blessing and satisfied God’s righteous requirements. How can we respond with anything else but loving gratitude (Gal. 6:14)?!

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/erik-raymond/gods-loving-law/

How Do You Love Your Wife Like Christ Loves the Church?

ERIK RAYMOND 

It seems like a simple command: “Husbands love your wives.” But if you’ve been married for more than five minutes, you realize that it’s a bit harder than it sounds.

There are a few reasons.

The command for the Christian husband to love his wife is not contingent upon her fulfilling any particular roles. In other words, it’s to characterize his life even if his wife is not acting lovely. More to the point, it’s an ongoing, everyday type of love. It’s not a love only reserved for wedding days, anniversaries, or Valentine’s Day. This is everyday love characterizes the disposition of the Christian husband to his wife.

Furthermore, it has a pattern to follow. The Christian husband reflects Jesus’s love for his church and the unity found in this relationship (Eph. 5:25-32). The Bible points husbands to the supreme example, the husband par excellence as the one who is both the model and also the motivation for loving their wives.

In light of how Jesus loves his church, how then are Christian husbands to love their wives?

Here are ways in which a husband can love his wife like Jesus.

(1) A Sacrificial Love

We start here with the most obvious. The husband’s love for his wife is to be sacrificial, because Jesus’s love for us was sacrificial. This giving up is another way of saying he sacrificed his life for his wife. Jesus died for his bride, and so the husband must be willing to do the same. 

Thankfully it remains noble for a husband to be willing to lay down his own life to save his wife. But the essence of the sacrifice could be pressed home further. Would he live sacrificially for his wife? Will he die to himself and his self-interest to put his wife first?

(2) A Serving Love

Jesus served the church. This love wore an apron. He served his bride, the church, with his life and death. We read in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Likewise, the husband, the leader, is to serve his wife. He is to, like Jesus, be willing to set aside his interests when presented with the opportunity to serve his wife. Think about it. We could never conceive of Jesus being too busy to hear from us in prayer. He is not distracted. He is not uninterested. No, he loves us and continues to listen and help us. He is always doing us good. 

Jesus is not too busy checking his phone, scrolling through social media, when we are trying to talk to him.

He is not drifting off thinking about hobbies or work when we are pouring our hearts out to him in prayer.

He is not daydreaming when we are laying bare our weaknesses before him. No, he is present, faithful, caring, and serving.

He is attentive and sympathetic (Heb. 4:15-16).

The danger for marriages is not that the husband would love another woman more than his wife; it’s that he would love himself more than his wife.

(3) A Faithful Love

Jesus is faithful to his church, his bride. Likewise, the husband, if reflecting Jesus, must be faithful to his wife. We read in verse 31, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

This one-flesh union is a life of commitment and faithfulness. In Paul’s time, just as in our own, people changed partners without a second thought. The Christian marriage, and the love the husband offers his wife, is to be a committed and faithful love. 

(4) An Understanding Love

Jesus knows us and understands us. He knows what makes us tick. He knows our weaknesses. Peter reminds husbands in 1 Peter 3:7 to “live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor” (to her). This word “understanding” refers to knowledgable love. The husband is well-acquainted with his wife. He knows and understands her. The husband must be forever studying and learning his wife. I’ve joked that I’m a lifetime student at the University of Christie. I’ll never graduate nor get a diploma; I’m a lifetime learner. I’m always trying to learn how to best love and serve her.

(5) A Caring Love 

Paul writes, “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” 

The husband’s love for his wife should reflect his care for his own body. 

Paul offers two keywords to describe this: nourish and cherish. A husband cares for his wife by nourishing her heart, much like a gardener nourishes his plants. 

“This requires him to pay attention to her, to talk with her to know what her hopes and fears are, what dreams she has for the future, where she feels vulnerable or ugly, and what makes her anxious or gives her joy.” A husband cherishes his wife “in the way he spends time with her and speaks about her, so that she feels safe and loved in his presence.” Phillips offers this warning: “In my experience, a husband’s caring love is one of the greatest needs in most marriages. [A] wife’s heart is dried up by a husband who pays her little attention, takes no interest in her emotional life, and does not connect with her heart.” (via Challies)

Husbands are to care for their wives as Jesus cares for his people.

