God's Psychology
The early church didn’t have psychology. It is, as a formal study, only maybe 200 years old at the most. There have been a lot of opinions voiced over that time as to whether psych is actually a science. The nature and practice of psychology has changed a lot in just the last 50 years. There has been a drift away from counseling and toward treatment with medicines. The results have been favorable. But God knows people have emotional and mental difficulties. He knows everything, of course, and he has remedies for the afflictions that come through to us because of Adam.
God’s psychology is not called psychology. It is called ministry. It is practiced not by educated Phd.’s but by those who have the gift of pastoring. They don’t use the tenets of Freud or Rogers. They use the Bible. They don’t depend on the enlightenment of the troubled mind through hypnosis or analysis. Instead they depend on the leading and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, there have been many who have become qualified “Christian Psychologists”. This is a blending of the best of what the “science” can offer along with parallel concepts in the Bible. Often the client is helped because of the Biblical concepts alone, but the therapeutic strategies are given equal credit. This gives credibility to the notion of Christian Psychology where it may not be deserved.
But in the book of 2 Corinthians we have a large portion devoted to God’s mind about the mental and emotional problems of his people. I would like to expose them and comment a little.
2 Corinthians 1:3-9
The words that show up in this passage are “comfort”; “tribulation”; “consolation”; “afflicted”; “enduring”; “sufferings”; “hope”; “trouble”; and then the phrase “pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:” All of these indicate emotional and mental stress, the last being very deep and serious.
God is the God of comfort. When he was here he said “Peace”. It was a command to the sea and a blessing on the twelve in the upper room. He didn’t mean it as a casual greeting. Often today we hear it used that way between friends. But when Christ said it he gave peace. It was real. It was eternal. Consider that for a moment. With a word, Christ can do what psychoanalysts try many years to achieve. When a client consults with a counselor, he has lost his peace. We all do at times and we suffer but we don’t worry too much because as always, we will eventually get it back. But when the loss of peace becomes chronic, people start looking for treatment. God can give it. And his way of giving it is quite unusual. He tells us to die.
That’s right, he tells us to die. He does this in many contexts, the chiefest being Romans 6:11 where we reckon ourselves dead to sin. Another very good one is Colossians 3:1-4. And this one is very helpful as a companion to the context of 2 Corinthians 1:9. To put it plainly, dead men do not suffer. They do not care. They do not sin and they do not reap of the flesh corruption.
We are often told that we are dead. Why is this? Because Christ has begun a new life in our bodies. This life is his life. He is producing fruit and life that is the life of Christ. The old Adamic life is worthless. That is where we are attacked with emotional and mental challenges. But the Christian is told to take an attitude toward that kind of attack. He is to reckon himself dead. “We do not trust in ourselves but in God which raises the dead.” We are dead and we do not try to resurrect the old man. We keep him dead. His works are dead works. His mind is of the flesh. Whenever we find ourselves gravitating toward him the only remedy is to reckon ourselves dead.
And then we are alive to God. We have new life and it is toward God. The new nature doesn’t suffer mental anguish. If it did, the Lord would not have given us death as a treatment. We would never reckon the life of Christ in our bodies as dead.
When we are uncomfortable, or suffering or in despair under normal conditions, such as a funeral of a loved one or the loss of a job or maybe a bad investment, we are told by our friends to trust in the Lord; keep looking to him; he cares and he will see us through. This is what we are told in verse 9. It is as good in the inevitable loss of a mother to old age as it is good for the heavy worry and fear that accompanies psychosis.
I would never advise against using medication to treat bi-polar disorders, or ADHD in children, or other ailments that are the result of body chemistry, such as post-partum depression. As medical science learns more and more about what works, we should use the chemicals that can calm a mind and heart that have lost self control. But when the balance is restored but the worries persist, the counselor who is most effective is the one who can give peace with a word.
So, then, “death” is a starting point toward psychological healing.
The problems in Corinth were of the kind that often lead to “being swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” (Chapter 2; verse7) The guilt this man must feel is the shortest route to mental imbalance. They were to comfort him with love before this could happen. They were to forgive him. This is of God. The love and forgiveness and comfort will be that which is of the Spirit and not natural. There is much consideration in Chapter 2 of the subject of sorrow or being sorry. The anguish of knowing someone is suffering this way should drive us to extend the comfort to them with which we ourselves have been comforted.
The church is a community. It has been said that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Maybe so. But it also takes community to provide stability for each other. When we love and care and take action one to another, it is a form of being submitted one to another because then we become a servant who sees to others’ needs. If we each use our gift for the benefit of the Body of Christ, there will be no one “left out” or feeling “unwanted”. There will be none who is lonely. There will be no one who feels unloved. “Bear one another’s burdens.” The same exceeding abundant power that Christ used in person to minister to his lambs is available today in the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives.
