Category Archives: Exegeting the Heart

Soren Kierkegaard, The Mirror of the Word, Part 4

27 Friday Apr 2018

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Now we come to the primary purpose of discourse: What does it mean to use the Word of God as a “mirror”:

It is required that when thou readest God’s Word in order to see thyself in the mirror, thou must remember (so as really to get to the point of seeing thyself in the mirror), thou must remember to say to thyself continually, “It is I am that am here addressed, it is about me this is said.”

He calls this the “seriousness” of reading.  To explain this proposition, Kierkegaard uses an analogy and an example from the Bible. First, to explain what it means to be addressed by the Word.

King David had sinned grievously. He thought he successfully covered up his adultery and Uriah’s death. Then the prophet Nathan came to David and told a story. A rich man with a large flock had a friend come to dinner. The rich man was neighbor to a poor man whose family had only a single lamb which they had raised as a pet.  To feed his guest, the rich stole the poor man’s lamb and served it to the friend. David shocked and angry pronounced death upon the rich man. Nathan said, to David, “Thou art the man.”

Kierkegaard explains what has happened here:

Behold, this tale which the prophet recited was a story, but this, “Thou art the man,” was another story– it was a transition to the subjective.

He then gives an example how we could read the Word as Mirror. He uses the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The story entails a serious of people who should know better and who pass a wounded man on the side of the road. Only the despised Samaritan stops and cares for the wounded man. When we read this, we can easily hold a smug attitude and this and think, I am glad I am not like this priest in the story. But:

No, when thou readest God’s Word, it must be in all seriousness, and thou shalt say, “This priest is me. Alas, that I could be so uncompassionate — I who call myself a Christ — and in a way I am also a priest …

And so the Word is a mirror. We must be careful to not look at the mirror — which creates distance from the Word’s work, but look into the mirror and see ourselves reflected and exposed there. The Word of God works best and right when it exegetes the reader: it exposes the reader’s heart for examination.

[Next will be not forgetting what he have seen; and an examination of the psychology of resolutions.]

 

Soren Kierkegaard, The Mirror of the Word, Part Two

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

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“What is Required in Order to Derive True Benediction From Beholding Oneself in the Mirror of the Word?

“First of all, what is required is that thou must not look at the mirror, not behold the mirror, but must see thyself in the mirror.”

At this point, Kierkegaard is getting to what the Word is supposed to do to one when it is read: specifically, what does this passage in James say the Word is supposed to do when it is read. He explains this by referring to “reading and reading”:

Thus the lover [who had received a letter] had made a distinction between reading and reading, between reading the dictionary and reading the letter from the lady love.

This means that when we read the Word, we must not treat the Word as the object and we the subject in control: rather, the Word is the subject and we are the object being examined. — This is not bare subjectivity of meaning — this does not mean that there are thousand “meanings” in the text and thus all ‘readings’ are equally valid. It would be easy to understand Kierkegaard as advocating some sort of hyper-reader-response theory:

So the lover made a distinction, as regards this letter from his beloved, between reading and reading; moreover, he understood how to read in such a way that, if there was a desire contained in the letter, one ought to begin at once to fulfill it, without wasting a second.

Think now of God’s Word. When thou readest God’s Word eruditely — we do not disparage erudition, far from it — but remember that when thou does read God’s Word eruditely, with a dictionary & c., thou are not reading God’s Word …

There are words on the page, that is true. But the reading does not stop at understanding the words: the words are there to do something to the reader. The one who reads the lover’s letter is not merely engaged in an intellectual exercise; the reading is undergone to change the reader.

There is a “point” to reading the Word:

And if there is a desire, a commandment, an order, then (remember the lover!), then be off at once to do accordingly.

To which one may object, but what of all the obscure and difficult passages. Kierkegaard answers brilliantly: well there are many things you do understand. Tell you what: do all the things which you in fact can understand, and after you have done all that let us consider the obscure passages.

This gets to a matter of Hebrews 5:14. There is a correlation between our ability to uderstand the Word and our obedience to the Word. Our correspondence in life to the Word, our correspondence in affection transforms our ability to understand:

14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Cognition

Behavior                       Affection

Each of these three affect the other. Kierkegaard is explaining that if we read merely for cognition, we have not read the Word. It is not inert knowledge which one seeks, but transformation. And James 1:22 explains that one transformation which must take place is that the Word must illuminate and expose the reader: the reader is being examined and seen when the Word is rightly read.

How then is this done? What does it look like in practice?