(6) A Sanctifying Love

You’ll notice that much of what Paul refers to here involves Jesus’s care for us spiritually. I don’t think this means that the husband is the only one responsible for seeing his wife grow in godliness.

The husband is given the privilege and charge to see his wife grow in godliness. There are other means God has provided (i.e., the local church), but it is the husband’s responsibility to ensure that it happens. He is to be concerned with his wife’s spiritual growth. He is to share Jesus’s burden for his wife’s holiness. 

He directs his love toward her godliness. This love then will show itself in such matters as conversation, family devotions, prayer, church attendance, church participation, service, and the overall tone of the home. Christian husbands can excel in many areas of love but drop the ball at this point and, as a result, not fulfill their charge from the Lord. Husbands, are you taking the lead in pointing your family, and especially your wife ,to the Word of God and the God of the Word?

(7) A Consistent Love

Jesus is consistent. And all of his actions toward us are mediated through his loving covenant of grace. In Packer’s classic Knowing God, he observes, “Every single thing that happens to us expresses God’s love to us, and comes to us for the furthering of God’s purpose for us.” All of his ways toward us are in love. He goes on, “God loves people because he has chosen to love them—as Charles Wesley put it, “he hath loved us, he hath loved us, because he would love” (an echo of Deut. 7:7-8)—and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure.”

When we reflect God’s love toward us in the gospel, Christian husbands are to be consistent. They are not to be up and down, mixing his love for his wife one day and his love for himself the next. 

(8) A Leading Love

Jesus left us a pattern to follow. If we want to be Christlike, then we must reflect his leadership:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)

The Christian husband’s love for his wife is not to look like a Roman occupation. It’s not a page out of the popular business handbook. It’s not about self-fulfillment but self-sacrifice.

Practically speaking, this means that husbands and wives are not allowed to delay obeying God’s commands until their spouses fulfill their God-given roles perfectly.

(9) An Enduring Love

Jesus doesn’t quit on his bride. Isn’t that good news? Too many Christian marriages tap out when things get hard. We mustn’t do this. We are to stay on the field and work it out, continuing to press on and go to the end. Jesus motivates us to endure amid and through hardship.

(10) An Eschatological Love

The picture of Ephesians shows us that this is God’s plan for the summing up of all things in Christ (1:10; 20–23). Therefore, as the husband submits to Jesus and leads his wife in a loving way he is reflecting this end-time submission of all things to Christ. Being a Christian husband is not about being some prideful, self-absorbed leader but a humble, self-giving servant leader. In this, you reflect the reality that Christ, not you, is the king. And his kingdom has dawned. 

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/erik-raymond/how-do-you-love-your-wife-like-christ-loves-the-church/

Experience Better Relationships

Paul Tripp

Do you want to experience better relationships? Who doesn’t!

The best place to start, as with all things, is with Scripture. But be ready—what you find might be different than what you were initially seeking.

Read Colossians 3:12–14:

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (ESV)

Read that a second time.

First, this passage defines our need. We were not designed to live the Christian life on our own. We must all come to understand and accept that our walks with God are community projects.

Second, this passage confronts our ownership. Our relationships don’t belong to us; they belong to God. We cannot allow ourselves to have an owner’s view of our relationships as if they exist for the sole purpose of our happiness.

Third, this passage defines our identity. Where does the Apostle Paul get his character list from? The answer is that these are the traits of Christ. Paul is figuratively telling us to “put on” Christ.

Finally, this passage defines our calling. God has a purpose for you in all of your relationships. It is that you would live as one of his representatives; that is, that you would live representatively.

Who are you representing? You are called to represent your Savior King.

What does that practically look like? Representing the King means you represent his message, his methods, and his character.

Representing the King’s message means that you look at every situation through the lens of the truth of Scripture and determine to help others look at life that way too. How does the Truth help me make sense of this moment, and how can I share that truth with the other person?

Representing the King’s methods means that you seek to be a tool of gospel change in the life of another person. How would the King work to mature this person, and how can I be part of that methodology and process?

Lastly, representing the character of the King means asking yourself, “What aspect of the Lord Jesus Christ does this person need to see in the situation that he or she is now in, and how can I incarnate that love?”

Other people are never about our wants, feelings, and desires. God has not designed your relationships to be vehicles for human happiness but as instruments of ministry and redemption.

