God hates abuse. He designed our emotion of gratitude to anchor our hearts in Living Water, not only to prevent abuse, but also to redeem all sins. Can you imagine the Spirit working in the lives of congregants drenched with emotional feelings of gratitude, listening to the Expository Preaching of God’s Word? Dramatic redemption of sinners!

 

Absent feelings of gratitude, the consequence is self-decapitation of one’s head from one’s heart. It’s called a Gospel Gap: The mind knows but the heart never gets the message. This is like a ship’s captain having received all the navigational instructions (he knows God loves him and forgives him), but the ship’s Engine Room never gets the message to drop anchor in Living Water (he doesn’t feel it). This is also known as the head/heart split. Decapitation. Unanchored, the Captain’s ship (his life) drifts, only to run aground and broken-up, totally destroyed upon Satan’s rocky shoreline, the Gospel Gap.

God grieves the Gospel Gap in Psalm 9:16b — the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands [1] — that’s the Engine Room’s failure to drop anchor. This verse is uniquely [2] appended by two non-translatable, Hebrew words – higgayown suggesting that upon reading, the reader should emotionally feel a grave accentuating tone (like hearing a solemn, low-octave, musical chord), followed by celah (or selah) meaning pause – the reader is to pause after hearing this grave chord and meditate on the seriousness of the message; let the consequences sink-in!

SUMMARY

To understand why spouses abuse spouses, why we drift into sinful acts of waywardness, only to have our lives broken into pieces, totally destroyed upon Satan’s rocky shoreline, we need to understand the themes of God and Satan as disclosed to us in the Book of Genesis.

While God desires that all his children learn to focus upon him, to drop their heart’s anchor in Living Water, Satan concurrently employs God’s children to be carriers of his highly infectious “disease” – his “disease” of sinful selfishness, his “disease” that hardens hearts, his “disease” that blocks infected hearts from emotionally focusing upon God – the “disease” that commits the “infected” to a life of “transactional relationships” – that’s a life lived serving only one’s selfish desires – that’s living a life focused only upon control one’s interpersonal relationships – living a life that prioritizes my life, my time, and my agenda over emotionally bonding with another human being – a life lived in assurance that, in a Christian marriage, the marital relationship will be characterized as a transactional roommate relationship – aka, living an outwardly “Christian marriage” while living in the Gospel Gap.

So doing, Satan was able to win Round 1 (Genesis 6:5) from God; then God pushed “reset” (Genesis 6:7) thus delivering a knockout blow to Satan. We are in Round 2 today; is Satan again winning?

BIG PICTURE

In the Book of Genesis, the progressive narrowing of the reader’s focus onto the importance of the Israeli Nation in God’s kingdom building plan is the theological message God communicates. In Exodus, God continues this progressive narrowing; bringing Israel to focus upon God himself. This final narrowing is conveyed to us by the Tabernacle’s design of convergent Holiness.

Think of all this as looking backwards through the objective lens of a telescope (looking in at Genesis 2:4-4:26) and seeing God out the eyepiece (residing in the Ark of the Covenant located in the Tabernacle’s Holy of Holies). See Appendix for the discussion of Genesis’ theological message.

While God’s fundamental desire is for us to focus totally upon him, Satan works in contravention. To do so, he seeded God’s humanity with his disease of self-centered/self-absorption at Genesis 3:6 — his “seed” being that all we have a tendency to believe that we PEOPLE are BIG and God is small. Being in control, that’s acting out Satan’s “my life, my time, and my agenda” syndrome, we just don’t see any need to even attempt feeling any heart felt love for God. We DON’T NEED GOD! We are blinded! Effectively, our blindness has “decapitated,” blocking totally all godly communications, either direction, between our heads and our hearts.

This infectious “disorder” that PEOPLE are BIGGER than God, or as a counselors say, counselees infected by self-centeredness/self-absorption (aka, narcissism), spread as our original parents give birth to Cain (Adam being the narcissistic father; yet by grace, Eve’s heart was “reconnected;” she now hates Satan and loves God  — “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” Genesis 3:15). Adam’s narcissism remained, however, to insure that Cain became Satan’s archetype of sin. Why? To teach us an object lesson – that fathers to-be must first cleanse themselves of Satan’s infectious disease before raising a family.

Paul, in Romans 8:1-15, clearly indicates that this cleansing of Satan’s infectious disease, the in-dwelling of Satan’s sin, oikeō (G3611[3] – occupy a house, reside, cohabitate, to be at home), can only be accomplished by the Work of the Spirit, who also is “in-indwelling,” enoikeō (G1774 – to dwell in and influence for the good, inhabit) – a truth emphasized by that extra “in” (Greek “en”) communicating that the Spirit is more powerful (being the owner of the house) than oikeō.

Human nature, once infected by Satan’s seed at the Fall, is deeply corrupted, especially the human will. Just as God acted in grace upon Eve’s nature in Genesis 3:15a, he must deliver his grace through the Spirit to cleanse fathers, and us, today. As this paper posits, the emotion of gratitude is what facilitates the Spirit’s cleansing, the Spirit’s redemptive work, for gratitude softens hearts hardened by Satan’s disease of self-absorption, so doing by establishing a new “thankful” mental attitude. For as Paul informs:

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed [having been infected by Satan’s disease that People are BIG and God is small.]

 “That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, [that’s to now have the new mental attitude of thankfulness for having been] created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:17-24).

God’s Object Lesson: Seven generations later, passed downward via Cain’s decedents, Satan’s infectious plague had consumed the entirety of humanity. God then delivered Satan that knockout punch: [wiping] from the face of the earth the human race I have created (Genesis 6:7) because “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (6:5). His heart was deeply troubled (6:6) being that Satan had won Round 1. God was able to locate a new restart (Noah, 6:8).

But through Noah, the “seed,” as originally planted by Satan, still prorogated, generation after generation, all the way down to us today, becoming our weakness, our tendency to still become “infected” by Satan’s self-centeredness/self-absorption, causing our lives to unknowingly drift into the Gospel Gap, to be broken and destroyed.

This tendency is why husbands will naturally drift, absent these emotional feelings, like: 1) No feelings of gratitude towards God for having arranged his marriage (Adam’s indirectly expressed his delightful gratitude to God in Genesis 2:23); and 2) No grateful appreciation for the wife herself, who is a delightfully unique gift from God (Genesis 2:20). Absent these two feelings of gratitude, the husband sinfully abuses his wife, all according to God’s warning as to what happens in Gospel Gap marriages (Genesis 3:16b).

• Generational Damage: Every selfish, Narcissus-like father, choosing to live an ungodly marriage in the Gospel Gap, is the archetype of sin for his family, instilling sinful selfishness for generations to come – until once again, every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart will be evil all the time.

TODAY’S CULTURAL BATTLE — Could Satan be Winning Round 2?

Unfortunately, there is much evidence that Satan is winning Round 2. For example, we’ll begin with Satan’s culturally developed theory of “intersectionality,” the ultimate in Pointing and Identity Labeling that he infected humanity with (at the Fall, Genesis 3:6-7).

The Theory of Intersectionality: A term coined by feminist scholar Kimberle´ Crenshaw in 1989, defines an analytical framework, like a lens through which one can see where discriminatory power comes from and where it collides, collisions that result in unsafe feelings of discrimination and disadvantage. When various discriminatory powers intersect, they layer on top of one another, overlapping. A Latino, paraplegic, female has three intersecting discriminations that define her. The more the number of discriminatory intersections, the greater is that individual’s moral authority.

As collegiately instructed today, oppressive institutions like racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism, transphobia, etc., are all discriminating intersections that cannot be separated from one another. This application of intersectional theory ensures that students who demand collegiate “safe zones,” and deny “undesirable” on-campus speakers, have the greatest in moral authority. This collegiate definition means that if someone is sexist, guilty of making you feel unsafe, he must also be racist, xenophobic, transphobic, and so forth. That’s maximizing moral authority. And here some “scholarly” amplifying advice:

“Feeling unsafe is always legitimate, but it’s important to remember why you feel unsafe, remember [your] social and historical context, and remember the role of various privileges and oppressions in your own feelings of safety, or lack thereof,” the new colligate guide[4] helpfully advises Bryn Mawr and Haverford college students on to how to correctly interpret and apply intersectionality as they exercise their moral authority.

Intersectionality subdivides humanity into groups (Identity Labeling) and thus “threats against that group” can be defined (Pointing). Feeling unsafe as a member of a threatened group is now culturally legitimatized.

Skilled politicians exploit all these legitimatized cultural trends. To exploit intersectionality and unsafe group feelings (Identity Labeling), they promise (Pointing) to end that “threat,” thus earning your vote. Are you surprised? Intersectionality blinds us to God’s reality that all of us have been created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), a biblical fact satanically denied. Score a win for Satan.

His Next Step: What are the rules of behavior in this collegiate world now beset by “un-safeness” and “micro-aggressions,” micro-aggressions being word-threats cast and/or perceived-actions to be cast against an intersectionality-identified group? A student feeling “hurt” by a “micro-aggression” is to say “ouch” and the guilty student acknowledges his hurtful aggression by saying “oops.”

Sounds OK on the surface until you realize that this protocol denies all personal responsibility. “I’m sorry,” the acceptance of responsibility, is replaced by “oops.” And denying that one’s emotional reaction is a personal responsibility, the phrase “that was inappropriate” is replaced by “ouch.”

First it was identification of cultural groups categorized by various intersectional forces. Now, the next step is that as a member of a group, you have no personal responsibility for the unsafeness you’re feeling. And the person who you have identified as the aggressor likewise has no personal responsibility for his action. Nice going, Satan

All this “wisdom” is being proffered by collegiate authority figures as “education,” the cultural mandates of The Blessing (to subdue and have dominion) have been sabotaged. Narcissism is collegiately promoted, students are being “educated” as to the benefits of the Cult of Self.[5]

And students also are being “educated” (sensitized) by collegiate authority figures to anticipate “over-the-transom” micro-aggressions, to be on the alert, never to be surprised. This promotes student worry and anxiety.

Therefore, culture now honors indulgence in self-pity, that’s playing the victim card. (Some politicians also have even coopted this cultural trend, exploiting self-pity to paint opponents as looking nasty and mean.) That’s playing the victim card elevating it to an art form — called pointing for pity — just like the way Adam pointed to God (Genesis 3:12) claiming that he was victimized —“God, pity me because you victimized me, you created an inferior product to be my wife!”

Pointers-for-pity say: I need a safe zone; I need counselors to join my pity-party. I need protection from micro-aggressions. I need a “Jericho Wall” to protect me. I need … I’m entitlement to my every need — thus, the Entitlement Generation has emerged — the generation that also wants instant gratification; Entitlement and Instant Gratification are now cultural icons.

Politicians also have coopted entitlement. And Instant Gratification has consumed our culture: our need to be instantly gratified is exploited in product ads, product placements in stores, and by offering fast delivery services. Entitlement and instant gratification both blind us to God’s sovereign rule. Satan has overturned God’s sovereignty: “Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts,” Elisabeth Elliot.  Score another win for Satan.

Even secular psychologists have jumped onto this Entitlement Bandwagon. They offer a behavioral diagnosis for those suffering from of unfulfilled entitlement needs – plus suffering emotional aguish from differed gratification by not getting instant relief from those “so nasty” micro-aggressions – it’s called a hyper-anxiety disorder. Yes, unfulfilled entitlement needs are now a psychotic mental illness. Elegantly, invite your friends and counselors to your hyper-anxiety party.

Symptoms for hyper-anxiety include: a radical change in personality, impaired functioning, and a distorted or nonexistent sense of objective reality, all triggered by certain words, pronouns, or differing political or religious views.

• The hyper-anxiety disorder also goes by the name derangement syndrome.

Looking Back: We’ve been observing since 1969 the gradual emergence of radical feminism — a satanically inspired concept that disowns the Bible by promoting that oppression and marginalization of women has existed since the creation of humanity. [Could this be the reason why the original biblical interpretation of Genesis 3:16b was inspired as the battle of the sexes? For Susan Foh’s 1975 battle of the sexes paper (click here), and Rachel Miller’s analytical review of Foh’s “2nd Wave Feminist Movement” that apparently inspired Foh’s eisegesis missteps[6] (click here), and this authors corrective hermeneutical analysis of Genesis 3:16b (click here).] Foh’s battle-of-the sexes missteps even made it into the NLT Bible (click here)! Score a great win for Satan.

Toxicity: Recently, the American Psychology Association joined Satan’s team by setting new guidelines to address “toxic masculinity.” Their latest advice to secular psychologists includes: “Psychologists [should] strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms.

Oh? A man’s instinctive masculine behavior is now a toxic cultural construct?  Didn’t God’s Word inform us that he designed men (especially husbands) to be very masculine, holistic protectors (emotional, physical, and spiritual) of women (wives)? Has man’s God-given design now been culturally redefined to be toxic?

Same-sex Parenting also is culturally applauded, normalized by Hollywood, and uplifted by TV’s programing. Could “same sex parenting” really be just one fabulous example of Satan’s adeptness in lying? – His lying to cover-up his principal objective of promoting child abuse, naming it something that sounds “oh so culturally acceptable?”

Before answering, considering God’s Covenant of Works (Genesis 1:28): Recognize that children “learn” their adult behavior by observing the loving emotional relationship between their male and female parents, and that they learn “one love pattern” from their fathers and a quite different “love pattern” from their mothers. So isn’t Satan’s same-sex parenting really child abuse? – Satanic repudiation of God’s holy design of families so children will become God-fearing adults with hearts anchored in Living Water? Score another really great win for Satan.

The LGBTQ community has become a major, polarizing cultural force, a voting block not overlooked by our politicians as they continue seeking to leverage intersectionality in their (quixotic) quest for votes.

This polarizing cultural force seems to have now infected the 12.8 member United Methodist Church. The question as to what posture this church should assume towards the LBGTQ community is creating conflict. Will this conflict over differences on sanctifying same-sex marriages performed within the church, and ordaining LGBT pastors, now cause this church to split? Is this church collectively suffering from a derangement syndrome?

Or is what we’re observing here more like the outworking of the LBGTQ group to no longer be viewed a cultural sub-group outside the norm, but rather to be included within the normative group, to accomplish this objective by redefining the norm itself? Either outcome would be a really great win for Satan, who is now blinding religions to God’s desire for progressive holiness.

And “Gender:” This has been collegially redefined as “a repetitive performance of gendered symbols that become a coherent identity.” (See Endnote #4) Sounds stylishly impressive! What this definition really means is that gender is now performance defined – your gender is what you repetitively choose it to be, self-declare as you perform your daily life. Gender fluidly? Yes! Just change your mind to change your gender! Daily! No surgery, no hormones required. Just do it!

To capture the LBGTQ group’s votes, congressional politicians wish to enshrine Gender Fluidity. The US Congress recently introduced the “EQUALITY ACT” (April 2019: 116^th Congress; H.R. 5, S. 788), a bill that adds self-declared gender identity as a protected class under the Federal Civil Rights Law. No kidding!

Never mind that God makes men to be men and women to be women in the mother’s womb, and men who highly value women as their helper. God’s design is now “old school!” Satan’s disease of self-centeredness/self-absorption just may make it into Federal Law! Wow! God’s sovereign holiness is under serious attack!

Another Gender Example: Swedish preschool teachers are trained to avoid talking about boys or girls, instead are to speak of people, kid, humans and friends. Thus, “hen,” a gender-neutral pronoun, has joined its binary counterparts han (he) and hon (she) in the newest edition of Sweden’s official dictionary, enabling Swedish teachers to avoid linguistic gymnastics by now using a gender-neutral alternative. No kidding!

As students absorb all this plausible-sounding “secular wisdom,” placed at high risk is a revision in their Christian Worldviews, worldviews that their godly Christian parents had instilled. And these godly parents are paying top dollar for their kids’ worldviews to be, well, “educated,” by Satan who “owns” our colleges.

SUGGESTIONS FOR WINNING ROUND 2

Just imagine the Fruit of the Spirit combating Satan by working in congregant’s lives, congregants steeped in the emotional feeling of gratitude, listening the expository preaching of God’s Word. After all, Tyler VanderWeele of Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, observed that “church attendance is correlated with longer life and a sense of meaning.”[7] Churches have healthful benefits.

Given this observation, what might we likely observe if we were to look into a church defined by emotional feelings of gratitude having permeated the church’s entirety, congregation and staff?

We’d see a church collectively feeling better about themselves, exhibiting stronger psychological, social, and spiritual strengths. Inter-congregational social bonds and friendships are much stronger in this church by comparison with others. We’d see members focusing on the benefits they are receiving from each other, feeling loved and cared for in a church that’s functioning as the true Body of Christ. We’d notice how these social bonds have become the church’s wellspring, tapped for provision of social support (Galatians 6:1-2).

Infused by emotional feelings of gratitude, we’d also see a church strengthen in their collective sense of spirituality. Infused with gratitude, we’d also see congregants experiencing a broadened scope of cognition, enabling flexible and creative thinking (John 6:35), plus every member demonstrating an enhanced ability to cope with stress and adversity.

We’d see gratitude not only enabling members to feel good in the present, but also increasing the likelihood that these same members now function optimally and will feel good in the future, paraphrased from Edmonds and McCullough, Counting Blessings Versus Burdens,[8] a scientific paper based upon their actual experimental data.

THEOLOGICALLY, HOW WOULD THIS WINNING OVER SATAN COME ABOUT?

Expository preaching and Sola Gratia, Grace Alone:[9] Expository preaching is preaching that details the meaning of a particular text or passage of Scripture. Sola Gratia comes attached to these spoken words, awakening and redeeming sinful congregants, stirring-up emotional feelings, as emotional feelings of gratitude insure communication between the Bridge and Engine Room (explained by Jesus in John 6:35), so that the listener experiences an emotional reaction, an “A-Ha” moment.

Formally, Sola Gratia is hearing the spoken Word speaking the promise of Christ who’s the manifestation of God’s grace, while the listener is actively coalescing this spoken Word with the reality of his daily sinful life, this merger being the means for deliverance of Saving Grace. As the agent of Saving Grace, the Spirit is tied to the Word, seizing hold of the sinner.

But Sola Gratia requires, on the part of the listener, to have a working, unblocked head/heart communication channel (recall the Captain being unable to communicate with his Engine Room). Self-absorption blocks this communication channel; but the emotional feeling of gratitude is clog-clearing Drano.

An “open” channel means that the listener can now apply the biblical wisdom conveyed to correct his sin problem, storing this “solution” as an emotion in his heart. In other words, as the Work of the Spirit seizes hold of the sinner in an emotional “A-Ha moment,” the preached message “hits home” – that’s when truth comes crashing into the heart like Luther’s lightning bolt (see story below) and one feels an overwhelming sense of freedom from sin – thankfulness/gratitude ­– the heart is change by saving grace!

• Functionally, as he listens and applies the preached Word, the idol of sinful worship rooted in his heart is bbeing uprooted, yanked out, and replanted by a Fruit of the Spirit.
• Without concurrent replanting, the idol regrows!
• Frequent applications of gratitude “waters and fertilizes” this newly planted Fruit of the!

Frequent Applications of Gratitude: Blanche Dubois, Tennessee Williams’ lead character in A Street Car Named Desire, made a classic psychological observation with regard to gratitude: I always depend upon “the kindness of strangers.”

In other words Blanche Dubois, as Williams’ psychotic neurotic character, needed frequent infusions of the feelings of gratitude in order to reset her neurotic mental fragility and her fear of madness, for madness was her escapism from a past overflowing with emotional pain. Williams had astutely recognized the positive psychological aspects of repetitively triggering Blanche’s emotional feelings gratitude as being essential to her mental health, thus making these frequent interactions (“the kindness of strangers”) prominent in his 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

TO COMBAT SATAN, WHAT MUST WE OVERCOME?

The overarching “gratitude model,” above, for Christian Churches broadly sets the tone to combat the culture that endorses Satan’s “disease” that PEOPLE are BIG and God is small. Supporting this thesis are cultural observations from three theologians:

1. “Many of us don’t have any trouble talking about God’s absolute control of the universe at the beginning of time, and many don’t have much trouble speaking about God’s absolute control at the end of time. … It’s everything in between that we doubt,” Joseph Ryan.[10]
2. “There is a gap between our love for the gospel and our love for godliness,” Kevin DeYoung.[11]
3. [We forget and live] “as if we are the lords of earth and time,” J. A. Motyer.[12]

As our natural human tendency leans towards self-centeredness/self-absorption (aka, narcissistic-like), we naturally understand God’s Word on an intellectual basis, but this knowledge doesn’t sink into our hearts. Emotionally loving God is a free-will choice! And because of our tendency is towards self-centeredness/self-absorption, we’re not inclined to do so! (Psalm 9:16b — the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.)

Kevin DeYoung referred to this natural tendency as a GAP. Second Peter 1:9 speaks of this Gospel Gap[13] as FORGETTING: But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Also, Peter’s reference to being nearsighted and blind encompasses three types of blindness: 1) Blindness to a Gospel perspective as to one’s identity; 2) Blindness to God’s sovereign rule; and 3) Blindness to God’s process of producing holiness in us — Satan’s three “blinding” objectives of his efforts of cultural change as previously enumerated, above.

Of course, “GAPS” never remain empty. They get filled – filled by a self-centered, transactional relationships, motivated by a personal desire to be in total emotional control, to live a “biblical” lifestyle focused on externals, not upon the internals of emotional heart bonding — transactional-ism/superficial-ism — that’s how to avoid any need for God and his present grace. Some examples:

Example 1: Faithful Volunteer: Whenever there’s a church meeting Sam is there, Bible in hand. Former Sunday school teacher, Sam now prefers mission trips. Faithful giver and faithful volunteer, Sam thrives happily upon the beaucoup gratitude showered upon him by his thankful pastor. But when his front door is closed, Sam abuses his wife;[14] Sam has drifted, functionally becoming a spiritual narcissus. (Paul cautions against spiritual narcissism in Galatians 6:2-5: do not deceive yourself as to your heart’s motivation as you go about godly acts of helping others.) Sam is living a transactional life. A life blind, as Peter said, to his spiritual condition.

Example 2: Ruling Ruth parents according to her view that the Bible is God’s rulebook (aka, ownership parenting). She has a rule for everything. Break one, and the kid gets severely punished. (Her corporal punishment never equates with the crime committed, for she views God as a harsh judge.) There’s no joy in Ruth’s home; no present grace. And she’s not discipling her children either, for she must have somehow “overlooked” God’s most important “rules,” his commands in the Covenant of Works (Genesis 1:28). Ruth is living a life of transactional externalism, oblivious to any need for heart transformation.

Ruling Ruth’s parental impact is extremely unhealthy. By not showing grace (ownership parents can never seem to show grace), her children never experience unconditional love, the exact love experience they need to form the secure parental attachment, meaning that her children will NEVER exhibit any of the following six attributes: 1) Know that they are capable of loving and capable of being loved; 2) Confident in self, believing that they can influence others, and having learned how to discern lies, they can trust others; 3) Having learned how to manage their emotions, they are unafraid to express them; 4) To be responsible for their emotional reactions and personal behavior, and 5) Having learned that not everyone gets a trophy, they are resilient and grow from painful experiences – 6) They will be psychologically  normal adults!

Example 3: Dopamine John lives for his next spiritual high. Getting his dopamine flowing. Always looking to deeply experience some new encounter group, John also tends to move from church to church, moving-on when he hears reports of a better worship experience. Dopamine John enjoys “rock-band” worship, hip hymns performed on stages equipped with theatrical-like lighting, super-duper sound systems, and jumbo-sized digital TV screens. Dopamine John wants to resonate within the worship environment, to feel it! Dopamine John’s life revolves around the pursuit of a bigger/better dopamine high; he feels entitled to these highs; he’s a transactional consumer of spiritual entertainment.

All Dopamine Johns, and perhaps some churches that tend towards catering to them, are missing Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 14:39-40 that corporate worship must be orderly and reflective of the God of Order, adhering to a sense of regulation such that worship: 1) Encourages the worshiper to atone for his moral failures, for without which there is no access to God; 2) Encourages revelation (those A-Ha moments) that point the way to approach the God of Humility, and 3) Illumination (again, those A-Ha moments) to internalize and energize the worshiper to turn from his blindness to and deadness from his own sins, all to be accomplished thoughtfully, purposefully, in a way that builds-up the congregation into the Body of Christ: Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God (Psalms 43:4).

Example 4: Faithful Demonstrator: An eager participant in the next protest, like protesting the abortion doctor in town, Faithful Demonstrator’s heartfelt pursuit of Christ has been replaced by her zealous fighting of all identified external “evil.” But when her front door is closed, Jane manipulates her husband to get the adoration and attention she needs. Technically, Jane mirrors monasticism, the belief that the greater evil is always external to the individual. Jane lives a life of transactional activism.

Example 5: Urbane Bill likes to throw around sophisticated sounding biblical things, like what are the proper theological components that should comprise one’s “biblical worldview.” Intolerant of others who lack his detailed biblical knowledge, Urbane Bill is always first-forward to critique his pastor, to show-off his self-righteous smarts. Urbane Bill has reduced spirituality to technical mastery, unable to show grace to others. Urbane Bill lives a life lost in transactional precision.

Somehow all Urbane Bills come up short on the Doctrine of Devine Elections, (see Cannons of Dort, Doctrine of Divine Elections, or the Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 66-68, pp. 203-206) thinking that their “coming to faith” is not by God gracious softening of hearts of the elect, however hard, thus inclining them to believe. Rather Urbane Bills believe that they must earn salvation, with success measured by their level of acquired knowledge, which they must continually demonstrate by showing-off self-righteous smarts to their pastor.

Example 6: Self-Help Betty loves to read all the Christian self-help books she can find. She habitually recommends “just the book” to correct any wayward behavior she encounters in another. But she is unable to realize that she’s a pleaser married to a self-worshiping (narcissistic-like) husband, and that their transactional relationship is what’s driving her secret desire to divorce. Betty sees Christ as no more than a healing therapist, not her redeeming savior.

Example 7: Connected Bob is all about forming lots of relationships. So Bob joins every men’s group, attends every men’s retreat, and participates in every short-term group project he can find. To Bob, church is his social club. Bob egotistically defines his own identity by the number of “friendships” he amasses (like amassing followers on his Twitter feed). He’s emotionally depressed when one of his groups terminates, a depression resulting from a life comprised of unemotional, meaningless, transactional relationships.

In the above seven examples, each one reflects a different pretense/subterfuge, each being false wisdom flavored with just enough truth to be believable (the noetic effects of sin). Each person has chosen a specific pretenses/subterfuge that uniquely fills his or her Gospel Gap. All seven live superficial lives, devoid of emotional connections, including one with God.

In Example 1, Sam (Sam is married to Betty[15] in Example 6) had graduated from his family-of-origin with a strong sense of self, being his means of protecting himself from emotional disappointments. You see, Sam’s father tried to commit suicide. (Sam talked him out of it.) But Sam, being in his pre-teens at the time, wasn’t able to comprehend just what was going on; his brain was not yet able to deal with the abstraction of relationships. It had yet to mature (it didn’t until he was in his early 20’s).

That’s why Sam could not understand why his father, who he thought loved him dearly, would want to abandon him! Emotionally injured, Sam withdrew into his self. Self-love became his protective shell, his “wall of Jericho” to protect himself from possible future injury. This became Sam’s protective habit. That’s why Sam could not connect emotionally (in oneness) with Betty. That’s why their sex life is just — well, routine, at the very best. That’s why Sam sought his emotional bennies outside of his marriage, from his church. No emotional connection required; just feel the “safe” bennies.

To Sam, the noetic effects of sin enabled him to rationalize, guilt-free, that deep emotionally bonding relationships really don’t matter; “I live for the New Heaven” (Matthew 6:19-21). Sam had adjusted his Christian Worldview view to dovetail (co-exist) with his weakness of self-absorption, to avoid any potential injury by blocking out all emotional love connections – to live his version of a SAFE, unemotional Christian life.

In each example above, their waywardness noetically allowed each individual to adjust their Christian understanding, to act sinfully without feeling any sense of self-guilt nor remorse, functioning in what seemed to them as an “OK Christian Way,” yet allowing each to remain in full control of “my life, my time, and my agenda.” This is how Functional Christians rationalize religiosity to co-exist with their naturally desired self-centered/self-absorbed lifestyle.

BAD NEWS: OUR CHOSEN GAP FILLER = OUR AUTOMATIC REACTIONS TO STRESS

In moments of stress, we react according to what’s in our heart. Both Matthew 15:17-19 and Luke 6:44-46 inform us that “evil” comes out of our heart (see also Genesis 6:5). We just aren’t designed to not-react, to stop and analyze – how would Jesus react?  – We are designed to react! It’s the life-saving fight/flight reaction. What’s your instantaneous reaction to any stressor of your choice?

How We React: Our brain reaches into our subconscious memory, where everything we’ve learned is stored, in order to find an existing relevant “context” by which to determine what our physical reaction is to be. Fight or flight?

Our brain always “sees” the “big picture” without having to analyze details. That’s why our reactions are so quick. Technically, our memory is being “content addressed.” We recall not based on some neural brain address, but rather we recall based upon some “contextual aspect” of the “big picture” of, say: Is that a treat we are observing? Our brain searches contextually and instantaneously for a similar “big picture” to decide “fight or flight.” Context includes not only an event memory but also the emotions that we felt at the time of the event. The intensity of that stored felt event emotion sets its priority level in our recall system. The stronger this stored emotion is, perhaps having been reinforced a gazillion times as we experience that same feeling over and over again, the quicker that emotion (and its event) is found to become the determinate of our instant reaction.

This is how the first baseman knows when and where to position his mitt in order to catch the intercept throw and make the out. Having lots of practice, his brain relies on accumulated imaging stored in subconscious memory to determine the speed of the incoming ball, project it’s trajectory, and then direct his muscles to position the mitt precisely with its “pocket” directly in front of the inbound ball. Success! His brain stores this positive, reinforcing success emotion – his emotional feeling of a job well done! Applause from admiring fans further reinforces this stored success emotion. The more he succeeds, the more the applause, the stronger becomes his stored success emotion. And the better he becomes at playing first base! Perfect catching becomes his automatic habit!

The Hot Iron Experience: Burn your finger and your brain stores that event, along with an extremely strong emotion – pain! – just one burn; avoiding a hot iron becomes your automatic habit!

• What we “worship,” over and over again, we repetitively reinforce emotionally, and, like our first baseman, thusly determines how we habitually and instantaneously react to stress: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15, NKJV).
• Embedded in your heart, which “success emotion” is strongest? Your love of God, or your love of $$$, for example? What about emotions related to the worship of the self, important?

KNOWLEDGE CORRECTLY FILLS THE GAP

Second Peter is explicit as to God’s Gap Filler: His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. [As above, evil desires are what we worship.] (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Peter speaks of acquired knowledge that must be emotionally internalized as the pathway to no longer forgetting (2 Peter 1:3), emotionally internalized as the truth that crashes into the heart like the lightning bolt that changed Luther’s life:

On July 2, 1505, Luther, having visited his parents, was returning to the University of Erfurt where he was about to graduate with a Master of Law degree. In a severe thunderstorm, as Luther was ridding his horse back to school, a bolt of lightning struck. The blast threw him from his horse. Hitting the ground, Luther called out to Saint Anne: “I will become a monk.” (He had been thing about this before but his father was insisting on a law degree.) On July 17, with gratitude for Saint Anne having saved his life, Luther entered the Black Monastery in Erfurt and became a monk. The lightning bolt was Luther’s life changing event that came crashing into his heart.

Life changing events, like Luther’s A-Ha lightning moment, convey an overwhelming sense of freedom, provoking of the emotion of gratitude: Luther experienced salvation by grace, just in Genesis 3:15a. That’s why participation in challenging small-groups, teaching seminars, not “social small-groups,” can be the best opportunity to experience a life change, A-Ha moment – the best venue to teach Peter’s knowledge.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

The challenge for each participant (the folks in the preceding seven examples) in a small-group/teaching-seminar setting is to: 1) Understand why they have made their individual choices; 2) Acquire a clear sense of what change is needed along with a vision as to what his change will look like when complete; and 3) What is God doing presently (present grace: see also Paul in 1 Timothy 1:12-17) in their lives and how can they partner with God to effectuate heart change?

An absence of environmental gratitude, as with any business organization, will leave the folks in our seven examples feeling detached, disinterested, disengaged, unwilling to put forth any extra effort in order to gain Peter’s spiritual knowledge. Unappreciated, they will remain unchallenged.

Betty (in Example 6) will be especially challenged since she’s feeling alienated, emotionally disconnected from her husband. Betty had finally put aside her many books to meet with her pastor. He advised her to: “Go home. Pretend all is OK. Just love Sam more. Show him more compassion, he’ll change and your feeling of being connected will return.”

Her pastor didn’t realize that he was dealing with an abusive union, and even worse, he advised an already sinfully frustrated pleaser to go and be even more sinfully frustrated: that’s to try to please even more! Her pastor effectively made Sam’s sinning her fault! He advised her to further facilitate her husband’s sinfulness, to be a coconspirator in her husband’s sinfulness.

Betty is what biblical counselors call a pleaser; that’s a manipulative strategy she learned in her family-of-origin as a means to gain adoration from her strict (narcissistic-like) father. Likewise, she waywardly manipulated Sam for the adoration and love she desired – dinner on time, kids out of sight just to serve Sam’s need for uninterrupted chilling in front of the TV. As she “pleases,” Sam increasingly becomes more “self-absorbed” – he increasingly liked the feeling of being worshiped, and to further elevate his growing sense of self, he now demeans her. Her family-of-origin weakness has been transformed into sinful waywardness.

Sam failed in his God given role to be Betty’s spiritual leader. And sadly, Betty wasn’t given the godly advice of 1 Peter 3:8-22, to set behavioral boundaries to open Sam’s eyes to his sinful ways, for her to enter into the constructive conflict of mercy DOING GOOD. By Betty’s NOT DOING GOOD, Sam has yet to confront his weakness.

Sam and Betty really need a church environment where the Spirit is already working in congregant’s lives, individually bearing the Fruit of a church drenched in emotional feelings of gratitude, a church that has a pastoral staff equipped with a biblical counselor who understands how abusive unions function and how Peter’s counsel can turn these around, assuming both Sam and Betty want to save their union – a willingness to be saved which can only be propelled by being embedded within an environment of gratitude.

THEORY OF GRATITUDE

Definition: “The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness, or gratefulness (depending on the context). In some ways gratitude encompasses all of these meanings. Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.” Harvard Health [16]

• The emotion of GRATITUDE is the emotion God designed for softening a harden heart.
• Gratitude drops the heart’s anchor in Living Water, preventing marital relationships from drifting into sin (the Gospel Gap).
• Emotional gratitude needs continual reinforcement, to continually water and fertilize the Fruits of the Spirit growing in congregant hearts.

God’s Word on Gratitude: Importantly, gratitude pairs with two others of God’s emotions: gratitude pairs with humility and gratitude pairs with forgiveness. Feeling the emotion of gratitude functionally expands one’s focus (in an upward spiral) well beyond that of a particular interaction, the psychological aspect Williams was employing with Blanche.

The emotion of gratitude is the polar opposite of the emotion of vengeance: gratitude displaces vengeance. Gratitude returns good for good (Matthew 22:38-40; Mark 12:31; Luke 6:44-46), while vengeance returns evil for evil (Romans 12:17; 1 Peter 3:17). We should not be surprised that scripture emphasizes gratitude-based relationships:

Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble. (Proverbs 28:14); … Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? … (Mark 8:14-18); All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast (Proverbs 15:15).

Is Gratitude Good for Business? “The short answer is yes. An estimated $11 billion is lost every year due to high employee turnover. Most employees quit because they feel disengaged. In fact, an estimated 71% of American employees report feeling not fully engaged and another 26% report feeling actively disengaged. Above all, employees blame their lack of engagement and active disengagement on a total absence of organizational gratitude. They don’t feel appreciated, and they don’t feel like they are being challenged,” Forbes’ Camille Preston.[17]

The single greatest leverage for addressing engagement issues in any business is to start catching people doing things right rather than wrong! Express gratitude; don’t wait until there is a crisis to do so. Make expressing gratitude a regular part of every leader’s role. Expressing gratitude builds a stronger, more engaged, and trusting team. This is good for your employees, for you, and for your organization – and supportive of God’s kingdom building plan.

WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE SAY ABOUT GRATITUDE?

The words expressing gratitude, thank/thanks/thanksgiving, appear 72 times in the NT (61 in the OT). Christ directly thanked his Father in John 11:41-42 — So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Christ also praised his Father in Mathew 11:25 — At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (See also Luke 10:21.)

Paul informs us five time that he shows his gratitude by thanking God: Colossians 1:3; 1 Corinthians 14:18; Philippians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; and Philemon 4.

PAUL ANSWERS WHY SHOWING GARTITUDE IS SO VERY IMPORTANT

So that you can be redeemed and forgiven: “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: … and giving joyful thanks to the Father, ….  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:9-14).

PAUL ON REINFORCING GRATITUDE WITH PSALMS – SINGING TO GOD WITH GRATITUDE IN YOUR HEARTS

Paul advises us in Ephesians 5:18b-20 — Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And again in Colossians 3:16, Paul specifically links Psalms and singing with feeling gratitude — Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Hard-hearts and gratitude are opposites.

In the OT, Psalms were sung in the Temple. Psalms express a congregant’s full emotional range: praise, prayer, lament, thanksgiving, narration of redemptive history, and much more. For example, on Thursday, the night before Jesus was crucified, he ate a holy meal and lamented by singing a holy song with his friends (Mark 14:26).

SINGING PSALMS TODAY IN CHURCH –­ SINGING TO GOD WITH GRATITUDE IN YOUR HEARTS

The Presbyterian Church of North America initially released The Book of Psalms for Singing in 1973. The Christian Reformed Church includes 150 Psalms in their Psalter Hymnal.[18] Updated Psalter Hymnals are available today [19] to churches choosing Paul’s way of promoting a congregational culture of gratitude – promoting connections with Christ and God – promoting present grace –­ singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Hank Miiller lives in Newton, Penn., attends the Riverstone Church, Yardley, Penn., and is a Biblical Marriage Counselor specializing in helping those in abusive relationships.

 

APPENDIX – THE THEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF GENESIS

Telescopic Structure: In writing in Hebrew The Book of Genesis, Moses employed discourse markers, known as “toledots” (אֵ֙לֶּה֙), and translated by the KJV as: “These are the generations of,” where each “toledot” introduces a new, major narrative.

When Moses preceded a “toledot” by the symbol “וְ” (forming “וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙”) he was introducing a sub-narrative, a narrative supportive of the preceding major narrative. The KJV introduces these supportive narratives as: “Now these are the generations of.” (Some bibles use the English word “And” instead of “Now.”)

Moses’ use of these two Hebrew symbols divides his Book of Genesis into five major (toledot) units, thus conveying the following theological structure of Genesis:

Preface 1:1-2:3 — Creation of Home for Man

Gen 2:4-4:26 — The Book of Heaven and Earth

Gen 5:1-6:8 — The Book of Adam

Gen 6:9-9:29 — The Book of Noah

10:1-11:9 — Noah’s Sons

Gen 11:10-26 — The Book of Shem (introduces the patriarchal cycle)

11:17-25:11 – Terah

25:12-18 – Ishmael

25:19-35:29 – Isaac

36:1-37:1 – Esau

Gen 37:2-50:26 — The Book of Jacob

Moses’ major divisions reflect God’s progressive narrowing of his message to focus upon the centrality of Israel to his kingdom building plan. Moving from “all creation” (The Book of Heavens and Earth), to humanity in general (Adam), to living humanity post-reset (Noah), to a subset of living humanity (Shem), and finally to God’s chosen people (Jacob), God’s wants us to focus on Israel, which is to become his Nation of Priests, a Nation to be set apart from all other humanity, thus exemplifying his Glory.

Introducing HOME: In creating a HOME for his children (Preface 1:1-2:3), God established three partitions out of chaos, doing so in a highly structured process, and then, he systematically filled each partition until he reached the climax of his Creation, creation of his children, placing them within his land:

• The Sea: He filled the sea partition with fish (creatures of the sea).
• The Air: He filled the air partition with the sun, moon, stars, and birds (creatures of the heavens).
• The Land: He filled the land partition with plants, animals, and his children (creatures of dry land)

Just as anyone of us might fill the rooms of a house with room-specific items – kitchen, bedroom, and a (living/eating) family room.

Telescopic Focus now moves further down to be upon God: Reflecting his own HOME, God replicated this division by dividing the Tabernacle into three rooms, each being filled with room-specific furnishings: the outer court (filled with the Laver and Alter of Burnt Offerings); the Holy Place (filled with the Table of Shrewbread, the Menorah, and the Alter of Incense); and the Holly of Holies, (filled with God residing in the Ark of the Covenant).

• The filling of each room continues to reflect God’s further narrowing of the centrality of Israeli Worship, now onto himself: Nation —> Outer Court —> Holy of Holies —> God.

ENDNOTES

[1] All scripture quotations are from the NIV unless otherwise indicated.

[2] Psalm 9:16 is the only place in the Hebrew bible where higgayown & celah appear together, further emphasizing the grave nature of this verse.

[3] These are Strong’s word identification numbers, which enable a reader to find other usages if the same original language word in other Bible versus.

[4] Couple years ago, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore circulated a common set of behavioral guideline for their students. See Kathryn Blackhurst, Guide On Microaggressions, blog posted on LifeZette, February 1, 2017, https://www.lifezette.com/2017/02/pennsylvania-colleges-issue-guide-on-microaggressions/

[5] Edward Welch, When People Are Big And God Is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 76.

[6] Susan Foh begins her theological paper stating the following as her motivation: “The current issue of feminism in the church has provoked the reexamination of the scriptural passages that deal with the relationship of the man and the woman. A proper under- standing of Genesis 3:16 is crucial to this reconsideration of the Biblical view of the woman.”

Foh then sets out to deny that a wife will have a yearning for her husband — the denial of Creation where woman was made man, and thus yearns to return to his holistic protection — emotional, spiritual, and physical, in oneness, and is frustrated in doing so by his abusive behavior — his tyrannical domination.

Foh’s objective is to prove that should a woman yearn to “return” to her man, her yearning has enslaved her. Enslavement is contrary to the second-wave feminism, which drew attention to the issues of domestic violence and marital rape, engendered rape-crisis centers and women’s shelters, and brought about changes in custody laws and divorce law.

[7] “Women who attended religious services more than once a week had a 33 percent lower risk of dying during the study period, and a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and cancer, compared with those who never attended religious services,” Tyler VanderWeele. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/religious-services-health/

[8] Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003, Vol. 84, No. 2, p. 388, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/application_uploads/Emmons-CountingBlessings.pdf

[9] Carl R. Trueman, Grace Alone: Salvation As A Gift Of God, Zondervan, 2016.

[10] Joseph “Skip” Ryan, Guided by God’s Sovereign Providence, The God We Worship, edited by Jonathan Master, P&R Publishing, 2016, p. 48.

[11] Kevin DeYoung, The Hole In Our Holiness, Crossway, 2012, p. 21.

[12] J. A. Motyer, The Message Of James, InterVarsity Press, 1985, p. 161.

[13] Timothy Lane, Paul David Tripp, How People Change, New Growth Press, 2006, 2008, pp. 1-16.

[14] “In a church of 400 (with 160 adult women and 20 teenage girls) 20 women will be currently experiencing physical abuse. And if you factor in emotional or verbal abuse, 80 women would currently be suffering. 60 men would have assaulted their partner one time or another.” Darby Strickland, Identifying Oppression In Marriages, JBC 30:2 (2016): p. 9. https://www.academia.edu/33143685/Identifying_Oppression_In_Marriage

[15] Sam and Betty’s marital relationship is a composite of actual relationships encountered by the author in counseling.

[16] Harvard Health Publishing, Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier, https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier

[17] Camille Preston, PhD, PCC, Forbes Coaches Council, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/11/09/why-expressing-gratitude-is-good-for-business-and-people/#45caa7726eca

[18] See We Used To Sing Only Psalms – What Happened? Reformed Worship, Issue #3, March 1987, https://www.reformedworship.org/article/march-1987/we-used-sing-only-psalms-what-happened

[19] The Christian Reformed Church publishes The Psalter Hymnal Worship Edition, August 21, 1987, available today for purchase. Contains complete versifications of all 150 Psalms. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church joined with the United Reformed Churches in North America: they publish the Trinity Psalter Hymnal https://hymnary.org/hymnal/TPH2018

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