Looking back at 2 Corinthians we see that the subject of emotional stress is interwoven with other subjects, like the nature of law vs. grace; Paul’s qualifications to be an Apostle and the criticism leveled at him and other things. I would like to confine my remarks to the subject of emotional stress. In chapter 4, beginning in verse 8, Paul is describing his own stress and how he was able to overcome it by means of death. This death is not, of course, the physical cessation of bodily processes like circulation and breathing. It is the placing, mentally and spiritually, of certain valued human institutions into practical exclusion. We just don’t use them anymore.
For example, if I die to “self” I no longer act based on what is best for me. A good practical example of this would be in battle where the soldier dismisses his own safety and falls on a live grenade to save his fellows. Another example would be if I find that something causes me to offend my brother (as Paul cites “meats” in his case) I would just give that up; permanently. Perhaps I feel at liberty to have alcohol with meals. For the sake of one who is watching and would be stumbled, I give up that option. To give up life, though, in general; to die daily, would be at least the “losing” of all our options and at most, the giving up of physical life entirely.
In verse 16 we have the result. The life of Christ, which has been sown in us, now comes forth instead of the old man. Our self is no longer growing. Christ is now growing and filling us with HIMself. This will end in glory for God and for us too. I encourage the reader to spend some time in 2 Corinthians 4, exploring the meanings and making connections to other passages; meditating and praying over the practical application to our lives in the present.
Chapter 5 is very specific as to how the comfort of the Lord, in reckoning self dead, works. We face physical death and accept it. This is why this doctrine is so effective. If we accept physical death, it is then much easier to accept the death of, say a relationship. Dead men cannot accomplish, so one who has accepted death will find it easier to place, in God’s ordering of his life, his firing from a job where he had mega-ambition and expected to one day lead a department or the whole company. If I am granted more physical life, my proper attitude is to seek to please Christ by allowing Him to be the life I lead instead of me (verse 15 and Galatians 2:20). Verse 13 allows that some thought Paul was crazy. If we truly take up practically this way of life, it will show. And the manifestation of it will be so “unnatural” that some may notice and think we are daft. “What? You mean you are not going to expose George for his incompetence? Don’t you realize how you could leapfrog right over him on the ladder?!” But our behavior is not “to others” but “to God”.
As 2 Corinthians goes on, less about this subject is written. But God is speaking throughout from this same basis – that reckoning ourselves dead is the beginning of life. All things, things we have not discussed in this short paper, depend on this basis in the Christian life. We cannot be able ministers or worshipers without this basis. Surely, we cannot handle our emotional and mental challenges without it. This is God’s approach to the aspects of mental illness that are not physiological in their etiology.
God’s psychology is not called psychology. It is called ministry. It is practiced not by educated Phd.’s but by those who have the gift of pastoring. They don’t use the tenets of Freud or Rogers. They use the Bible. They don’t depend on the enlightenment of the troubled mind through hypnosis or analysis. Instead they depend on the leading and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, there have been many who have become qualified “Christian Psychologists”. This is a blending of the best of what the “science” can offer along with parallel concepts in the Bible. Often the client is helped because of the Biblical concepts alone, but the therapeutic strategies are given equal credit. This gives credibility to the notion of Christian Psychology where it may not be deserved.
But in the book of 2 Corinthians we have a large portion devoted to God’s mind about the mental and emotional problems of his people. I would like to expose them and comment a little.
2 Corinthians 1:3-9
The words that show up in this passage are “comfort”; “tribulation”; “consolation”; “afflicted”; “enduring”; “sufferings”; “hope”; “trouble”; and then the phrase “pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:” All of these indicate emotional and mental stress, the last being very deep and serious.
God is the God of comfort. When he was here he said “Peace”. It was a command to the sea and a blessing on the twelve in the upper room. He didn’t mean it as a casual greeting. Often today we hear it used that way between friends. But when Christ said it he gave peace. It was real. It was eternal. Consider that for a moment. With a word, Christ can do what psychoanalysts try many years to achieve. When a client consults with a counselor, he has lost his peace. We all do at times and we suffer but we don’t worry too much because as always, we will eventually get it back. But when the loss of peace becomes chronic, people start looking for treatment. God can give it. And his way of giving it is quite unusual. He tells us to die.
That’s right, he tells us to die. He does this in many contexts, the chiefest being Romans 6:11 where we reckon ourselves dead to sin. Another very good one is Colossians 3:1-4. And this one is very helpful as a companion to the context of 2 Corinthians 1:9. To put it plainly, dead men do not suffer. They do not care. They do not sin and they do not reap of the flesh corruption.
We are often told that we are dead. Why is this? Because Christ has begun a new life in our bodies. This life is his life. He is producing fruit and life that is the life of Christ. The old Adamic life is worthless. That is where we are attacked with emotional and mental challenges. But the Christian is told to take an attitude toward that kind of attack. He is to reckon himself dead. “We do not trust in ourselves but in God which raises the dead.” We are dead and we do not try to resurrect the old man. We keep him dead. His works are dead works. His mind is of the flesh. Whenever we find ourselves gravitating toward him the only remedy is to reckon ourselves dead.