The Bible presents a “bigger-purpose-than-my-happiness” way of living when interacting with others.

And when you give up your self-centered agenda, you’ll find more joy, peace, and fulfillment in your relationships than you could have ever imagined!

Posted at: Wednesday’s Word on Paul Tripp’s website

What Does Paul Mean When He Says, “Act Like Men”?

Wyatt Graham

At the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul exhorts the church to, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Cor 16:13). In particular, the phrase “act like men” has led many to assert that the apostle makes a positive case for acting in a masculine manner.

This misconstrues the phrase’s meaning. The phrase “act like men” translates a single Greek word (ἀνδρίζομαι) which means to act in a courageous and virtuous manner. To understand the meaning of the verb translated above as “act like men,” we can refer to its dictionary definition, its use in contemporary sources, and its contextual meaning in 1 Corinthians. 

Dictionary DefinitionA standard New Testament Greek dictionary, BDAG, provides the translational gloss for ἀνδρίζομαι as “conduct oneself in a courageous way” (s.v. ἀνδρίζομαι, 76).

BDAG’s definitional gloss shows how the word was used during the era of the New Testament. Its earlier use in classical literature as well its later use during a sort of classical renaissance (4th ce.) had a more direct masculine tilt (the verb relates to the word “male,” ἀνήρ). 

BrillDAG a dictionary that supplies classical Greek definitions provides a number of glosses such as “to cause to become a man, make strong” or “to reach manhood, maturity.” Other uses include “to act as a man, behave manfully” or “to wear men’s clothing” (s.v. ἀνδρίζω) In these cases, the direct meaning “act as a man” exists alongside the metaphorical meaning of “make strong.”

Part of the difficulty with defining ἀνδρίζομαι is that in philosophical discussions during the centuries before Christ “to be manly” became synonomous with “to be virtuous.” This sort of use can be seen in the contemporary word virtue which comes from the Latin word vir, which means “man.”  Yet when this term for virtue or courage becomes applied generically or to both sexes, it takes its obviously metaphorical meaning: to be courageous or virtuous. 

Contemporary Use

Polycarp during his martyrdom (early 100s) is reported to have heard a voice say to him: “be strong, and show yourself to be a man [ἀνδρίζου]” (MPoly 9). During the 90s,

Hermas could apply this term to both a man (VHermas 3.12.2) or to a woman (3.8.4). In this sense, the word “act courageously” has masculine overtones but can likewise be applied to women since it carries a universally applicable attribute: namely, courage or virtue. 

Contextual Meaning

In first Corinthians 16:13, Paul addresses the church of Corinth which comprises both men and women as earlier passages in 1 Corinthians  make clear (e.g., 1 Cor 14:34). The resurrection destiny of all Christians into the image of the man Jesus Christ also applies to both men and women in Corinth (1 Cor 15). There is not then any obvious hint that Paul somehow specifies only men in 1 Corinthians 16. Added to that, the whole sequence of commands link together:

“Watch, stand in the faith, take courage, be strong” (my trans.) and likely the next verse also should be included: “Let all of your activity be done in love” (v. 14). None of this sounds specifically made for men since all should stand in the faith or act in love (cf. 1 Cor 13).

What I think clinches the inclusive sense of the command is Paul’s use of an Old Testament idiom to wait, to be strong and to be courageous (2 Sam 10:12; Ps 27:14; 31:24; BDAG lists these). It is worth quoting a couple of these passages to illustrate the point:

Psalm 27:14: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

Psalm 31:24: Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!

Paul seems to pull on this classical idiom to encourage faithfulness in 1 Corinthians 16:13:

“Watch, stand in the faith, take courage, be strong.”

If anyone still doubts, we only need to look to the Greek translation of the Hebrew of Psalm 27 which uses the verb ἀνδρίζου to translate the Hebrew term for “courage” (אמץ). The exact same thing is true in Psalm 31:24 which uses ἀνδρίζεσθε.

In Hebrew, the word “courage” (אמץ) does not carry the connotations of masculinity like the Greek term ἀνδρίζομαι can. Hence, the Greek translators of the Old Testament which Paul mainly cites have used ἀνδρίζομαι in its normal metaphorical sense. And it is almost certain that Paul did too. 

