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Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.3

24 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by memoirandremains in Thomas Boston

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emotions, Suffering, temptation, The Crook in the Lot, Thomas Boston

3.         Four Characteristics of a Crook

More particularly, the crook in the lot hath in it four things of the nature of that which is crooked.

a.         It runs contrary to what we desire

Boston describes this as being “disagreeable” and “wayward”. A crook is something which runs “crooked”. But this crookedness is only apparent, and can only be seen from our point of view:

First, Disagreeableness. A crooked thing is wayward; and being laid to a rule answers it not, but declines from it.

But this is not the ultimate truth of the matter. From the perspective of God the matter is straight:

There is not in any body’s lot, any such thing as a crook in respect of the will and purpose of God. Take the most harsh and dismal dispensation in one’s lot, and lay it to the eternal decree, made in the depths of infinite wisdom, before the world began, and it will answer it exactly without the least deviation, all things being wrought after the counsel of his will, Eph. 1:11. Lay it to the providential will of God, in the government of the world, and there is a perfect harmony.

He then takes one of many possible examples:

If Paul is to be bound at Jerusalem, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, it is the will of the Lord it should be so, Acts 21:11, 14. Wherefore the greatest crook of the lot, on earth, is straight in heaven: there is no disagreeableness in it there.

Boston then repeats the point: there will something crooked in the sense that we find it disagreeable. But when this is compared to what God intends, it is not a crooked line but a perfectly placed dispensation:

But in every body’s lot there is a crook in respect of their mind and natural inclination. The adverse dispensation lies cross to that rule, and will by no means answer it, nor harmonize with it. When divine Providence lays the one to the other, there is a manifest disagreeableness: the man’s will goes one way, and the dispensation another way; the will bends upward, the cross events presseth down: so they are contrary. And there, and only there, lies the crook.

And here Boston draws out an additional: The disagreeableness of the dispensation is part of its purpose. To walk by faith, and not by sight, is to trust God and follow in what he has laid before us even when our path is so disagreeable. Do you trust that God is sovereign, good, and wise? Then the path upon which you must walk is straight even though to sight it is crooked:

It is this disagreeableness which makes the crook in the lot fit matter of exercise and trial to us, in this our state of probation: in the which, if thou wouldst approve thyself to God, walking by faith, not by sight, thou must quiet thyself in the will and purpose of God, and not insist that it should be according to thy mind, Job 34:23.

b.         It is a disagreeable sight

The crook is something which is grievous to our sense:

Secondly, Unsightliness. Crooked things are unpleasant to the eye: and no crook in the lot seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, making but an unsightly appearance, Heb. 12:11.

From this, Boston draws a bit of practical counsel: Do not spend your effort brooding over the difficulty of your circumstance. I think of Psalm 3, wherein David sees his plight, turns it over to God, and then goes to sleep.

Therefore men need to beware of giving way to their thoughts to dwell on the crook in their lot, and of keeping it too much in view. David shews a hurtful experience in his, in that kind, Psal. 39:3. “While I was musing, the fire burned.”…

If we are going to take a view to our circumstance, that sight of faith must be a sight taken “in light of the holy word”:

Indeed a Christian may safely take a steady and leisurely view of the crook of his lot in the light of the holy word, which represents it as the discipline of the covenant. So faith will discover a hidden slightness in it under a very unsightly outward appearance; perceiving the suitableness thereof to the infinite goodness, love, and wisdom of God, and to the real and most valuable interest of the party; by which means one comes to take pleasure, and that a most refined pleasure in distresses, 2 Cor. 12:10. But whatever the crook in the lot be to the eye of faith, it is not at all pleasant to the eye of sense.

c.         A crook can leave us emotionally uneven

This particular element is a bit difficult to follow in Boston’s explanation. As I understand it, he is speaking of the emotional moves which take place when confronted with a crook:

Thirdly, Unfitness for motion. Solomon observes the cause of the uneasy and ungraceful walking of the lame, Prov. 26:7. “The legs of the lame are not equal.” This uneasiness they find who are exercised about the crook in their lot: a high spirit and a low adverse lot, makes great difficulty in the Christian walk.