And then we are alive to God. We have new life and it is toward God. The new nature doesn’t suffer mental anguish. If it did, the Lord would not have given us death as a treatment. We would never reckon the life of Christ in our bodies as dead.
When we are uncomfortable, or suffering or in despair under normal conditions, such as a funeral of a loved one or the loss of a job or maybe a bad investment, we are told by our friends to trust in the Lord; keep looking to him; he cares and he will see us through. This is what we are told in verse 9. It is as good in the inevitable loss of a mother to old age as it is good for the heavy worry and fear that accompanies psychosis.
I would never advise against using medication to treat bi-polar disorders, or ADHD in children, or other ailments that are the result of body chemistry, such as post-partum depression. As medical science learns more and more about what works, we should use the chemicals that can calm a mind and heart that have lost self control. But when the balance is restored but the worries persist, the counselor who is most effective is the one who can give peace with a word.
So, then, “death” is a starting point toward psychological healing.
The problems in Corinth were of the kind that often lead to “being swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” (Chapter 2; verse7) The guilt this man must feel is the shortest route to mental imbalance. They were to comfort him with love before this could happen. They were to forgive him. This is of God. The love and forgiveness and comfort will be that which is of the Spirit and not natural. There is much consideration in Chapter 2 of the subject of sorrow or being sorry. The anguish of knowing someone is suffering this way should drive us to extend the comfort to them with which we ourselves have been comforted.
The church is a community. It has been said that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Maybe so. But it also takes community to provide stability for each other. When we love and care and take action one to another, it is a form of being submitted one to another because then we become a servant who sees to others’ needs. If we each use our gift for the benefit of the Body of Christ, there will be no one “left out” or feeling “unwanted”. There will be none who is lonely. There will be no one who feels unloved. “Bear one another’s burdens.” The same exceeding abundant power that Christ used in person to minister to his lambs is available today in the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives.
Looking back at 2 Corinthians we see that the subject of emotional stress is interwoven with other subjects, like the nature of law vs. grace; Paul’s qualifications to be an Apostle and the criticism leveled at him and other things. I would like to confine my remarks to the subject of emotional stress. In chapter 4, beginning in verse 8, Paul is describing his own stress and how he was able to overcome it by means of death. This death is not, of course, the physical cessation of bodily processes like circulation and breathing. It is the placing, mentally and spiritually, of certain valued human institutions into practical exclusion. We just don’t use them anymore.
For example, if I die to “self” I no longer act based on what is best for me. A good practical example of this would be in battle where the soldier dismisses his own safety and falls on a live grenade to save his fellows. Another example would be if I find that something causes me to offend my brother (as Paul cites “meats” in his case) I would just give that up; permanently. Perhaps I feel at liberty to have alcohol with meals. For the sake of one who is watching and would be stumbled, I give up that option. To give up life, though, in general; to die daily, would be at least the “losing” of all our options and at most, the giving up of physical life entirely.
In verse 16 we have the result. The life of Christ, which has been sown in us, now comes forth instead of the old man. Our self is no longer growing. Christ is now growing and filling us with HIMself. This will end in glory for God and for us too. I encourage the reader to spend some time in 2 Corinthians 4, exploring the meanings and making connections to other passages; meditating and praying over the practical application to our lives in the present.
Chapter 5 is very specific as to how the comfort of the Lord, in reckoning self dead, works. We face physical death and accept it. This is why this doctrine is so effective. If we accept physical death, it is then much easier to accept the death of, say a relationship. Dead men cannot accomplish, so one who has accepted death will find it easier to place, in God’s ordering of his life, his firing from a job where he had mega-ambition and expected to one day lead a department or the whole company. If I am granted more physical life, my proper attitude is to seek to please Christ by allowing Him to be the life I lead instead of me (verse 15 and Galatians 2:20). Verse 13 allows that some thought Paul was crazy. If we truly take up practically this way of life, it will show. And the manifestation of it will be so “unnatural” that some may notice and think we are daft. “What? You mean you are not going to expose George for his incompetence? Don’t you realize how you could leapfrog right over him on the ladder?!” But our behavior is not “to others” but “to God”.
As 2 Corinthians goes on, less about this subject is written. But God is speaking throughout from this same basis – that reckoning ourselves dead is the beginning of life. All things, things we have not discussed in this short paper, depend on this basis in the Christian life. We cannot be able ministers or worshipers without this basis. Surely, we cannot handle our emotional and mental challenges without it. This is God’s approach to the aspects of mental illness that are not physiological in their etiology.
posted by Biblical Christianity at 12:25 PM
0 comments