Conclusion

Paul’s likely use of an Old Testament idiom to a mixed audience should make it clear that “act like a man” is an imperfect translation. Or more accurately, it would be incorrect to use this translation to mean to act in some distinctively masculine way to the exception of some feminine way of acting. If by acting manly, someone means act courageously, then such a translation would work. Yet almost nobody today in North America would understand this translation with that sense. Hence, to use “act like a man” in translation could unintentionally lead someone to mistake the meaning of the text. Granted, Christian leaders can and should explain the meaning of the passage in context which mitigates this possibility. Still, some emphasize the assumption that this passage denotes masculinity in contrast to femininity as such. It does not. Instead, it encourages all of us to act like the saints of Old—to stand firm in our faith, wait for the Lord and be strong and courageous as the Lord told Joshua before he entered the land by faith (Josh 1:9). 

Posted at: http://wyattgraham.com/what-does-paul-mean-when-he-says-act-like-men/

When Freedom Is Captivity

Tim Challies

It is the theme of so many movies, so many novels, so many classroom presentations and political discourses: Freedom comes in pursuing your deepest desires, whatever those desires may be. Be true to yourself, be unashamed in who you are, and you will find joy and fulfillment.

Not too long ago I read the bestselling book Anticancer, written by David Servan-Schreiber. In this book he talks about the importance of a healthy immune system for battling against disease and lists several factors that may cause an immune system to decrease rather than strengthen. One of those factors, he insists, is denying or ignoring one’s natural homosexuality. If you are homosexual, the best thing for your body and soul is to pursue your homosexuality. True freedom, he implies, freedom of both body and spirit, will be found in pursuing homosexuality; captivity will come by ignoring what he believes to be natural and good.

And yet the Bible tells us a very different story. True freedom, the Bible insists, comes when we obey God. We do not find freedom outside of the revealed will of God but within it. It is within the boundaries he gives us that we find freedom and joy and fulfillment. What looks like captivity is freedom, and what looks like freedom is captivity. We are terrible assessors of what brings the truest joy. It is a daily battle to take God at his word.

Think of a child who is told by his parents not to touch the glass in front of the fireplace. He finds freedom in obeying the boundaries his parents set for him and he ignores those boundaries at his own peril. His parents are not being arbitrary or cruel. Rather, they are using their superior knowledge and their love for him to tell him what is in his own best interests. Their love for him compels them to create rules, to create boundaries.

Similarly, God gives us boundaries and he does so out of love and mercy. He tells us that we will find joy and freedom not outside of such boundaries but within them. Within the limits he gives us, we are able to find much greater joy and pleasure and fulfillment. Adam and Eve, living within the simple boundary God gave them (do not eat the fruit of that one tree) were able to live a sinless existence fully in the presence of God. But they were also able to choose not to obey and as soon as they did that, they found that their disobedience made them slaves. No longer free to serve God in every moment of every day, they became slaves to their sinful natures. The promise of freedom brought them only the pain of captivity.

It is just so much better to take God at his word and to live within the boundaries he gives us! As Christians we have the promised Holy Spirit who works in and through and with us to deliver us from sin. As we put away what formerly delighted us, we find a whole new kind of freedom in obeying God. We find that he becomes our delight and that we find great joy in living in obedience to him. And he grants us the freedom to be free—free from sin, freedom from our enslavement to it, freedom to see what is truly delightful.

No sin is worth the captivity it brings us. Sin enslaves, but God delivers. We find our freedom not apart from him and the boundaries he gives us, but with him and within those boundaries he has graciously given to us. Here is true fulfillment and true freedom.

Posted at: https://www.challies.com/christian-living/when-freedom-is-captivity/

The Goal of Biblical Counseling

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Me

By: Gary Hallquist

I remember the moment in my first counseling class when the professor asked, “Do you know what the goal of all counseling is?” The question struck me for a couple of reasons. First, I hadn’t really thought of counseling as having a goal (shame on me). If I had to come up with one at that point, it would have probably been something like, “To help the counselee find a biblical solution to his problem.” Second, how could all counseling have the same goal? That seemed unlikely to me. The professor answered his rhetorical question. “To please the Lord.” Since that moment in my class, I have often thought of that question and answer. Many times, I have said to counselees, “You know what the goal is, don’t you? To please the Lord.”

I am grateful for the insight I gained that day and adopted 2 Corinthians 5:9b as a kind of counseling life-verse: “We make it our aim to please him.” Until one morning I was meditating on one of my favorite verses, Colossians 1:27b, where Paul writes, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and my attention was drawn to what follows in verse 28. “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” As I began to reflect on what Paul was saying, I realized he was disclosing his goal for ministry—to present everyone mature in Christ.

Though this goal is by no means contradictory to that of pleasing the Lord, it speaks more clearly as to how to please the Lord. God is pleased when His people mature in Christ. And when counselors proclaim the rich image of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” to counselees, along with warning and teaching full of biblical wisdom, we become instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit that promote that maturation.

Let’s unpack this a bit. What does it mean to proclaim Christ in you? I have found this phrase to be the single most important concept in my personal pursuit of holiness, and sharing it with counselees often produces fruit. I couple it with the “in Christ” passages of Ephesians 1 and help them consider that the discovery of who I am is found in figuring out where I am.

If I am positionally in Christ, and Christ is in me, what God sees when He looks at me is Christ. He sees Christ, whose wounds paid for my sins, rather than me—a vile, sinful worm plagued with wanderlust and wickedness. He sees Christ, who earned the robe of righteousness that I’m wearing, rather than me dressed in my stench-soaked rags of unrighteousness. He sees the life that I live as Christ living in me. He sees the death of Christ as my death to sin, and the resurrection of Christ as my power to live in newness of life. As Peter states: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3).

I rarely find a believing counselee who truly understands what it means that she is in Christ and Christ is in her. She may give mental assent to the facts but has likely never explored the implications of these magnificent truths. She has probably thought much about how she sees herself but has pondered little how God sees her.

Progress toward spiritual maturity is impeded until we get this right. When we begin to see ourselves as chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, blessed with a guaranteed inheritance, and sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1) instead of dead in our sins, followers of the world and Satan, enslaved to our flesh and its desires, by nature children of wrath, having no hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2), we are on the path to right thinking and glorious living that embraces the wonderful truth that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Step One in the process is to fix our eyes on Jesus. God gave us two eyes to behold Christ—one to see Him humbled, crucified, and suffering in our place, and the other to see Him exalted, victorious over death and hell, and ruling the universe and my life with perfection.

See with the eyes of your mind, your life hidden in Christ. In His humiliation, see your sin. See God’s wrath meted out for your transgressions. See the blood pouring from your wounds. Feel the nails and spear piercing your flesh. Enter into the cry of anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Feel the coldness of the tomb as your lifeless body is wrapped and laid on a stone.

Then with your other eye, behold the Spirit’s power penetrating the tomb of your soul. Hear the rumble of the stone being removed, and see the light defeating the grave’s darkness. Behold the clouds opening up as you ascend to the Father in the heavenlies, where you are then seated with the victorious Christ.

Now live with eyes wide open and fixed on Jesus. What your physical eyes see is a mirage. The world is the devil’s forgery—an inferior autograph. Behold Christ, and you will see yourself as God sees you, which is who you really are—and who you are becoming.

Counselor, are you proclaiming “Christ in you” to your counselees? Are you warning and teaching with all wisdom in order to present each counselee mature in Christ? That is the goal. May we never lose sight of it. May we never lose sight of Him—”Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Questions for Reflection

1. Have you reflected on what you consider to be the goal of counseling? How is the concept of making everyone mature in Christ useful in the way you approach counseling?

2. Does a person’s identity in Christ play an important role in your counseling? How about in your own life?

3. Which of these two perspectives better describes your approach to sanctification—I am a sinner who believes, or I am a believer who sins? How do these differ?

Look Up

Mike Emlet

Lately, I’ve been reading in the Psalms of Ascent. These are the songs sung by the Israelites as they journeyed to Jerusalem for their annual feasts. This morning I lingered over Psalm 123:

To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud (vv.1-4).

The phrase that caught my attention was, “I lift up my eyes.” In the midst of “more than enough” suffering, the psalmist looks up to the One who is enthroned in heaven. This is no casual glance upward. It is a fixed, steady, expectant gaze at the LORD. He calls out for and awaits God’s mercy. The psalmist appeals to the only one who can truly help, the King on His throne.

