Stephen W. Hiemstra's Blog, page 61

Gospel Prayer

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

Almighty God,

All praise and honor, power an dominion, truth and justice are yours because in your law you bless and curse us as we deserve, but in your Gospel through Jesus Christ offer a path for redemption.

We confess that we are tempted to sin, to trespass against your law, and commit all manner of iniquity. Forgive us. Help us to do better.

We give thanks for the many blessings of this life: Our creation, our families, our health, and useful work to do. Most of all, we give thanks for our salvation in Jesus Christ.

In the power of your Holy Spirit, draw us to yourself. Open our hearts; illumine our minds; strengthen our hands in your service.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Gospel Prayer
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:

Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup
 

 

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Deuteronomic Cycle

We love because he first loved us.

(1 John 4:19)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

While the stories of Abraham and of the Exodus offer positive responses of faith of at least a remnant, the Deuteronomic cycle given by Moses (Deut 30:1-3) and cited by Brueggemann (2016, 59) offers an alternative response. Those who refuse faith garner the curse of scattering, an echo of the curse of Cain (Gen 3:14). Here the pattern is: collective sin, scattering and enslavement, crying out to the Lord, and the sending of a deliverer. This pattern is repeated throughout the Old and New Testaments. All are called; not all respond. One way or the other, through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit: “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.” (Isa 45:23)

Cycle in Judges

The Deuteronomic cycle is especially prominent in the Book of Judges. Probably the most familiar example is the story of Gideon. The cycle starts with sin and the resulting curse. In Judges 6:1 we read: “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.” (Jdg 6:1) After being persecuted by the Midianites, the people cry out to the Lord in verse 6 and the Lord sends an angel to call on Gideon, who is busy hiding wheat from the Midianites in a winepress (verse 11).

Gideon then assembles an elite team three hundred men against the army of the Midianites described as too numerous to number like locusts ravaging the land. Responding to a vision in a dream, this team woke the Midianites in the middle of the night with trumpets and torches. Frightened in the night, the Midianites began slaughtering each other in the dark (Jdg 7:22). 

In this manner, the Lord freed the Israelite people from the oppression of the Midianites and brought them the joy of salvation.

Cycle in Psalms

The Deuteronomic cycle usually applies to the people of Israel as a whole and brought salvation from oppression. Following the pattern established in Psalm 18, however, Psalm 116 applies salvation to the individual rather than the nation. 

This should not come as a surprise. Wenham (2012, 7) writes: “I have called it Psalms as Torah out of my conviction that the psalms were and are vehicles not only of worship but also of instruction, which is the fundamental meaning of Torah.” If the Psalms serve as a commentary on the Books of the Law, then they should show how to apply things like the Deuteronomic cycle.

Note that the Deuteronomic cycle starts with the commission of sin—the curses of Deuteronomy 28 are a consequence of disobeying the Mosaic covenant. Thus, the cycle can once again be summarized as committing sin, earning the curse, crying out to the Lord, and, then, being redeemed.

The first four verses of Psalm 116 tell his story:

“I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the LORD: O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!”

Verse one here explains his joy: “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.” Actually, English translations add the word, LORD, which does not appear in the original Hebrew or in the Septuagint Greek. The Hebrew simply reads: I have loved because he has heard my voice… We see an echo of the original Hebrew in John’s first letter: “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

Moving on to verse two, the psalmist reiterates the importance of being heard and takes a vow: “Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.” This vow is interesting because if you pray or sing this psalm, as is the custom, you also repeat this vow.

Why is listening so important to the psalmist? Verse three reiterates the answer three times: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.” In other words, death had surrounded me; hell had opened its doors to pull me in; and I was terrified. The repetition assures us that the psalmist’s vows in verse two are not to be taken lightly.

Verse four then closes the loop by returning to the second half of verse one. Verse one talks of “pleas for mercy, while verse four cites the psalmist’s actual prayer: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!”

So what brings joy to the psalmist? The Lord rescued him from death. Commentators believe Psalm 116 to be a crib notes version of Psalm 18 where King David recounts his own brush with death. Even more bone-crushing details can be found in 2 Samuel 22.

New Testament Cycle

Psalm 116’s personalized the Deuteronomic cycle and directly anticipated the New Testament and our salvation in Christ. In fact, if Jesus and the disciples sang Psalm 116 after the Last Supper, as was the custom during Passover, they took these very same vows and, in the resurrection, Jesus experienced God’s deliverance. Our redemption in Christ follows this same pattern. We sin; we get into trouble; we ask for forgiveness; Christ offers us redemption.

The key to understanding this parallel is to see sin as a form of oppression. We all experience besetting sins—addictions small and great–that we cannot shake on our own. If gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, it is also a besetting sin that can destroy our self-esteem, ruin our health, and undermine our relationships. Just like the Midianites oppressed Israel, we can be oppressed by besetting sins and we need to cry out to the Lord for our forgiveness and salvation.

References

Brueggemann, Walter. 2016. Money and Possessions. Interpretation series. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

Wenham, Gordon J. 2012. Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. 

Deuteronomic Cycle

Also see:

The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:

Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup



 

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Elliott: God’s Emotions Inform Our Emotions, Part 2

Matthew A. Elliott. 2006. Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic and Professional. (Goto Part 1)

Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra

In the 1960s when I grew up, boys were expected to fight their own battles.

Back then I almost always won playground fist fights. It was not because I was particular big or strong; it was not because I had not learned karate; it was not because I looked for fights. The chief reason that I won was because I kept my eyes open and thought about what I was doing. Most bullies that picked a fight with me closed their eyes and swung as hard as they could. Their emotions were in full control and they lost. I won, in part, because my fighting strategy engaged my emotions and thinking more equally.

Differences in attitudes about the role of the head and the heart existed also in the ancient world. In his book, Faithful Feelings, Matthew Elliott divides his comments among Greek philosophy, the Old Testament, and the New Testament (NT).  In each of these contexts, remember the distinction between the cognitive theory of emotion (we get emotional about the things that we believe strongly) and the non-cognitive theory of emotion (random, unexplained, or physiological reactive emotions).

Greek Philosophy

The Greek philosophers held a range of views about emotions.

For example, Plato’s division of the body, mind, and soul allowed later Stoics to divide the emotions from thinking—“passions were produced in the irrational part of the tripartite soul” (59-60). Things like magic arise as ways to manipulate these impersonal and irrational forces (61) and fear of emotional and irrational Gods was thought to account for unexplained suffering in the world (62).

In contrast to Plato’s tripartite division, Aristotle divided the person into just body and soul and believed that even the appetites of the body were subject to reason (hunger’s object is food) and intelligent behavior was open to reasoning and persuasion (66).

Old Testament

Perhaps because the Hebrew mindset promoted unity of heart and mind, the Jewish attitude about emotions differed fundamentally from Greek thought.

Elliott (82) writes: “The righteous base their emotions on the knowledge of God.”  For example, the Hebrew word verb for to know (יָדַע) includes a much greater range of meanings than in English—“Emotional ties, empathy, intimacy, sexual experience, mutuality, and responsibility are all encompassed with the usage of this word” (82). Elliott observes that: “Prayer in the Psalms is not a ritual to conjure up emotion but, rather, a heartfelt cry based on beliefs about God and the world.” (83)  In other words, in Hebrew thought we see an integration of “knowledge and emotion…[which] includes knowledge that is heartfelt and emotional” (83). For example, Elliott (85) observes that biblical love is always a command—an odd idea if you believe love is just a warm and fuzzy emotion— and it is a manifestation of obedience to God which the most basic daily prayer in Judaism, the Shema, makes clear:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:4-5 ESV)

Here love is commanded and we find unity not only between the body and soul, but unity of God himself. Elliott (123) writes that:  “Israel’s God was emotionally stable.”  Heart and soul are words which simply emphasize different aspects of the unified person.

King Solomon (123) summarizes God’s emotional stability best when he writes:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.” (Eccl. 3:1-8 ESV)

Elliott (115) concludes that “In Judaism emotion was a good thing…”

New Testament

Elliott begins his analysis on emotion in the NT by noting a great deal of confusion and, as a result, errors in the literature about the nature of emotion.  He cites 4 errors:

Mistakes in interpreting vocabulary or emotion words;
Mistakes made in exegesis due to misinterpretation of emotion;
A general neglect of emotion in NT studies; and
A pervasive non-cognitive understanding of the emotions (125).

One mistake that he highlights is the use of the Greek word for heart, kardia (καρδία).  Much like the Hebrew word for heart (לִבּ), kardia has a wider range of meaning that in the English where the focus is narrowly on emotions.  Kardia “connotes the integration of mind, will, and emotions” (130).  Likewise, references to the mind (νοῦς) have a wider range of meaning in Paul’s work than the narrowly focused Greek mentality would suggest (132).  For Paul, heart and mind were words used for emphasis in a unified (holistic) person, not to suggest Platonic or Aristotelian division of the person.

This holistic view of the person leads to new insights into the meaning implied by the words of emotion.  For example, Elliott writes:

“What is love? I agree with Aquinas, Arnold, and other leading theorists that love is most general an attraction towards an object.  This attraction is the result of seeing a quality in an object that is good, valuable, or desirable. This definition is the only definition which will allow love to function as the root of all other emotions…” (135).

Notice how knowledge of a person is tied in with love of that person.  I may love someone who is hideously ugly because I understand that they had a horrible accident or because they are extremely kind or because they are a close friend or relative.

Thus, when Jesus commands us to love—“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31 ESV)—he is using an emotion word, love, but he is not focused on commanding an emotional state (141).  Elliott writes:

“Emotions tell us the truth about what we believe and what we value. When the NT commands emotion it is exhorting the believer to have the values and beliefs out of which godly emotions flow.” (143).

The idea here is that in loving a person we are to treat them as worthy of love and as members of the family of faith.  This is not a warm and fuzzy kind of emotional state.

Clearly, there are a lot of details to go over in Elliott’s exhaustive inventory of emotions in the NT.  Elliott summarizes writing:  “Emotions are a faithful reflection of what we believe and value.” (264).

Assessment

Matthew Elliott’s Faithful Feelings is a book that I have referred to this book frequently in my writing and speaking since I read it first in 2012. This book is of obvious interest to pastors, lay leaders, and seminarians interested in current controversies. Elliott makes an important contribution to the discussion of how to understand emotions in the Bible and to develop a better balance between head and heart in our faith.

Elliott: God’s Emotions Inform Our Emotions, Part 2
Also see:
Books, Films, and Ministry
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

 

 

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Transitions: Monday Monologues (podcast), July 31, 2023

 By Stephen W. Hiemstra

This morning I will share a prayer and reflect on the Exodus, Wandering, and Entry. After listening, please click here to take a brief listener survey (10 questions).

To listen, click on this link.

Hear the words; Walk the steps; Experience the joy!

Transitions: Monday Monologues (podcast), July 31, 2023
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com




Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

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Wanderer’s Prayer

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

Almighty Father,

All praise and honor, power and dominion, truth and justice are yours because you remain with us during our painful transitions sheltering us from harm when we are most vulnerable.

Forgive us when we are not our best selves, letting others down and not living into our faith.

Thank you for your divine presence, faithful guidance, and protection when other friends fail us and we find ourselves in confusing times.

In the power of your Holy, help us to lean into our faith, living into our best selves, and listening to your faithful nudges. May we always find ourselves among your faithful remnant.

In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.

Wanderer’s Prayer
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

 

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Wander’s Prayer

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

Almighty Father,

All praise and honor, power and dominion, truth and justice are yours because you remain with us during our painful transitions sheltering us from harm when we are most vulnerable.

Forgive us when we are not our best selves, letting others down and not living into our faith.

Thank you for your divine presence, faithful guidance, and protection when other friends fail us and we find ourselves in confusing times.

In the power of your Holy, help us to lean into our faith, living into our best selves, and listening to your faithful nudges. May we always find ourselves among your faithful remnant.

In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.

Wander’s Prayer
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:

Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup
 

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Exodus, Wandering, and Entry

Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, 

but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, 

and have prevailed. 

(Gen 32:28)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

The story of Abram serves as a introduction, precedent, or prequel to the story of Moses, who is the author of both. Savage (1996, 84-85) might describe it as a rehearsal story—a story from the past with current meaning. Due to the lengthy details given in the Abram narrative, we can intuit that Abram’s story had obvious meaning for Moses. 

As the people of Israel left Egypt, they traveled to a land already promised to their ancestors, starting with Abram. But it was more than just land. Abram traveled to the Promised Land overcoming many obstacles obeying God’s command. Likewise, the story of Joseph, Abram’s great grandson, served to explain why they had become slaves in Egypt (Gen 37) and why their slavery was illegitimate (Exod 1:8). The stories in Genesis and Exodus are not randomly conceived.

The story of Moses begins with an enigmatic tale about recalcitrant midwives. Today we might describe their action as being faithful to the nudge of the Holy Spirit because they feared God more than the wrath of Pharaoh (Exod 1:17). God rewarded their faithfulness: “And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.” (Exod 1:21) The text implies that they may have previously been barren or, at least, unable to children.