This uneven movement leaves us vulnerable to sin and temptation:

There is nothing that gives temptation more easy access, than the crook in the lot; nothing more apt to occasion out-of-the-way steps. Therefore saith the apostle, Heb. 12:13. “Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.”

And here he shows pastoral sympathy:

They are to be pitied then who are labouring under it, and not to be rigidly censured; though they are rare persons who learn this lesson, till taught by their own experience. It is long since Job made an observe in this case, which holds good unto this day, Job 12:5. “He that is ready to slip with his feet, is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.”

d.         The emotional entanglement of the crook:

The trouble provokes a strong emotional response, as we all know from experience:

Lastly, Aptness to catch hold and entangle, as with fish hooks, Amos 4:2. The crook in the lot doth so very readily make impression, to the ruffling and fretting of one’s spirit, irritating corruption,

And this irritation becomes an opportunity for temptation:

that Satan fails not to make diligent use of it to these dangerous purposes: the which point once gained by the tempter, the tempted, ere he is aware, finds himself intangled as in a thicket, out of which he knows not how to extricate himself. In that temptation it often proves like a crooked stick troubling a standing pool; the which not only raiseth up the mud all over, but brings up from the bottom some very ugly thing.

For proof of this point, he considers Psalm 73:

Thus it brought up a spice of blasphemy and Atheism in Asaph’s case, Psal. 73:13. “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence.” As if he had said, There is nothing at all in religion, it is a vain and empty thing that profiteth nothing; I was a fool to have been careful about purity and holiness, whether of heart or life. Ah! is this the pious Asaph! How is he turned so quite unlike himself!

The trouble stirs up our heart. Temptation taking advantage fishes out the sin which remains in our flesh (why this is a good thing is not explained at this point);

But the crook in the lot is a handle, whereby the tempter makes surprising discoveries of latent corruption, even in the best.

Distinctions and Similarities Among Positive Emotions

02 Saturday May 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Psychology, Uncategorized

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emotions, Persuasion, Psychology

Distinctions and Similarities Among Positive Emotions

A study published in 2013 (Belinda Campos et al., “What Is Shared, What Is Different? Core Relational Themes and Expressive Displays of Eight Positive Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 27, no. 1 (2013): 37-52) sought to determine which aspects of eight positive emotions (amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, interest, joy, love, and pride).

There were actually two separate studies. The first study asked the undergraduates (for course credit) to describe one of the eight positive emotions

in a short narrative. The students were also given a series of prompt questions. The information was then encoded for content. The goal was to determine what aspects of these various positive emotions remained common among all the eight, and which aspects differed.

They found things such as love and gratitude tended to go together. That positive emotions came more readily when one experienced safety or reward. Contentment was the least distinct.

Those who described awe also correlated this with the feeling of smallness, which was a trait not shared with other positive emotions. Although not part of the study, I imagine that “smallness” is likely associated also with certain negative emotions, because a feeling of vulnerability could lead on to feel unsafe.

A second study sought to correlate facial expressions with positive emotions.  It was already understood that negative emotions presented significant distinct elements. The question for the researchers was whether positive emotions would display unique elements.

I especially appreciated the quite formal description of a smile:

The Duchenne smile, which involves the simultaneous lifting of the lip corners and contractions of the orbicularis oculi muscles around the eyes, is regarded as the key marker of ‘happiness,’ the global term for displayed positive emotions.

While I appreciate the need for exactitude when discussing a subject, I did have to smile in response to this description of smiling while happy.

What was discovered was that most positive emotions were coupled with common facial displays, except for gratitude.

In the end, positive emotions are not an undifferentiated blog, but rather there are distinct elements of the emotions. Some emotions have a relationship to other positive emotions; some do not. Emotions – at least among the undergraduates studied – tend to show distinct physical expression.