This is similar to the focus of Psalm 121:1-2:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

Are you faced with “more than enough” hardship today?

Do the challenges you face seem insurmountable?

Does the journey seem too much?

Where do you look for help?

If you’re like me, you don’t always look up. In fact, too often we look out, we look in, or we look down. What do I mean?Sometimes we “look out,” expecting that our help comes from other people. There is a certain rightness to this. Others do bear our burdens (Gal. 6:2). Others are called to encourage our faintheartedness and help our weakness (1 Thess. 5:14). Others comfort us with the comfort of Christ (2 Cor. 1:3-4). But they are not our Messiah.

In their own human frailty, they often fall short of what we truly need.If others are untrustworthy helpers and unable to bear the full weight of our suffering, where else do we look? Sometimes we “look in.” We look inward for the fortitude and perseverance to face our hardships. We ratchet up our planning and our doing. That strategy may work for a season, but inevitably our small boat of personal resources swamps in the wind and waves of life in a fallen world. As we feverishly bail water, we realize we’re in a losing battle. The broken relationship is irreparable. The cancer is terminal. Our reputation is forever tarnished. The chronic pain is truly chronic. The business will indeed fail. Then what?

I find that at these points, too often I “look down.” I become discouraged and overwhelmed. Life shrinks to the rocky ground before me, and in that Earth-bound gaze, I try to plod on.When we experience the insufficiency of looking in, out, or down, this is precisely the point at which our loving and faithful Father King calls me—and you—to look up. To call out for mercy in our time of need.

To fix our gaze on mercy personified—Jesus Christ—who sits enthroned in heaven. He faced “more than enough” suffering in the humiliation of His freely chosen incarnation, earthly life, and death (Phil. 2:6-8). He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). And in the midst of His horrific suffering, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death (Heb. 5:7). In His resurrection victory over sin, suffering, and death, He now invites you, weary traveler, to draw near to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy and find grace in your time of need (Heb. 4:16).Look up to the merciful One who stands ready to help.

Questions for Reflection

In the midst of hardship, are you more tempted to look out, look in, or look down?

How does each of these strategies specifically manifest themselves in your life and relationships?

In what practical ways can you look up to your faithful Savior today?

What have you read recently in Scripture that could give you a hopeful perspective on your troubles?

How might that shape your prayer life?

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the CCEF website and is used with permission from Mike Emlet and CCEF. The original article can be found here.

Mike practiced as a family physician for 12 years before joining CCEF as a counselor and faculty member. Mike holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania as well as an M.Div. degree from Westminster Theological Seminary. He has authored the mini-books: Asperger Syndrome; Help for the Caregiver; OCD; and Angry Children, and authored CrossTalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet.

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/01/27/look-up/

Refresh Your Soul with Humility

Jon Bloom

If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you may have memorized the following verses without trying, simply because you’ve heard them quoted so often:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
     and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
     and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5–6)

“We need to be reminded how untrustworthy our own wisdom is.”

This promise is so beloved because it is so freeing. We are finite and there is so much that exceeds our understanding, it can be overwhelming. But in this command to trust the omniscient one, we find a place of refuge that allows us to maintain our sanity. We find peace in the promise that if we are humble enough to obey this compassionate command, God will direct our course.

I wonder why, then, given how less I’ve heard them quoted over the years, we don’t seem to be as familiar with the next two verses:

Be not wise in your own eyes;
     fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh
     and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:7–8)

I would think that the promise of God-given refreshment would be nearly as precious to us as God-given guidance.

Similar but Not the Same

It’s clear that the writer meant for his son (Proverbs 3:1) — and the rest of us — to read these eight lines (four verses) together. I doubt he intended them to be separated, because they form the kind of parallelism so common in Hebraic poetry and wisdom literature:

• The command, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart”, corresponds with “Be not wise in your own eyes”;

• “Do not lean on your own understanding” corresponds with “fear the Lord, and turn away from evil”;

• And the promise in verse 6 (“he will make straight your paths”) corresponds to the promise in verse 8 (“It will be . . . refreshment to your bones”).

The genius of this kind of parallelism is that it allows the writer to make related statements that are not redundant. There’s a clear connection between what verses 5–6 say and what verses 7–8 say, but they don’t say identical things. Trusting in God with our whole heart is not the same thing as not being wise in our own eyes (though we can’t have the former without the latter).