Faithful Midwives

The recalcitrance of the midwives serves as a bridge between the stories of Abram and Moses. Pharaoh’s attempt to kill Hebrew boys stood as an impediment to God’s promise to Abram that: “I will make of you a great nation.” (Gen 12:2) Once the nation of Israel has grow in Egypt from an extended family into a nation, the story of Moses transports them to the Promised Land to accomplish God’s promise to Abram who now is truly Abraham “The father of a multitude of nations.” (Gen 17:5)

Moses’ Call

Moses’ journey of faith did not have a promising start. Abandoned by his mother on the Nile in a basket, adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and raised as prince of Egypt (Exod 2:3-10). The first thing we learn about Moses as a young man is that he murdered an Egyptian and had to flee for his life to the deserts of Midian, where he lived the life of a shepherd (Exod 2:12-16). It was from the desert that God called Moses from the burning bush (Exod 3).

Consider God’s instructions to Moses: “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exod 3:10) It would not be easy to return to Egypt, having murdered an Egyptian, and being already known within the household of Pharaoh. Imagine a convict returning to his hometown as a pastor, having been sent to prison for murder. Moses was not a credible witness among the Egyptians or his fellow Hebrews.

Transition from Jacob to Israel

Strife marked Jacob’s transition to faith (Gen 32:28). The same strife marked Israel’s departure from Egypt, sojourn in the desert, and entry into the Promised Land. It may have taken forty days for Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, but it took forty years to get the Egypt of out of the people (Bridges 2003, 43).

The three-way transition of faith is defined as a change broken up into three emotional phases required. By contrast, a change simply describes the difference between an old state and a new one.

In the first phase, change is forced on you, but your attention focuses on the things given up. In this first phase the people of Israel say to Moses: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?” (Exod 14:11) Then, they complained about food: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” (Num 11:5) 

The second phase is the desert experience where one learns to depend on God (or not). Uncertainty and division mark this phase, but it is also a time of great opportunity for those who keep their heads in the midst of chaos. Consider the response of 10 out of 12 of the spies sent into the Promised Land: “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Num 13:33) For their lack of faith, God cursed the unfaithful among Israel to return to and die in desert over the next forty years (Num 14:26-33) Only Joshua and Caleb, who returned with a faithful report and were willing to rely on God, would enter the Promised Land (Num 14:6-9).

The final phase arises once plans are set and the light at the end of the tunnel comes into view. In Joshua, we read:

“After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.” (Josh 1:1-2)

For the people of Israel to possess the Promised Land, they must take it from the current residents. Joshua, who had been Moses’ right-hand man and leader of the military, was the ideal one to lead this effort (Exod 17:9). 

Following the desert experience, the people of Israel were tough enough to pursue the path that God laid before them. The three-way transition—exodus, wandering, and entry—is not unlike a hospital visit—affliction, treatment, and recovery— or a college education—application, classes, and graduation. In each case, the middle of the transition is the hardest and, frequently, the most rewarding.

Faith does not come without travail. It is in this travail that we are open to the Holy Spirit, even if, as among the Hebrew spies, it is only a faithful remnant.

References

Bridges, William. 2003. Managing Transition: Making the Most of Change. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

Savage, John. 1996. Listening and Caring Skills: A Guide for Groups and Leaders. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Exodus, Wandering, and Entry

Also see:

The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

 

 

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Elliott: God’s Emotions Inform Our Emotions, Part 1

Matthew A. Elliott. 2006.  Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament.  Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic and Professional.(Goto Part 2)

Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra

Do you think that Jesus practiced emotional intelligence?

In emotional intelligence training we learn that complete communication has 2 parts:  the information being communicated and the feeling attached to it. Excluding one part or the other leads to confusion and misinterpretation . Information communicated in concrete examples is easier to remember than abstract examples. Short stories communicate ideas and emotions better than long explanations. Body language often reveals our true feelings, even when we are not entirely truthful with ourselves.

In his book, Faithful Feelings, Matthew Elliot examines scripture’s descriptions of God’s use of emotions with special emphasis on the New Testament (NT).  He writes:

“This book attempts to apply modern studies dealing with emotion to the NT. But it is not primarily about the vocabulary of emotion: anger, love, joy, hope, jealousy, fear, and sorrow. Instead, it is about emotion itself, how it was perceived by the writers of the NT, and what role they thought it should play in the life of the believer” (14-15).

While this subject is very timely, it is not new. Theologian Jonathan Edwards (2009, 13), writing in 1746 about the effects of the Great Awakening, noted that both head and heart were necessarily involved in effective discipling. Thus, he coined the phrase “holy affections” to distinguish the marks of the work of the Spirit from other works and associated these holy affections directly with scripture.

Elliott distinguishes 2 theories of emotions:  the cognitive theory and the non-cognitive theory. The cognitive theory of emotions argues that “reason and emotion are interdependent” (47) while the non-cognitive theories promote the separation of reason and emotion (46). In other words, the cognitive theory states that we get emotional about the things that we believe strongly. Our emotions are neither random nor unexplained—they are not mere physiology. Elliott writes: “if the cognitive theory is correct, emotions become an integral part of our reason and our ethics” (53-54) informing and reinforcing moral behavior.

The implications of this discussion are far reaching for the church. If my emotions reinforce and inform my thinking, then work on either side can help me understand my own priorities.  Reflection on my emotions can then help me organize my thoughts which may otherwise be inconsistent for lack of priority.  Likewise, theological reflection aids my emotions in being more consistent, more “even tempered”. Fellowship and Bible study in the church can, of course, aid in this process because healthy thinking and healthy emotions go hand in hand. The balance of heart and mind is therefore an obvious goal to reach Edward’s ideal of holy affections.  The bodily resurrection of Christ reminds us that we are both body and spirit—a denial of the Platonic duality of body and soul—which is another allusion to the unity of heart and mind.

Matthew Elliott received his doctorate in NT studies from the University of Aberdeen and is currently the president of Oasis International in Chicago, Illinois which makes Bibles available to the poor in English speaking parts of the world . Faithful Feelings is written in 6 chapters:

What is Emotion?
Emotions in the Greco-Roman World.
Emotions in Jewish Culture and Writings.
Emotion in the NT: General Analysis, Love, Joy, and Hope.
Emotion in the NT: Jealousy, Fear, Sorrow, and Anger. and
Emotions in the NT: A Summary Statement.

These chapters are preceded by acknowledgments, abbreviations, a list of books of the Bible, and an introduction and are followed by a bibliography, an index of names, and index of biblical references.

Elliot (90, 238) observes that emotions must have an object and that our evaluation of the morality of a particular emotion depends on its object. For example, Elliott (214) reports that the only passage in the NT where Jesus gets angry occurs in the story of the healing of the man with the withered hand:

“Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here. And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” (Mark 3:1-6 ESV)

In the story, Jesus asks the Pharisees if it is right to do good on the Sabbath?  In other words, is Sabbath observance more important than caring for one another?  Their unwillingness to answer incensed Jesus and he gets angry because of the “their hardness of heart”. In his anger he heals the man.  The object of Jesus’ anger is accordingly a hardened heart—in other words, a righteous object of anger.

Matthew Elliott’s Faithful Feelings is a book that I have referred to this book frequently in my writing and speaking since I read it in 2012. This book is of obvious interest to pastors, lay leaders, and seminarians interested in current controversies. Elliott makes an important contribution to the discussion of how to understand emotions in the Bible and to develop a better balance between head and heart in our faith.

In part 1 of this review, I have provided an overview of Elliott’s work.  In part 2, I will dig more deeply into his analysis.

Did Jesus practice emotional intelligence? Jesus’ extensive use of parables and object lessons, like the washing of feet, in his teaching suggests that Jesus was an expert at communication and fully understood the role of emotional intelligence in effective communication.

Question:  Do you suppose that the observation that post-moderns often hold inconsistent views is more a consequence of choice (decision by emotional response) or simply the result of insufficient time for reflection?  What do you think?

This is often the source of problems interpersonal communication via electronic media—even the most carefully crafted email can be misunderstood.

http://oasisint.net/about/boardstaff.

{ God likewise gets angry over sin:  “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (Gen 6:5-6 ESV)

References

Edwards, Jonathan. 2009. The Religious Affections (orig pub 1746). Vancouver:  Eremitical Press.

Elliott: God’s Emotions Inform Our Emotions, Part 1
Also see:
Books, Films, and Ministry
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

 

 

 

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Promise: Monday Monologues (podcast), July 24, 2023

 By Stephen W. Hiemstra

This morning I will share a prayer and reflect on the God’s Promise to Abram. After listening, please click here to take a brief listener survey (10 questions).

To listen, click on this link.

Hear the words; Walk the steps; Experience the joy!

Promise: Monday Monologues (podcast), July 24, 2023
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com




Newsletter:  https://bit.ly/Rem_July23 ,  Signup

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Prayer for Promised Presence

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

Almighty Father,

All praise and honor, power and dominion, truth and justice are yours because walk with us through the wilderness, shield us from harm, and mentor us when life’s challenges seem overwhelming. Do not leave us to our own devices.

We confess that we are not always paying attention, heed your promptings, or listen to your advice. Do not leave us to our own devices.

Thank you for the gift of scripture, the calming presence of your Holy Spirit, and the guidance of spiritual companions.

In the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts, illumine our thoughts, and strengthen our hands in your service.

In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

Prayer for Promised Presence
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



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