The study leaves one the extent to which these findings apply to anyone beyond undergraduates at American universities.

Some thoughts on Stoicism

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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Affections, emotions, Stoicism

I read quite a bit of Stoic philosophy and thus realize that it is far more nuanced than simply detachment and reserve. But detachment and reserve; a purposeful attempt to avoid all trouble is the popular form of the concept. A cheaper and American version is to simply avoid all thoughts of something “negative”; which is a kind of ostrich happiness. I will be happy by simply not knowing. We have even medicalized this, so that feeling bad is a disease (and yes, I know there are severe cases of depression which are quite different than merely feeling sadness, loss, and such).

There is a tacit belief among som Christians, that a stoic dullness to trouble; a complete equanimity to all things is a kind of holiness.  If something bad takes place, I should not care. This is matched by a kind of stoicism to trouble as a sign of mental health.

There is much to be said for not being troubled; but that standard alone is insufficient to respond to all things. Should we be untroubled at injustice? She we be untroubled at death of those whom we love? The examples are easy to multiply.

The fault would not be in sorrow, fear, love, anger, et cetera. The trouble is the whether and when of such affections. The trouble as Christianity would have it is not that one expresses some emotion, but rather the question of whether the affection is based upon a true and right understand.  What we need is not a placid soul. What we need are rightly calibrated affections:

In this psalm you find the man of God under divers passions, sometimes of joy, sometimes of sorrow, sometimes of hope and courage, and sometimes of fear. As there is a time for all things in this world, there are several conditions and duties that we run through, and we have affections planted in us that suit with every condition. Religion doth not nullify, but sanctify our affections. Some have vainly thought affections to be an after-growth of noisome weeds in our nature corrupted; whereas they are wholesome herbs, implanted in us by God at our first creation, of great use to grace when rightly stirred and ordered:

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 8 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 230.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.8 Thinking Makes it So

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Happiness, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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Affections, Arthur Schopenhauer, emotions, Happiness, Schopenhauer, Stoicism

Here, Schopenhauer makes the argument that all happiness or woe takes place not in the environment but in the mind: happiness or sorrow or merely how I feel. Or, as he puts it, is “purely intellectual”; it is a matter of the mind.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces.

At one level, he makes a correct observation: happiness is not an objection in the environment, like a flower or a star. Happiness is a conclusion about that flower or star. When confronted by a flower, I see it, understand it in some manner and conclude that I am happy.

There is a “natural” movement from a pleasing event or object and a pleased contented experience: in a colloquial manner, the flower “makes” one happy.

He is right that the happiness is not in the flower, but in the person.

For instance, if I have just buried a loved-one and have put flowers on the casket, then the sight of flowers would produce sorrow rather than happiness.

It seems that Schopenhauer counsels a decoupling of the environment from response so that one routinely responds with happiness. Nothing is either good or bad, happy or sad, but thinking makes it so.

Let’s consider this a bit more. There are steps to move from observation of environment to happiness or sorrow. There are the mechanical aspects of observation and recognition.

There is then a evaluative process by which the object becomes meaningful. For instance, the flowers in a garden or the flowers on a grave will each have a different meaning. The meaning takes place in the subject’s intellectual apprehension.

The meaning assigned to the object then produces an emotion: Flowers mean death and loss of someone I loved; I feel sad. The emotion itself is not the result of a conclusion about what emotion I desire; rather the emotion is the result of the meaning I assign to the object and circumstance.

Therefore, I achieve a particular emotion, I do not lean my will upon my emotion. Rather, I must alter my evaluation of the event: I must change the meaning of the event so that the conclusion will be a meaning which produces happiness.

Here are two problems: First, and most importantly for Schopenhauer, what rational basis within the context of his worldview is there for evaluating anything in such a manner as to produce happiness? All of live is accidental, contingent, brief, meaningless. Necessity governs all things; and even my subjective experience of free will is an illusion. (One wonders how I will ever be able to alter my evaluations when they are the result of necessity.)

Second, if ignore the fact that Schopenhauer needs to cheat on his system to even make this argument we have to consider the cost of our reliance upon this process.

We should seek to have increasingly accurate understandings of the world, so that our emotive responses properly follow from experience (and this opens up a great series of issues, which I will bracket for right now). But I take as a self-evident that a goal of one’s understanding of the world should be rational and accurate to the degree possible.

Schopenhauer can provide no basis for why I should hope for a rational or true understanding. Indeed, a rational response would be despair. But since despair is unpleasant and I desire happiness and desiring happiness is itself rational, I should hope for a false understanding of the world. He needs to decouple reason and truth.

And then, we cannot be certain that such a decoupling will itself produce a greater happiness. With the “reasonable” goal of avoiding sorrow we transform the nature of what it is to be human. Our excessive desire to avoid sorrow and pain stunts our development as human beings. There is a depth of joy and love which comes only at excessive cost.

An awakened understanding of loss and the potential of loss and the rarity of joy and love and happiness, causes us to better treasure and better love.

A stoic distance protects us from pain, but at the cost of maturity. Again, we will bracket maturity.

Or take the matter at another level: What do we think of someone who would smile at the death of a child; who would laugh at results of a fire? Would the “happiness” of the one laughing through a cancer ward be a true benefit?

Schopenhauer is correct that happiness or sorrow are the results of “intellectual” exercise; that judgment is in the mind, not in the object. He is implicitly correct that a great deal of sorrow follows from the defects (if you will) in thought. But Schopenhauer can offer no real help in correcting our thought in such a manner to lead to any sort of increase in true (well-grounded) happiness.

The only real thing which he can offer is a Stoic resignation.

At this point, I’d offer some observations of Puritan Thomas Brooks on a Stoic resignation to trouble:

First, There is a stoical silence. The stoics of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason or understanding either to rejoice in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this stoical silence is such a sinful insensibleness as is very provoking to a holy God, Isa. 26:10, 11. God will make the most insensible sinner sensible either of his hand here, or of his wrath in hell. It is a heathenish and a horrid sin to be without natural affections, Rom. 1:31. And of this sin Quintus Fabius Maximus seems to be foully guilty, who, when he heard that his mother and wife, whom he dearly loved, were slain by the fall of an house, and that his younger son, a brave, hopeful young man, died at the same time in Umbria, he never changed his countenance, but went on with the affairs of the commonwealth as if no such calamity had befallen him. This carriage of his spoke out more stupidity than patience, Job 36:13.

And so Harpalus was not at all appalled when he saw two of his sons laid ready dressed in a charger, when Astyages had bid him to supper. This was a sottish insensibleness. Certainly if the loss of a child in the house be no more to thee than the loss of a chick in the yard, thy heart is base and sordid, and thou mayest well expect some sore awakening judgment. This age is full of such monsters, who think it below the greatness and magnanimity of their spirits to be moved, affected, or afflicted with any afflictions that befall them. I know none so ripe and ready for hell as these.

Aristotle speaks of fishes, that though they have spears thrust into their sides, yet they awake not. God thrusts many a sharp spear through many a sinner’s heart, and yet he feels nothing, he complains of nothing. These men’s souls will bleed to death. Seneca, Epist. x., reports of Senecio Cornelius, who minded his body more than his soul, and his money more than heaven; when he had all the day long waited on his dying friend, and his friend was dead, he returns to his house, sups merrily, comforts himself quickly, goes to bed cheerfully. His sorrows were ended, and the time of his mourning expired before his deceased friend was interred. Such stupidity is a curse that many a man lies under. But this stoical silence, which is but a sinful sullenness, is not the silence here meant.

 

Biblical Counseling, Depression Part IV

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Hope, John Bunyan, Psalms

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1 Corinthians 11:23-26, And Can it Be, Apollyon, Depression, despair, Deuteronomy 7:17–19, Deuteronomy 8:10-18., emotions, Exodus 13:3, Faithful Feelings, Grace, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Hope, Isaiah 48:5–7, John Bunyan, John Piper, Jonah 2:7, Memory, Pilgrim's Progress, Prayer, Preach to yourself, Psalm 119:55, Psalm 23:3-4, Psalm 42, Psalm 42:5, Psalm 43, Revelatinon 5:11-14, Romans 12:15, Romans 12:2, Romans 8:24-25, Spiritual Depression, The Soul's Conflict With Itself

COUNSELING PROBLEMS AND BIBLICAL CHANGE

BIBLICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DEPRESSION, PART FOUR

 

DEPRESSION AND MEMORY

Memory is a curious thing when it comes to depression: Depression has the effect of muddling up our memory. When a depressed person attempts to remember things going on in the recent past, they tend make mistakes.[1]

Yet, depression also feeds upon memory.  Emily Dickinson wrote a poem which begins, “Remorse is memory awake”. In the final stanza she writes

Remorse is cureless,—the disease

Not even God can heal;

For ’t is His institution,—

The complement of hell.

 

A 14th Century book from England is entitled Ayenbite of Inwyt – the Again-bite of In-wit [one’s inner thoughts]. One of the great pains of life is not our mere present circumstances, but our memory of how we came to this place.

For example, imagine a man in living alone in an apartment in Hollywood. If the man had recently immigrated from rural Laos, the apartment and the city might seem a wonder and joy.

Now consider another man: Six months earlier he had been married and living in Bell Aire. However, through a series of foolish and wicked choices he now finds himself divorced and living in an apartment in Hollywood.

Continue reading →

What of Commanded Affections in the Bible?

22 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in John Piper, Romans

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Affections, emotions, John Piper, Romans 12, Romans 12:9

John Piper in a sermon Romans 12:9 discusses the fact that Scripture often calls us to affections, emotions, responses which are contrary to how we actually feel.

But if it is so important and yet so hard, how shall we respond? Suppose you hear the command of Jesus this morning: Love the brothers and sisters at Bethlehem with tender affection. Open your heart wide to them. Feel a longing for them and joy in them. And suppose you can think of several people that you do not feel that way about. They have gossiped about you or snubbed you or let you down. And you say, “I hear you Lord. And I submit to the rightness of your command. But you see me through and through. I do not feel affection for him. My battle is just trying not to hate. But I yield. You have right to call me to this. I embrace the goodness and the authority of your call. I want to obey.” Now what do you do?

As a good pastor, he does not merely set out the command, but also follows the Scriptural model of showing how one moves from the current state to that which God calls (this is a point at which many preachers would do well to study counseling — not to avoid exegeting and expositing, but rather to exposit more faithfully, more consistently with the Scripture. God no where gives commands without giving us help to fulfill the command).

First, we must pray: Since God is asking for a supernatural (and thus not an automatic response), we need supernatural assistance. Pray that “Holy Spirit would move in power on your heart and work the miracle that neither you nor I can work on our own.”

Second, change the way that we think — which is a great promise of the New Covenant. Our emotions will rightly follow when we focus on eternal truths.

Third, remember that Christian love grows over time.

Fourth, “don’t be a relational fatalist”. Know that nothing is impossible for God.

You’ll find the entire sermon here

Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, Section 38: Passions and Quarrels

10 Saturday May 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, New Testament Background, Plutarch

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Affections, Conj, Emotion, emotions, Euripides, Passions, Plutarch, Plutarch Moralia, Plutarch translation, Plutarch's Marriage Advice

The previous post in this series may be found here: http://wp.me/p1S7fR-241

Euripides was right to correct those who add the lyre to wine. It’s best to call for music when someone is a passion or depression, not merely as an added pleasure to pleasures.

You should consider it a fault for two to lie down together solely for pleasure and then live apart just because one of them is angry.

Especially at such times they shall call upon Aphrodite; she is the best the physician for their trouble. Doesn’t even the Poet write of Hera

I will free them from their angry quarrel

And lead them in love to their marriage bed.

Greek Text and Notes:  Continue reading →

Being Holy, He is Happy

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, John Wesley, Preaching

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Affections, emotions, Exegeting the Heart, Happiness, happy, Heart Religion, John Wesley

“I answer: A Methodist is one who has “the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him”; one who “loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength.” God is the joy of his heart, and the desire of his soul; which is constantly crying out, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee! My God and my all! Thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever!”

And then Wesley takes the next step, striking a note that may sound odd to our ears. “He is therefore happy,” say Wesley. “Happy in God, yea, always happy, as having in him ‘a well of water springing up into everlasting life,’ and overflowing his soul with peace and joy.” The Christian that Wesley is describing, the one changed by God’s grace from the inside out, has real, effective heart religion at work in him. And therefore, being holy, he is happy. Christian happiness is a necessary consequence of the heart religion Wesley has been describing ….

Excerpt From: Sanders, Fred. “Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love.” Crossway, 2013. iBooks.

Pathos as an Element of Speech

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in 2 Corinthians, Biblical Counseling, Ministry

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2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5:11, 2 Corinthians 5:20, Biblical Counseling, Emotion, emotions, How to Argue Like Jesus, Imagery, Jesus, logic, Ministry, Pathos, Paul, Persuasion, Persuasive Speech, repetition, Shared Artifacts, The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod, Thomas Brooks

(As part of the course on Business Law at The Masters College, I include a discussion on how to make an effective and persuasive argument. The following are some notes on the emotional content of a persuasive speech.  Learning how be a more effective communicator is useful for all sort of activities — including Christian ministry. By including appropriate emotional content, you are seeking to make your proposition clearer and more accurate. For example, a sermon on the majesty of God which induces an emotion of levity as opposed to reverence would misrepresent the text. Or, a sermon on joy which does not make an emotional space for joy would misrepresent the topic.

One cannot read the Bible without noting that the book of Lamentations seeks to produce sorrow and then hope through sorrow — it is not a disinterested theological tract on suffering. The story of Ehud and Eglon (Judges 3:15-30) is written to produce a sarcastic smirk about idolatry followed by welling triumph.

In counseling, the counselee will typically come overwhelmed by emotions. While the goal is not merely the transfer of emotions to some new state, biblical counseling must take into consider the emotional content of the counsel. To ignore the emotional state of the counselee would be deny the explicit command of Scripture , “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Such emotionally appropriate information must entail more than tears and smiles, it most also infuse one’s speech.

As part of their training, I have the students read the book How to Argue Like Jesus, by Joe Carter and John Coleman. I happily recommend the book to anyone seeking a good introductory text on persuasive speech. The notes below are meant as a supplement to the material contained in the book.)

Pathos: Emotional content and emotional connection are necessary elements to be persuasive in communication. Before going further, note that persuasion does not mean to deceive.  In 2 Corinthians 5:11, Paul writes, “we persuade men”. In in 5:20 he implores others to be reconciled to God. 

A logical talk devoid of passion will not persuade. An emotional speech devoid of truth and logic will swindle: you will persuade for the short term, but when the trick is found out, you will be hated.

Elements of pathos:

Imagery: We are largely moved by sight: if we see a starving baby we weep. If we merely hear about a starving baby, we may feel a twinge, but little more. A fine writer will cause you to see the circumstance by means of words.

Jesus uses extremely graphic language to make his point. Here is an exercise: take the text of the Sermon on the Mount and mark every single instance in which Jesus paints a word picture. Note how Jesus does not just say, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is sovereign.” Rather, he points you to animals and plants – which likely would have been present when he was speaking – and uses that picture to demonstrate his point.

Shared emotional ties: If you share some content, some value, some story, some “artifact” with the audience, use that shared element to connect to the audience. Now, it is perfectly possibly to manipulate someone by means of such a trick. Perhaps the most famous or infamous instance of this is waiving the bloody shirt:

bloody shirt,  in U.S. history, the post-Civil War political strategy of appealing to voters by recalling the passions and hardships of the recent war. This technique of “waving the bloody shirt” was most often employed by Radical Republicans in their efforts to focus public attention on Reconstruction issues still facing the country. Used in the presidential elections of 1868, 1872, and 1876, the strategy was particularly effective in the North in attracting veterans’ votes.[1]

Thus, stories about George Washington – or stories about “your neighbors” being foreclosed upon; stories about growing up in a poor neighborhood (before I became a millionaire politician) and thus can “feel your pain”[2] or understand your circumstance – all can be very effective to tie you to the audience. They feel they can trust you, because you are similar to them.

Expressing emotion: When persuading, it can be very useful to express appropriate emotion. By expressing emotion you show yourself to be human, to be like the audience. You also cue them up on how to understand the statement. Movies do this when there is a sad scene and the camera cuts to someone crying: since we tend to imitate the emotions we see (we catch the emotion), showing emotion makes it easier for audience to share and then to express the same emotion.

Conversely, not showing emotion, or showing the wrong emotion, can be devastating for one’s standing with an audience.  George H.W. Bush famously looked down at his watch during a debate and gave the impression that he didn’t care (emotionally) about what was happening (he may have just wanted to know the time, but it was the impression that he created which mattered)  http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/a-damaging-impatience

Four years earlier, Michael Dukakis was asked a question about the death penalty and his own wife being the victim. His response made him sound like some sort of automaton (I certainly do not attribute that lack of love to the governor): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxKFJ3UAbco

Creating emotional content by rhetorical structure: Something as simple as repetition, when rightly done, can create emotional content.  Here is an example, taken almost at random, from Thomas Brooks:[3]

Look upon death as a rest, a full rest.

A believer’s dying day is his resting day . . .

  from sin,

  from sorrow,

  from afflictions,

  from temptations,

  from desertions,

  from dissensions,

  from vexations,

  from oppositions,

  from persecutions.

 

This world was never made to be the saints’ rest.

Arise and depart, for this is not your resting place,

because it is polluted! (Micah 2:10)

 

Death brings the saints . . .

  to a full rest,

  to a pleasant rest,

  to a matchless rest,

  to an eternal rest!

To see many more such examples (this was a matter of which Brooks has particular skill) look for the “choice excerpts” from each of the books:

http://gracegems.org/Brooks2/suffering9.htm

http://gracegems.org/Brooks/Mute%20Christian%20QUOTES.html

http://gracegems.org/Brooks/choice_excerpts.htm

et cetera.

Here is a strategy for making an argument: I heard a variation on this technique explained by a senior lawyer when I was just a clerk, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them.”

State your proposition: Do not worry, because God is sovereign.

Elaborate, demonstrate, prove.

Restate your proposition: If you can do this in a pithy and clear way, even better.

In the first few sentence, Brooks raises the proposition:

First, There is a stoical silence. The stoics of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason or understanding either to rejoice in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this stoical silence is such a sinful insensibleness as is very provoking to a holy God, Isa. 26:10, 11. God will make the most insensible sinner sensible either of his hand here, or of his wrath in hell[4].

Having raised the proposition, Brooks next tells a story which demonstrates his point that a Stoical silence is actually wicked:

It is a heathenish and a horrid sin to be without natural affections, Rom. 1:31. And of this sin Quintus Fabius Maximus seems to be foully guilty, who, when he heard that his mother and wife, whom he dearly loved, were slain by the fall of an house, and that his younger son, a brave, hopeful young man, died at the same time in Umbria, he never changed his countenance, but went on with the affairs of the commonwealth as if no such calamity had befallen him. This carriage of his spoke out more stupidity than patience, Job 36:13.

And so Harpalus was not at all appalled when he saw two of his sons laid ready dressed in a charger, when Astyages had bid him to supper. This was a sottish insensibleness. Certainly if the loss of a child in the house be no more to thee than the loss of a chick in the yard, thy heart is base and sordid, and thou mayest well expect some sore awakening judgment.

Brooks interrupts the examples to stop make a comment upon the situation. By doing so, Brooks is showing you how to respond. Note the graphic language used express his outrage.

This age is full of such monsters, who think it below the greatness and magnanimity of their spirits to be moved, affected, or afflicted with any afflictions that befall them. I know none so ripe and ready for hell as these.

Having made his comment, provides yet another example (this time citing to Aristotle and Seneca, who would be understood as great human authorities – though certainly not as great as Scripture):

Aristotle speaks of fishes, that though they have spears thrust into their sides, yet they awake not. God thrusts many a sharp spear through many a sinner’s heart, and yet he feels nothing, he complains of nothing. These men’s souls will bleed to death. Seneca, Epist. x., reports of Senecio Cornelius, who minded his body more than his soul, and his money more than heaven; when he had all the day long waited on his dying friend, and his friend was dead, he returns to his house, sups merrily, comforts himself quickly, goes to bed cheerfully. His sorrows were ended, and the time of his mourning expired before his deceased friend was interred.

He makes another valuation, thus showing one should respond and then restates the original proposition: the silence commended in Scripture is not the silence of the Stoics:

Such stupidity is a curse that many a man lies under. But this stoical silence, which is but a sinful sullenness, is not the silence here meant.

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 295.

 


[1] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/69963/bloody-shirt

[3] Thomas Brooks was a literary genius. If he had not been a Puritan, he almost certainly would be required reading in any literature department. He was Spurgeon’s favorite writer. As you read Brooks, you will see where Spurgeon learned his style of speaking and writing. In addition to be an extraordinary writer, Brooks was a profound and practical pastor. The quote is from a book of his called The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod. The book concerns how a Christian may properly respond to trials brought by God. In the first stage of his argument, he begins by explaining the possible meanings of the concept of silence in the face of trials. The section quoted is the first kind of “silence” which could be meant.

[4] Note the word play: Brooks works off of both the sound and the meaning of the words:

                God will make

                                The most insensible sinner sensible [note the “s” sounds]

                                                either of his hand here,

or of his wrath in hell.

Reconciling Christians

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Francis Schaeffer, John

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1 Corinthians 11:27-31, Alexander Strauch, emotions, Francis Schaeffer, John, John 13:34-35, John 17:20-21, Ken Sande, love, Matthew 6:23-24, reconciliation, The Peace Maker

A common problem in counseling is working reconciliation between believers. When believers will not reconcile, they are putting their emotions (I don’t feel like “forgiving”) ahead of the command to love.

To help counselees move beyond their feelings, it is necessary to teach them the importance of love between believers. Should they see and understand the importance of the command to love, they will put aside their refusal to love — in the same way that one convinced of a house being on fire will cause him to flee. When they don’t respond rightly, it is a failure of seeing the importance of love and the great guilt of their pride in refusing to love.

They must also realize that emotions will catch up with their behavior. We cannot allow an emotion to prevent us from performing a command.

In John 13:34-35 Jesus commands his disciples:

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This commandment means that if you and I do not show love one to another we have denied that we follow Jesus. Love of one for another is the mark of a Christian. To fail to exhibit love, even when we feel that we have been wronged, is a denial of Christ.

This matter is so important that Christ puts ahead of public worship (Mat. 6:23-24). To refuse to be reconciled makes on unfit for communion and may even bring guilt (1 Cor. 11:27-31).

 As bad as denying Christ is when we fail to love, there is actually a worse implication:

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:20–21 (ESV)

When we fail to love we deny that Jesus was sent by the Father. That is an act of blasphemy. You and I must love one another or we deny Christ.

Further reading: On the importance of love between believers: The Mark of a Christian, by Francis Schaeffer. On the doctrine in living in love: If You Bite and Devour One Another, Alexander Strauch. On the practice of reconciliation, The Peace Maker, Sande.

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