What God Gives the Humble

What the proverb is doing is turning the diamond of a profound truth in the light of God’s wisdom so that we see a different refraction of that light. What is this profound truth? We learn more explicitly further down in the chapter: “toward the scorners [God] is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor” (Proverbs 3:34).

Proverbs 3:34 is one of the most quoted verses in the whole Bible. If you don’t recognize it, that’s probably because you are simply more familiar with the Greek translation of the verse (from the Septuagint), which both the apostles James and Peter famously quote: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

“Cultivating humility before God is among the healthiest things we can do for our souls.”

That is the truth-diamond the writer holds up in this chapter: God gives grace, his favor, to the humble. When he turns it one way, the light of God’s wisdom refracts verses 5–6 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart . . . and he will make straight your paths”). When he turns it another way, it refracts verses 7–8 (“Be not wise in your own eyes . . . [it will be] refreshment to your bones”). Guidance in life and soul-restoration are both graces God gives to the humble.

But since we are so familiar with verses 5–6, let’s linger over the refraction of God’s wisdom we see in verses 7–8 and the grace promised us if we heed it.

You Aren’t as Wise as You Assume

First, look at the command: “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil” (Proverbs 3:7).

To be told, “be not wise in your own eyes,” has a different effect on us than “trust in the Lord with all your heart.” It immediately heightens our awareness of and confronts the “pride of life” (1 John 2:16), the pride we all have as part of our sinful natures. This is the pride that assumes we can adequately understand the knowledge of good and evil, and judge rightly between the two. It is a perilous assumption.

The proverbial author knows how seductively deceptive this pride is and warns us against its folly throughout the chapter. What’s so seductively deceptive is how easily choosing evil can appear wise to us because of the benefits it seems to provide those who do. When we read his examples of evil behavior (Proverbs 3:28–34), we might be tempted to think we’re above such behavior. But the fact is, we notoriously underestimate how confusing things can appear in the pressure of real-life situations, when we are afraid or angry or suffering or threatened.

This command is a great mercy for the complex and difficult situations and decisions we all face. There are times when we need the soul-jolting, in-our-face, direct warning not to trust our own wisdom and to turn away from evil more than to be merely told to trust in God. We need to be reminded how untrustworthy our own wisdom is.

Humility’s Restoring Power

Lastly, look at the powerful promise to those who aren’t wise in their own eyes, but fear God and turn away from evil:

It will be healing to your flesh
     and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:8)

Note the words the writer chooses here: “healing” and “refreshment.” These are restorative terms. Why does he use them?

Because this experienced father knows the violence done to the soul by the doing of evil and the temptation to evil. He knows that “a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot” (Proverbs 14:30). He knows what David meant when he wrote, “When I kept silent [about my sin], my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psalm 32:3). He knows how evil violates the conscience and creates terrible conflict with God and man. And he wants his son and all of his readers to experience peace (Proverbs 3:2), or to return to peace if he’s strayed into evil.

And the path to deep, refreshing peace from God is living humbly before God.

Humble Yourselves

The apostle Peter was thinking of the truth-diamond in Proverbs 3 when he wrote,

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5–7)

“Guidance in life and soul-restoration are both graces God gives to the humble.”

God gives grace to the humble. To those who humbly trust him with all their heart, he gives the grace of guidance. To those who humbly refuse to be wise in their own eyes, he gives the grace of refreshing peace. To those who humble themselves under his hand, he will give the grace of exaltation. And to those who humbly cast their cares on him, he gives the grace of carrying their cares.

It is good for us to be as familiar with verses 7–8 of Proverbs 3 as we are with verses 5–6. There are times we must remember to trust in the Lord with all our heart, and there are other times we must remember to not be wise in our own eyes. They are similar, related, complementary, yet different refractions of God’s wisdom. And both remind us that cultivating humility before God is among the healthiest things we can do for our souls.

Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon) serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight, Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife have five children and make their home in the Twin Cities.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/refresh-your-soul-with-humility

Same Sex Attraction and the Wait for Change

Article by Nick Roen

Few concepts are more foreign to our culture than waiting. Now you can take a picture of a check with your phone and deposit it instantly into your bank account without even leaving your La-Z-Boy. “Instant,” it seems, has become the new “relatively quick.”

This has been highlighted in my own life as I have wrestled with the issue of change in regard to my same-sex attraction (SSA). When I began counseling several years ago, I thought that if I followed a set of prescribed steps, then my attractions would switch from males to females. However, after seven months of hard work, I began to become disillusioned and depressed because that didn’t happen. Why wasn’t change happening like I thought it would?

Then one day it hit me. I realized that heterosexuality is not my ultimate goal — holiness is. And my holiness is not ultimately contingent on the reversal of my attractions. Once this became clear, I began to view change differently.

Change Not Promised

The reversal of my orientation is a type of change that is not guaranteed in this life. God never promised me that he would remove my SSA. I am reminded of Paul praying three times to the Lord in 2 Corinthians 12 that the thorn in his flesh would be taken away. And what did God say? “My grace is enough” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God decides which thorns stay and which thorns he will remove, for his glory. Even though SSA is a particularly painful thorn to bear, I have no guarantee one way or the other.

“Heterosexuality is not my ultimate goal — holiness is.”

In fact, promising orientation change can be quite harmful. In reality, there is no set of prescribed steps that will definitively lead to a reversal in attraction, and this type of thinking can make orientation change into an idol that must be achieved or all is lost. If my hope rested in becoming straight, then I would have no ground for hope at all.

This Change Guaranteed

However, make no mistake, change is guaranteed. What happens when I dethrone heterosexuality as my ultimate goal and replace it with holiness? What happens when I cling to Jesus, trust the promises in his word, and fight the fight of faith by his Spirit? I change! This (often painfully) slow process is called sanctification, and sanctification is a type of change that is inevitable for all true Christians.

And here’s the thing: my sanctification here on earth may or may not include a change in my attractions. In conforming me into the image of Christ, God may see fit to leave my orientation unchanged until the day I die, for the purpose of my ultimate holiness. My SSA might be one of the “thorns” that he leaves to increase my faith and display his power and grace in my life.

Groaning, Waiting, Hoping

This is where waiting comes in. I want to be “fixed” now, to stop warring against my flesh and become like Christ. The waiting is so hard! Thankfully, the Bible tells me how to deal with the waiting. As I experience the groanings in this body, I have great grounds for hope.

“My orientation may not change in this life, but complete sanctification is coming.”

I hope in my full, final, ultimate adoption as a son of God, which will include the redemption of my body (Romans 8:23). And I need to hope because it isn’t here yet. After all, “hope that is seen [present right now, immediately, instantly) is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” (Romans 8:24).

Indeed, instead of “fix me now,” the Bible gives me this: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:25). No matter how acutely I feel the brokenness of my body, and my already-but-not-yet adoption as a son of God through Christ, I must wait for my full redemption with patience.

In discussing the hollow promise of orientation change, Wesley Hill, who experiences SSA, says this: “Suffice it to say, I think the real spiritual and theological danger of this kind of ‘victorious Christian living’ talk is an avoidance of the ‘state of being on the way.’ It’s an expectation that the kingdom of God should be here fully now, without our having to endure its slow, mysterious, paradoxical unfolding until the return of Christ.”

So instead of snapping a picture of my check, I need to be content with being in the car “on the way” to the bank.

Worth the Wait

Believe me, it is really hard. But the reality is that “on the way” is where I experience God. For now, it’s in the pain and the groaning and the fighting for contentment that God reveals himself, and changes me, and strips away my idols, and gives me more of him, and prepares me for an eternity of enjoying him without the pain.

“Change is guaranteed. Sanctification is inevitable for all true Christians.”

It’s on the ride in the car that I see the beautiful countryside, and the majestic mountains, and the stunning sunset that I wouldn’t have seen if I were magically transported to my final destination, breathtaking as that final destination will be. The waiting is where I am sanctified, conformed into the image of Jesus, and readied for delighting in him when I see him face to face (2 Corinthians 3:18).

My orientation may not change in this life, but complete sanctification is coming (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24). It isn’t here yet. But that, I think, I can wait for.

Nick Roen (@roenaboat) is pastor for worship at Sojourners Church in Albert Lea, Minnesota. He writes on topics related to worship, sexuality, and celibacy.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/same-sex-attraction-and-the-wait-for-change