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LV

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, law, Scripture, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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MEDITATION LV
Upon a Looking Glass

mirror

 

What is that which commends this glass? Is it the pearl and other precious stones that the frame is set in, is richly decked and enameled? Or is the impartial and just representation that it makes according to the face everyone who beholds himself bring unto it? Surely the ornaments are wholly foreign and contributing no more to its real worth than the case does onto the goodness of the wine into which it is put; or the richness of the plate [silver] to the cordial in which it is administered?

That for which the glass is to be esteemed is the true and genuine resemblance it makes of the object which is seen in it, when it neither flatters the face by giving any false beauty to it, nor yet injures it by detract ought [anything] from it.

To slight [think less than proper of] then or neglect the glass for the meanness [lowliness, lack of ornaments] of its case, and to value it only for its gaiety [beauty, appearance] is no better than the folly of children or the brutish ignorance of those who judge a book by its cover and not by the learning that is in it.

For quarreling with a glass for its returning a most exact and absolute likeness of the face that is seen in it is to despise it for its excellency and come from no other ground than a conscious of some guilt [here, a fault, not necessarily a moral failing].

Is it not for this very respect that beautiful persons both prize it and use it happily too much? It being the only means whereby they come to be acquainted with their own comeliness [beauty] and to understand what it is that allures the hearts and eyes of all toward them.

Who then but those who features nature has drawn with a coal rather than a pencil, or whom age and sickness have robbed them of what they formerly prided themselves in, shun the familiar use of it [use a mirror regularly]. Or be angry when they look into it, as if it upbraided them [rebuked them], rather than resemble them.

Phyrnethe famous harlot throws passionately away her glass saying, As I am, I will not; as I was, I cannot behold myself. And yet is this not anger against the glass causeless [without a reason]? Does it make gray hears upon the head? Or the pock-marks and wrinkles upon the face? Or does it discovery only what age and disease have done? And let them see what they cannot conceal from others?

Now what does all this argue but an averseness in men to understood the truth of their condition and a willingness through self-flattery to deceive themselves in thinking of what ever they have above what is meet [appropriate, fitting]? Great must be the impatience against truth, when the silent elections of the glass that vanish as soon as it is turned from, kindle such dislikes in the breast as to make it cast them from them [one anger throwing the mirror] for doing only the same to them which it does to others.

Here methinks [I think] we may find the ground that carnal men [one who is in the flesh, and does not have the Spirit of God] are offended at the Word, both in putting scorn and contempt upon it by the low and mean [base, foul] thoughts they have of it; or else by the anger they express against it, in throwing this blessed mirror from them in as great, though not so good, a heat as Moses did the tables which he brake beneath [at the foot of] the Mount [Ex. 32:19].

Some pick a quarrel with the plainness of the Word, as if it wholly wanted [lacked] those embroideries of wit and art that other writings and discourses abound with, and had none of those quaint expressions that might win the affections of them that converse [here, read] with it.

But is not this to make such use of the Word as young children do the glass, more to behold the babies in their own eyes, than to make any observance of themselves.

Is the Word writ or preached to have its reflections upon the fancy [vain imagination] or upon the conscience? Is it to inform only the head or reform the heart? If the inward man be the proper subject of it, the simplicity of conduces to that great end than the contemperation [accommodation] of it with humane mixtures [adding or mixing in something which would make it accommodating to “polite” speech].

It is not the painted but crystal glass by which the object is best discerned.

Others again are not a little displeased with the Law or the Word of God, because when they look into it both their persons and their sins are represented in a far differing manner from those conceptions they ever had of one or the other. In their own eyes, they are as Absaloms without any blemish; but in this glass they are as deformed lepers and spread with a uniform uncleanness: and who can bear it to see himself thus suddenly transformed into a monster?

Now their sins which they judged to be as little as the motes [a mote is a speck of dust] in sunbeams, appear in amazing dimensions, and it is to them not a looking glass but a magnifying glass. Thoughts of the heart, glances of the eye, words of the lips, irruptions of the passions are all censured by it as deserving death, and there is nothing can escape it, which as a rule it will not guide or as a judge condemn.

O how irksome this must needs be to carnal and unregenerate men who abound with self-flattery and presumptions of their own innocence and righteousness who can as with little patience endure the convincing power of the Word as sore eyes the severe searchings of the light.

We need not wonder that the Word has so many adversaries who take part with Nature against Grace, setting their works on wits by distinctions and blended interpretations to make it as a glass breathed and blown upon, which yields nothing but dim and imperfect reflections.

Is there anything that the Word does more clearly assert than the loathsome condition of Man’s nature with which comes into the world? Is it not expressed by the filthiness of the birth every child is encompassed with when it breaks forth from the womb? Is it not resembled to the rottenness and stench of the grave into which Man is resolved when he is said to be dead in sins and trespasses?

And yet how many when they view themselves in this glass give out to the world that they can see no such thing?

Celestius of old [a follower of the heretic Pelagius, 5th century] thought the original sin was matter [of the substance] of dispute rather than faith. And some have been so bold of late as to call it [original sin] Austin’s figment [a figment of Augustine’s imagination].

But the more injurious to this divine mirror of truth, the more it behooves every good Christian to be studious in vindicating it from the scorns of such as despise it for its simplicity [clarity] and from the impieties of others that seek to corrupt its purity; and to show for what cause others hate it, he [the Christian] most affectionately loves and prizes it.

Thy Word is very pure, says David, therefore thy servant loves it. [Ps. 119:140]. Can you do God better service, while you honor his Word which he has magnified above all his Name? [Ps. 138:2] Or can you do yourselves more right than to judge yourselves by that which is so pure that it can neither deceived nor be deceived.

What though it present you with sad spectacle of your sins, which may justly fill you with shame and self-abhorrence; does it not also show you your Savior, who is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. And cannot this joyful sight raise you more than the other sight can cast you down?

O fear not to see your sin, when you may at the same time behold your Savior. A mourning heart is the best preparation for a spiritual joy, and serves to intend the height of it, as dark colors do set off the gold that is laid upon them.

Give me, therefore, O Lord a broken and relenting heart
That sin may be my sorrow
And Christ may be my joy;
Let my tears drop from the eyes of faith
That I may not mourn without hope
Nor yet rejoice without trembling.
Let me see my sins in the glass of the Law
To humble me,
And my Savior in the glass of the Gospel
To comfort me
Yea, let me with open so behold his glory
As to be changed into the same image
From glory to glory.

Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Direction II.A

29 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Mortification, Puritan, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized

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(The prior post in this series may be found here.

In this section Marshall deals with the question of motivation, “we must have an inclination and propensity in our hearts” to do what God requires. There are two reasons for this. First, we will not act without the inclination. Second, the law of God itself requires love — and actual desire. It is not bare conduct which satisfies the will of God.

He begins by noting that this work of sanctification is too difficult to attain to without a satisfactory motivation:

And shall we dare to rush into the battle against all the powers of darkness, all worldly terrors and allurements, and our own inbred domineering corruptions, without considering whether we have sufficient spiritual furniture to stand in the evil day?

There are four “endowments” which Marshall lists as necessary. The first is “an inclination and propensity of the heart to the duties of the law”.  This first element is the primary category. The remaining three elements matter as these support the desire to act:

[The duty required is not bare instinctual conduct” but such a one as it meet for intelligent creatures, whereby they are, by the conduct of reason, prone and bent to approve and choose their duty, and averse to the practice of sin. And therefore, I have intimated that the three other endowments [a new natures, confidence in the eternal state, and confidence they we will persevere] are subservient to this as the chief of all, which is are sufficient to make a rationale propensity.

Marshall here sets out a theory of human motivation: A human being will not fulfill the law of God (love of God and love of neighbor) unless he has a new nature, a “hope of heaven” and certainty that the hope is real for him.

Hope functions like magnetic north for a compass needle: Hope draws the attention and orders the conduct. We must have some hope and reasonable assurance to undertake any task. One will promise to come to see another because he has hope that it will be possible to make the trek and has sufficient reason to undertake the work. But no one (who is sane) would promise to be around the world in 30 seconds, or to travel back in time. Therefore, we need hope and we need those supernatural helps (a new nature and faith to lay hold upon what is promised to the new nature) to increase in holiness.

Next we will look at Marshall’s discussion of “inclination and propensity”.

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.2

26 Thursday Nov 2015

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Continued, from here

Whitefield then sets forth the outline for the remainder of the sermons
First, What the phrase “walked with God” implies.
Second, The means to “walk with God”.
Third, Encouragement to “walk with God.”

He breaks down the concept of walking with God into four parts: (1) The enmity with God is taken away; (2) positive reconciliation has replaced that enmity; (3) there is communion with God; (4) progress is being made in relationship with God.

Walking With God Means that the Enmity With God has Been Taken Away

he Enmity With God has Been Taken AwayThe doctrine of original sin, or total depravity, or enmity between God and human beings has not been an easily received doctrine. When Whitefield says, “Perhaps it may seem a hard doctrine to some”, he is not merely making a rhetorical flourish. There was an active conflict on this matter during his lifetime.* Even if there were not an active theological controversy, there would be the matter of the natural human recoiling at the proposition that I am an enemy of God. Therefore, to get a hearing Whitefield has some serious work to do with his sermon.

First, Whitefield both admits that it s a hard doctrine and at the same time states this fact is unavoidable:

And First, walking with God implies, that the prevailing power of the enmity of a person’s heart be taken away by the blessed Spirit of God. Perhaps it may seem a hard saying to some, but our own experience daily proves what the scriptures in many places assert, that the carnal mind, the mind of the unconverted natural man, nay, the mind of the regenerate, so far as any part of him remains unrenewed, is enmity, not only an enemy, but enmity itself, against God; so that it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Indeed, one may well wonder that any creature, especially that lovely creature man, made after his Maker’s own image, should ever have any enmity, much less a prevailing enmity, against that very God in whom he lives, and moves, and hath his being. But alas! so it is.

Whitefield’s argument is based upon the passage in Romans 8:5–7 (ESV):

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

Throughout the sermon, Whitefield naturally quotes Scripture, even when he does not stop and say, “turn to Romans 8, I will begin reading in verse 5”. There are two ways to think about this. On one hand, a preacher’s language should naturally flow out in Scripture. On the other, it is a sad fact that even in the most dedicated churches the congregation has less biblical literacy than Whitefield could assume for his hearers. (I will admit that I don’t have a precise source for this fact.) Therefore, the stop and turn instruction has the effect of at least teaching congregants their way around the Bible.

Another issue here would be likelihood that most people in attendance would not have a Bible with them while they stood in a field and listened to Whitefield preach (I would be interested to discover when the habit of bringing a Bible with one to church and following along with the sermon began.)

Now Whitefield, having made his point, needs to bring the hearers to accept his point. Many sermons fail in effect because the preacher thinks that it is enough to merely state a proposition. It is essential that the necessary propositions be stated plainly, but that is not enough. In addition to the proposition being made clear, the proposition must be digestible. You will never move a hearer to act by providing information alone; the affections must be engaged of there will be no action.

Whitefield brings his hearers to understand his point by telling the story of Adam’s family. Whitefield was a genius of story telling. He uses the story to move from the abstract proposition to the tangible motions of life:

Our first parents contracted it when they fell from God by eating the forbidden fruit, and the bitter and malignant contagion of it hath descended to, and quite overspread, their whole posterity. This enmity discovered itself in Adam’s endeavoring to hide himself in the trees of the garden. When he heard the voice of the Lord God, instead of running with an open heart, saying Here I am; alas! he now wanted no communion with God; and still more discovered his lately contracted enmity, by the excuse he made to the Most High: ‘The woman (or, this woman) thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat’. By saying thus, he in effect lays all the fault upon God; as though he had said, If thou hadst not given me this woman, I had not sinned against thee, so thou mayest thank thyself for my transgression. In the same manner this enmity works in the hearts of Adam’s children. They now and again find something rising against God, and saying even unto God, What doest thou? ‘It scorns any meaner competitor (says the learned Dr. Owen, in his excellent treatise on indwelling sin) than God himself.’ Its command is like that of the Assyrians in respect to Ahab—shoot only at the king. And it strikes against every thing that has the appearance of real piety, as the Assyrians shot at Jehoshaphat in his royal clothes. But the opposition ceases when it finds that it is only an appearance, as the Assyrians left off shooting at Jehoshaphat, when they perceived it was not Ahab they were shooting at. This enmity discovered itself in accursed Cain; he hated and slew his brother Abel, because Abel loved, and was peculiarly favored by, his God. And this same enmity rules and prevails in every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam.

At this point, Whitefield turns the story to his hearers: Whitefield does not merely exegete the text, he begins to exegete the heart of those who can hear him:

Hence that a averseness to prayer and holy duties which we find in children, and very often in grown persons, who have notwithstanding been blessed with a religious education. And all that open sin and wickedness, which like a deluge has overflowed the world, are only so many streams running from this dreadful contagious fountain; I mean a enmity of man’s desperately wicked and deceitful heart. He that cannot set his seal to this, knows nothing yet, in a saving manner, of the Holy Scriptures, or of the power of God.

Having brought the point home, Whitefield returns to his main proposition which he restates and expounds. When I was a young lawyer, the very successful attorney who first trained explained that in a brief one must, Tell them what you going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them. Whitefield uses the same technique by returning and restating his original proposition:

And all that do know this, will readily acknowledge, that before a person can be said to walk with God, the prevailing power of this heart-enmity must be destroyed: for persons do not use to walk and keep company together, who entertain an irreconcilable enmity and hatred against one another. Observe me, I say, the prevailing power of this enmity must be taken away; for the in-being of it will never be totally removed, till we bow down our heads, and give up the ghost. The apostle Paul, no doubt, speaks of himself, and that, too, not when he was a Pharisee, but a real Christian; when he complains, ‘that when he would do good, evil was present with him’; not having dominion over him, but opposing and resisting his good intentions and actions, so that he could not do the things which he would, in that perfection which the new man desired. This is what he calls sin dwelling in him. ‘And this is that phronhma sarko”, which (to use the words of the ninth article of our church,) some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affectation, some the desire, of the flesh, which doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated.’ But as for its prevailing power, it is destroyed in every soul that is truly born of God, and gradually more and more weakened as the believer grows in grace, and the Spirit of God gains a greater and greater ascendancy in the heart.

*An excellent discussion on the disputes surrounding the doctrine of original sin can be found in the introduction to the Yale Press edition of Edwards’ work “Original Sin” found here

Preaching to the Heart

21 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Preaching, Sermons

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There is a class of preacher who is considered a good “expositor” and yet he knows nothing of use. His sermon is the text, an explanation, an illustration — and for all that the information remains inert. It may be true, it may be delivered in an emphatic and/or colorful manner, but it has little effect. Such a sermon may be like a doctor waving medicine before the face of patient but never failing to either diagnose the patient or deliver the medicine.

These sermons consist of an exhortation (and we will assume that it is true) and perhaps an “application” which is something you should do. It is a sermon on prayer which says true things about prayer, such as it is important, and the tells you do it — and you have no excuse otherwise.

William Taylor, in his lectures delivered at Yale and Oberlin (which demonstrates how much some places change) and published in 1876 as The Ministry of the Word, explains the place where the disconnect between information and effect takes place:

Another prerequisite to success in the pulpit is a good knowledge of the human heart. The physician must understand, not merely the nature of the remedies which he is to employ, but also the symptoms and workings of the diseases which he desires to cure. (35)

This matter of exegeting the heart  of the hearer is one of key elements of effective preaching — or as one could say it, sermons which do not bore. So where will such information derive? First, the preacher must know his own heart (this, of course, is a great benefit of effective biblical meditation), for, as Taylor explains, what is in your heart will be found in the heart of others:

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Why Sermons Often Bore

09 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Preaching, Tim Keller

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Keller began his workshop by referencing Alec Motyer’s observation that a preacher has two responsibilities: first, to the truth he proclaims, and second, to the people to whom he proclaims it. Books on preaching tend to focus on the first, neglecting the equally vital work of contextualization and application. This imbalance partly explains why much expository preaching fails to speak to the heart.

The biblical understanding of the heart is unique in human thought. Throughout history, humans have tended to pit the mind and the heart against one another: ancient cultures by elevating reason and virtue to squelch the emotions, and modern cultures by elevating self-expression as the highest goal. In the Bible, however, the heart is the seat of not just our emotions, but also our deepest trust. Preaching to the heart touches not just the emotions, but the entire person, including our thought and will.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-sermons-often-bore

Desire and Sanctification 

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Fear of the Lord

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How can we even hope for sanctification when our desire goes no deeper than the sound of the words?  Here is palpable desire – you can touch it and feel it in your bones.

 

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32:26

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Exegeting the Heart.1

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Preaching, Thomas Manton

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In his sermons, Thomas Manton often makes use of a methodology more commonly used by biblical counselors than expositional preachers. In fact, there is a strange breach in conservative evangelical ministry between counseling & preaching. Yet when one looks to the model of the Puritans (such as Manton), the two functions were united. Preaching & counseling differed primarily by audience not by content or method. That many preachers think it necessary to outsource counseling demonstrates a tremendous blindspot in their ministry.

When Manton provides a “use” (an application) in his sermons, he often uses the application as an opportunity to exegete the hearer.

For example, in his sermon on Psalm 119:65, Manton seeks “to persuade you to become servants of God.” However, he does not merely force the duty (as is in the most common custom in preaching). Rather, he makes a two-step movement. First, he sets forth the benefits to becoming a servant of God. Second, he addresses the internal objections which keep one from becoming a servant.
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