Written by James R. Wood |
Monday, October 7, 2024
Safety, I assumed, required freedom from others: freedom from commitment, something as close to full material and psychological autonomy as possible. But freedom from others had left me enslaved to an untethered, empty self. In these times it became obvious that the freedom I was pursuing turned out to be utter isolation. Maybe I could just unburden the world of my presence. And that’s when I encountered God.

I remember the moment I told myself I would never talk to my dad again. I was sixteen years old, and my dad’s adoptive parents had just surprised me with my first car: a bright yellow used Geo Tracker (that I would soon trade for a truck). After a slight disagreement, we split into separate vehicles to drive back to my mother’s house. In the other car my dad was drinking while driving my little brother, and I drove my new car with his new wife. When we arrived at my mom’s, she chastised my dad because we were much later than expected (at this time we did not have cellphones) and she noticed the alcohol on his breath. He got out and yelled at her. And then he took my keys and told me he was going to tell my grandparents I didn’t want the car. For the first time in my life, I gave verbal expression to the anger I had internalized for years: “Get out of here. You can’t treat us like this. We don’t need you.”
I come from a stock of relationship-quitters. During my childhood, pretty much everyone in my life had divorced at least once, extended family connections were strained, long-term friends were nonexistent, and moves were frequent. Over time I came to adopt a conception of freedom that had destroyed the lives of many around me, and which would threaten to destroy my own as well: the popular idea of freedom as unconstrained choice. Since this is impossible, the default was a more achievable version: the ability to drop commitments and relationships at any point when they become too complicated. Freedom as the license to leave when things get tough. Live by the mantra of Robert De Niro’s character in Heat: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” If complications come, don’t worry. You can always go.
I eventually came to see that such freedom left me and some of those I loved unfree to love and to be known in love. Furthermore, this approach to freedom is a form of self-harm that also harms those dependent on you.
As Andrew Root has explained in his masterful work The Children of Divorce, divorce affects kids at a fundamental level. Their memories are tarnished and their family relations are frayed. Did we truly have any happy moments? Were we ever a loving family? Which cousins can we see now? Where will we go for holidays? How do we navigate the family gossip about our parents? Do we need to choose sides? Will we lose connection with those on one side of the family if we live with one parent as opposed to the other?
Children always complicate things – especially social theories that are fundamentally grounded in the autonomous individual. Children expose the lie that we are primarily individuals who only enter relationships voluntarily according to rational self-interest. The involuntary nature of the most important things in life can be experienced both for good or ill. No, we are not free to choose our parents, and that is a good thing: we do not choose to come into the world; our existence is the pure gift of our parents to us.
But the unchosen can be a curse as well. In divorce, children are not free to grow up in an intact family. And things are often (though not always) made worse with the introduction (and often quick exit) of new parent-alternatives. I had hoped that Michael, my mother’s first husband after my dad, would take care of us, would show the warmth to my brother and me that my father never did, would be a safe person for my mom. I mean, he even played guitar. We would sing together. But the emotional outbursts began shortly and became recurrent. And then one day he was gone. By the time John entered the scene a couple of years later, I had already built up defenses, and I kept him at a distance, certain that things wouldn’t work out and that he too would abandon us. Which is what happened. Frequent moves and multiple marriages meant that relationships were always on trial, always conditional. Best to hijack rejection by preemptively refusing to connect.
As C. S. Lewis vividly explained, connection makes you vulnerable: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” This is inevitable. For some, though, the lesson is rubbed in one’s face early and often. Love, I learned, is not safe. Commitment is not real. What is safe is hardened independence, especially toward these parental figures. And for me this began to trickle into other relationships.
We moved every year or so, and thus I was always the “new kid.” This meant I had to regularly audition for friend groups. Since I wasn’t particularly funny or cool, I tried to ingratiate myself with others by letting them copy my homework – because at least I was a decent student. Later I would make friends through basketball, which became my first love. When things got difficult in a friendship, as inevitably happens, I would quickly abandon the relationship, knowing we would likely move soon anyway.
In eighth grade, I was living with my best friend’s family so I could finish the school year before rejoining my own family, who had moved to a new city. Right before one of our basketball games, I got in an argument with him and, instead of resolving it, I just phoned my mom to come get me and take me to our new home.
Commitment was for suckers, I was convinced. But what I eventually came to learn was that this “safety” was not so safe after all. Was I ever known? Did I even know myself? With whom was I connected in an enduring way? Was anything stable? Would anyone stick with me? Am I simply unlovable? Are we all alone?
Lewis was correct – safety through hardening is no real safety at all:
If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
I gave more and more of myself to school and sports, all the while running from difficult relationships. I became increasingly anxious. On perpetual trial in friendships, and never reaching the other side of conflict, I became excessively defensive with others.
Read More

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

Owning Scripture was not only pricey but possession could lead to imprisonment or execution. Fourteenth-century forerunners of the Reformation such as John Wycliffe of England and one of his followers in Bohemia, Jan Hus, were persecuted for providing Bibles in the common language of their people. In the case of Hus, translation work contributed to the heresy case against him resulting in his execution at the stake. In the next century, William Tyndale was hunted down wherever he set up his printing press as he moved from place to place to clandestinely provide Scripture in English. He was eventually caught, strangled, and burned at the stake for publishing the Word in the vernacular.

The Latin sola Scriptura means “Scripture alone,” which is the cornerstone sola because understanding the meaning of “Christ alone,” “Grace alone,” “faith alone,” and “to God’s glory alone” requires harvesting information from Scripture alone. Some of the key personalities of church history such as Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox were all influenced first and foremost by Scripture as it revealed justification by faith. For Augustine, it was Romans that confronted him with his promiscuous and sinful life; for Luther, the understanding of the meaning of faith was brought to light using Galatians and Romans; for Calvin, the Psalms were essential because they provide “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul;” and for Knox it is believed his key passage was the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17. As these reformers read the Word, the Holy Spirit illumined their understanding of its message of grace and justification so they could embrace the gospel and grow in sanctification. Sola Scriptura requires acceptance of the Bible as God’s revealed will through, as the Westminster Confession 1:6 would say in a century, “the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word.”
In the nineteen seventies All in the Family was a popular television situation comedy. Inevitably at some point during each episode politically conservative Archie would become involved in an argument with his politically liberal son-in-law, Michael. In one program the two were wrangling over a theological issue when nebulously Christian Archie looked to the top of the television for the Bible, but it was not there. He asked his infinitely patient but shrill voiced wife Edith where she put the Bible. She informed him that it had been moved to the top of the refrigerator. Location of the Bible on top of these important home devices may have been intended to show that the Word held some relative importance, but it instead shows that even though nearly every household in the United States had at least one Bible at the time, they were items of decoration more than books to be read.
The common availability of Bibles currently would have been appreciated at the time of the Reformation because Bibles and books in general were scarce. The movable type printing press had been available for less than a century, so publishing was expensive and purchasing a New Testament or whole Bible was a pricey undertaking. Some historians estimate that a tradesman in England in the sixteenth century might have to spend a month’s wages for a New Testament.
Owning Scripture was not only pricey but possession could lead to imprisonment or execution. Fourteenth-century forerunners of the Reformation such as John Wycliffe of England and one of his followers in Bohemia, Jan Hus, were persecuted for providing Bibles in the common language of their people. In the case of Hus, translation work contributed to the heresy case against him resulting in his execution at the stake. In the next century, William Tyndale was hunted down wherever he set up his printing press as he moved from place to place to clandestinely provide Scripture in English. He was eventually caught, strangled, and burned at the stake for publishing the Word in the vernacular. Lives were sacrificed for the translation and distribution of Scripture. If Wycliffe, Hus, and Tyndale could return to visit their homelands today they would likely be encouraged by the availability of the Word, especially with digital Bibles accessible on a variety of devices, but they would also be discouraged by the common indifference to and ignorance of Scripture.
This Reformation Day would be a good time to establish a plan for reading Scripture. The Bible can be read in a year and there are reading schedules available for such a method, but maybe it would be better to read it through in two to allow for better understanding. The book of Proverbs lends itself to daily reading with its thirty-one chapters working out to one a day for a thirty-one-day month; some individuals read Proverbs every month in addition to their other daily Bible passages. However, familiarity with Proverbs may lead to friends avoiding you because every time something proverbial happens you say a verse or two of Solomonic wisdom addressing the situation. Generally, it is better to read the books consecutively and many of the books in the Bible are not only consecutive but chronological, however Acts may make more sense when it is preceded by the reading of Luke. Luke and Acts are a set that tell the history of Jesus and the post-ascension Apostolic ministries.
Avoid what R.C. Sproul described in his book, Knowing Scripture, as “lucky dipping,” which involves closing your eyes, flipping the Bible open randomly, planting your finger on a page, and then opening your eyes to read the verse touched. Scripture is not a pious Ouija Board for guidance mysteriously directed by the Holy Spirit. Some would say that lucky dipping provides God’s special message for the day, or a revelation of the Divine will for a particular problem, but most likely many dips would be required to get a message that made any sense and its interpretation would be subjective and forced. Systematic Bible reading provides the opportunity for the Spirit to speak through the passages read daily while prayer for guidance can address the particular concerns you have at the moment.
Commentaries and study guides have their place and can be very helpful for understanding Scripture, after all, the Ethiopian eunuch needed Philip as his commentator-preacher to explain Christ from Isaiah 53:7, but unless you are well disciplined with a good chunk of time for your study, simply read God’s Word. As you become more familiar with the Bible, you can study it better after accumulating data from your reading.
One of the reasons Catholicism has kept the Bible in Latin for centuries is because its leadership believes Scripture is too difficult for the average person to understand and interpretation is required. Reading Scripture can be intimidating especially as one ventures through genealogies, Levitical law, and the challenges of prophetic imagery, but remember the Word is God’s revelation, not his concealment. The vast majority of Scripture is plainly understandable; the theological term is the perspicuity of Scripture—Scripture is clear, lucid.
If you are just beginning your Bible reading program and do not know where to start, then begin with the Gospels. For brevity start with Mark; for beauty and detail read Luke; for the particularly Jewish aspects such as fulfillment of prophecy read Matthew; and for detailed information about the passion of Christ read John. However, any of the gospels is straight forward in its message, after all they are the good news and clear language facilitates conveying the Gospel message.
Read to see the forest, not the trees. Do not get bogged down with, “Why did he say that?” or “How much value in dollars is a drachma?” or “Why are Paul’s sentences so long?” Read the passage through and write your questions in the margins of your Bible—some Bibles have enlarged margins and digital ones have note recording features—when your read the passage months or years down the road your accumulated data from the intervening time of Bible reading could provide the answer to your earlier inquiry. When you can answer your own questions after further reading, it shows that you are learning the Word. Remember too that repetition is the mother of memory, so the continued practice of reading the Bible through contributes to better understanding.
The Bible should not be taken for granted, nor should it be left on the television for the appearance of piety, nor on top of the refrigerator for storage. Over the years many have suffered and died to provide the Scripture to successive generations. The Bible is God’s revealed written will and it is necessary for knowledge of Him and understanding His expectations for His people. The Bible not only teaches all that is needed for knowing, glorifying, and enjoying God, but it also testifies to itself—“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105); “Sanctify them in the truth; your Word is truth” (John 17:17); “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8); and “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
Dr. Barry Waugh attends Fellowhip PCA in Greer, SC.
Related Posts:

Written by T. M. Suffield |
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
There is a common theme in Genesis of younger sons, or occasionally even first sons, wanting to usurp their father’s role. We know something similar is going on by the nature of the curse, it involves authority and submission, implying a sin of rebellion. We might notice that Shem and Japheth (typologically Jews and Gentiles—see Irenaeus On the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching) solve the problem by re-robing Noah, and that the robe bears the definite article ‘the mantle.’ Clothes, especially robes and mantles, are authoritative garments in the Bible’s symbolic world—much like the metaphorical meaning that ‘mantle’ bears in English today. They replace his authority.

There’s this strange moment in Noah’s life where he gets drunk, falls down naked, his son Ham sees him naked, and then he curses Ham. It leads to the frequent accusation that Noah was a drunkard, which at best might be true but is missing the wood for the trees.
You can read the story in Genesis 9. Is Noah just an angry drunk? What did Ham do wrong?
It’s also been the cause of much racist nonsense, with the curse of Ham linked to theories where a particular ‘race’ (in the modern sense rather than the Biblical one) are cursed because of their descent from Ham. All of that should be rejected as evil. The first thing we should notice is that Ham isn’t cursed. There is no curse of Ham. Instead his son, Noah’s grandson, Canaan is cursed as a result of Ham’s actions. Which feels instinctively unfair to us but is perhaps a hint that something more is going on here. It also makes us think of the eventual defeat of the various Canaanite peoples by the Hebrews—the eventual result of the curse. That doesn’t clarify what’s happening but it’s worth noticing the way this pans out in the story.
So, what’s going on? Let’s try and look at this interrogatively. There are three broad questions to answer: Does Noah get drunk? What does Ham do to him? Why does he curse Canaan rather than Ham.
Does Noah Get Drunk?
Yes. That was easy enough. It’s his characterisation as a drunkard that I take some issue with, partly because it assumes a habitual behaviour but mostly because it tries to find the moral of the story in Noah’s misuse of God’s good gift of wine rather than in whatever Ham has done wrong.
Noah may have been a drunkard, but there’s nothing in the text that would make us think so. It is possible to read the text as suggesting that he simply rested after drinking, though I think that unlikely looking at how the Hebrew word is used elsewhere in the Bible. I think the Bible says he got a bit merry and went to sleep—unwise, but not the parallel to Adam’s fall in the story. I don’t think this is a good thing or to be commended (Ephesians 5), nor is it incidental to the story, but it’s not its hinge either.
Noah’s planting of the vineyard was a good thing, a fulfilment of his declaration to be the man of rest. He prefigures Christ as the provider of wine at the table and is planting a new Eden.
A Snake in the Garden
There is a snake in the garden though: Ham. Noah removes his robe of office within his tent to sleep. Perhaps someone else wants to usurp or ridicule his role; the robe is a textual clue to this.
What is it that Ham does? A flat reading of the text is that he glances at his father without his clothes on and mocks him to his brothers, who then carefully recover Noah’s nakedness. This leaves us with questions though, why is it that this is worthy of a curse?
Read More
Related Posts: