How “Back in My Day…” Harms Our Witness in “…Such a Time as This”
It is the beautiful, searing light of God’s holy law that will bring clarity and conviction, to us and to others. Lovingly, uncompromisingly spoken in language conversant with the times, that light shows the way to the life-giving grace of the Lord Jesus, the only Savior of people, cultures, and nations.
There’s a lot to be upset about in our day and age, and with our culture. And now that political season is ramping up, there are votes to be gained and even more money to be made by generating needless anger and weaponizing legitimate grief. It is an especially crucial time for those who name the name of Christ to live, act, and bear public witness in a manner worthy of his gospel.
Addressing cultural woes in a godly way is as difficult as it is necessary. It’s powerfully tempting to become lazy and self-righteous in the process—refusing to thoroughly study situations we’re upset about, decrying nuance as code for compromise, or fancying ourselves above the fray so as to criticize all the people we think aren’t nuanced enough in their commentaries. Even when we think we’re being humble and compassionate toward people or groups that upset us, our disclaimer “There but for the grace of God go I …” can really mean “Thank you, Lord, that you have not made me like other men…” (Luke 18:11). Especially for us increasingly aged folks who’ve lived a materialistically and socially privileged life, some of our studies, sermons, and certainly our social media posts—composed ostensibly in zeal for holiness – amount to little more than screaming “Get off my lawn!” at those we blame for stealing the moral peace, societal power, and material prosperity we believe we once had.
When we pine for what we consider to be the relatively cut and dry, clear-thinking days in which we grew up, or for certain holiness-minded epochs of church history we read about, we might be revealing that our evaluation of the present is less Scripturally studied than we think, and that our understanding of the past suffers the same lack of Scriptural perspective. Church historian Carl Trueman writes “…it is truly very hard for any competent historian to be nostalgic.”[1]
The Reformed orthodox dogmatician and cultural analyst Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) warned against repristination, the retrospective glamorizing of the past coupled with the effort to recreate those conditions in the present. He considered that effort to be not only unbiblical, but essentially un-Reformed. Surveying dire spiritual conditions in his own day in view of the confessional, Reformed heritage of his people, Bavinck encouraged his contemporaries,
“To the alarming fact that unbelief is increasing on all hands, the Reformed do not close their eyes. They do not wish to repristinate, and have no desire for the old conditions to return…As children of their time they do not scorn the good things which God in this age has also given them; forgetting the things that are behind, they stretch forward to the things that are before. They strive to make progress, to escape from the deadly embrace of dead conservatism…”[2]
-
Needs, Rights, Self, and the Christian Life
At the end of the day God gets all the glory. But we need to keep striving to become who we should be: those who can take wholesome pride and satisfaction in our work and service, but who also above all else seek the praise of God, and do not worry overly much about what others think of us.
The topics covered here need to be approached carefully and prayerfully, but they do need to be discussed. And perhaps I should preface my remarks by this disclaimer: I am not a counsellor nor a pastor nor a therapist nor a psychologist. I am however a committed Christian who is very much interested in what follows.
The main theme of this piece is that we need the biblical balance when it comes to how we think of ourselves. We were told by Jesus that we are to ‘love our neighbour as our self’ (Mark 12:31). So there is a place for self-love, properly considered.
But so much of the direction in many current Christian circles is an overemphasis on self-esteem, feeling good about yourself, affirming yourself, and having a great self-image. That too needs to be balanced with the many passages that command us to deny our self, to crucify the flesh, to put off the old man, and so on.
And much of this discussion also involves the issue of whether we are first and foremost men-pleasers or God-pleasers. Do we seek above all the praise and attention of others, or of God? We know that ‘the fear of man brings a snare’ (Proverbs 29:25), but how many believers fear man more than they fear God?
As I say, we need to get the right balance here, but in my view much of the Western church today is far too fixated on self and self-worth, and too little concerned about pleasing God in all things. So let me tease this out a bit more.
The American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) developed a hierarchy of seven needs. It was a way to assess psychological health. The bottom two have to do with basic needs such as food, shelter, safety, etc. The 3rd and 4th have to do with things like love, belonging, esteem, competency, being recognised, etc.
There is some truth here, and if you have a lousy self-image or zero self-esteem, your life can certainly spiral out of control. So even secular counsellors and psychologists will work with people in these areas, and they can offer some much-needed help to people. But the Christian knows that there must be spiritual and biblical dimensions added to the equation as well.
The idea of simply feeling good about yourself, loving yourself and never criticising yourself is hardly biblical. But believing that I am nothing and my feelings and attitudes and so on do not matter at all can also be unhelpful. So we must get things right here. And as part of this, we must realise that we are all at different places in our journey.
Many Christians need to learn what saying no to self really means. They may well need, for the first time in their lives, to really learn what the denial of self entails, and why it is so important. But other folks are so beaten down, bruised and bummed out, that they will need help in the other direction.
Let me wax autobiographical here for a moment. For pretty much all of my life I have had a poor self-image and low sense of self-worth. Therefore for much of my life I have often sought the approval, attention and recognition of others. (Even as I write this, I am wondering what others will think of me!)
So I need to work on getting the mix right here. I need to know of God’s love for me and why he highly values me. But I also need to move away from being worried about what others think of me. God’s reputation should be my main concern, and it will take God’s grace to help me break free from some of the ruts I might be in.
Learning how to get all this in its proper place is an ongoing task. We too easily swing to extremes here. But as mentioned, for many in the Western church today, learning to say no to self may be the biggest need of the hour. And many great saints can help us out here. Let me mention just three of them.
Kerry, a friend of mine, made this helpful social media post a year or so ago:
William Wilberforce struggled with wanting the approval of man as we all often do. This prayer in his journal from 1811 made me think of the social media world where it is so easy to fall into the trap of depending on the comments of others for building us up. Yes, it is nice to receive encouragement and building up from our friends, but we need to be sure we are not depending on it and seeking it over and above our dependence on and being approved by God through Christ.
Read More
Related Posts: -
The Bible and Witchcraft
Today witchcraft, wicca, the occult, spiritism, neopaganism, and various New Age beliefs and practices seem to be everywhere. While Christianity is in decline in the West, these other counterfeit spiritualities are on the increase. What should Christians make of all this? Here I will offer what Scripture says, and in future articles I will further explore this in various ways.
A recent headline caught my attention: “Scotland may pardon thousands of ‘witches’ it executed hundreds of years ago.” The article went on to say this: “Attorney Claire Mitchell leads activist group Witches of Scotland, which wants to have the names of the convicted legally cleared, a written apology letter from the government and a monument established in their memory.” nypost.com/2022/01/07/scotland-may-pardon-thousands-of-witches-it-executed-hundreds-of-years-ago/
This made me think of the famous line by C. S. Lewis in his preface to The Screwtape Letters: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
If in times past some folks were overly concerned by such things, today most folks are too little concerned – or worse yet, they actually celebrate and promote such things. The Scottish situation (which the church is expected to go along with) is a case in point.
As to the issue of witchcraft trials (both in Europe and America), I have already penned a piece trying to provide some context and background to the situation. You can find that article here: billmuehlenberg.com/2015/01/19/on-the-witchcraft-trials/
Today witchcraft, wicca, the occult, spiritism, neopaganism, and various New Age beliefs and practices seem to be everywhere. While Christianity is in decline in the West, these other counterfeit spiritualities are on the increase. What should Christians make of all this? Here I will offer what Scripture says, and in future articles I will further explore this in various ways.
The Bible of course clearly condemns all of these activities, be it witchcraft, divination, necromancy, astrology, fortune-telling, spiritism, communicating with the dead, and so on. Here are just some of the passages that can be appealed to:
Exodus 22:18 You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
Leviticus 19:26, 31 You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying…. Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 20:6, 27 And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people…. A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.
Deuteronomy 18:9-12 When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. NKJV
2 Kings 21:5-7 And he [Manasseh] built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
Read More -
A Prayer for a Fresh Start with Sexual Faithfulness
Jesus, please give me the fresh start you gave to Peter on the beach. O Lord, help me to love you and to learn from his journey of change into a man you used so powerfully. O God, I pray his words back to you now, and cry out for courage to take the next step—one step back towards faithfulness.
Read John 13:38. Father, I thought I meant it. I really did want to resist this time. . . to turn away from the desire that has bullied and hounded me. I’m sorry, Lord. I didn’t see temptation coming. Like Peter, I denied you last night—running away from you, refusing to pray, ignoring the Spirit’s warnings—even as I stepped toward sexual sin.
Read Psalm 40:1–2; 32:1–11; Mark 9:23–25. Oh Lord, I’m so discouraged. . . sad. . . beaten down. Help! Help me to not slide into despair. Hear my cry, Lord. Help me believe that you can reach my heart and lift me up out of this sinful mess I jumped into. Again. Cause me to hear your words of forgiveness, mercy, and hope. I want to believe but, God, it seems impossible that the change you promise actually works.
Read James 5:16, 1 John 1:5–7. God, I know that if I make friends with this sin, like I’ve done so many times, it will crush me. I’ll be honest: I don’t feel bad about how this grieves you, Father. I hate the guilty way I feel afterwards. I hate the shame and self-hatred that pounds me down into the ground. And I’m so angry that now I must tell my accountability helper that I lied about how I was really doing.
“You’re with me, God, and that will never change.”
Read Psalm 32:3; 143:7–8. I want to want godly sorrow. O God, give me the gift of tears (2 Cor. 7:9) over my fantasy life/pornography addiction/secret affair/cravings toward sex with my same-sex bestie/hooking up with my girlfriend every weekend/wearing my wife’s clothing/sex with myself. I can’t stay silent for another day about this pattern that controls me. Groaning, sighing, crying—please hear me and let me hear a fresh word of your love today, Lord.
Read John 21:15–17; Luke 22:31–32. Lord Jesus…thank you. I just remembered your walk on the beach with Peter after he had messed up so badly in denying you. You had just fed him, and I wonder if he feared what you’d say to him after breakfast? Would you mock, shame, or call him out in front of his friends? And me—will you finally crush me down, Lord, after confessing the same thing to you for the hundredth time?!
But your conversation with Peter warms me. You invited him to express his love for you on that beach.
Read More
Related Posts:
