I previously posted my own endorsement of Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life. Pastor Brian was also kind enough to do a brief interview for us about the book.
Why did you write this book?
A number of years ago I preached a series called, “A Biblical Understanding of the Emotions.” I originally intended it to be a short series, maybe 3 or 4 messages, but it grew into 22 sermons. The sermons were very well received by our congregation. The series aired on Pilgrim radio and the response was very positive as well. Our church administrator put the sermons on sermonaudio.com and to date, those sermons are downloaded more than any other sermons we have posted. Some of my fellow elders and our church administrator kept telling me that the sermons should become a book because they are obviously helping people. As a busy pastor I didn’t feel justified in taking the time to write. God had other plans. In August 2007 I had a debilitating back injury that led to emergency surgery. I was incapacitated. In God’s kindness, I had the time the write and quite honestly, the project kept me sane while I was laid up for three months.
What have been the key influences on your own thinking about emotions and the Christian life?
When I was a new Christian I was an experience junkie and lived by my feelings. I swung to the other end of the spectrum for a few years and believed that only the mind mattered. I went to Western Seminary in 1990 and Bruce Ware was my theology prof. He made us read John Piper’s Desiring God. My history prof, Bob Krupp was a big believer in primary sources, so we read Edwards and Owen. Between Piper and then Edwards on the Religious Affections, I started going through a shift in my thinking about the emotions. Then I discovered the puritans, who wed together doctrine and devotion. Owen’s Volumes 6 and 7 were especially awakening. I was also helped by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, especially his book Spiritual Depression, B.B. Warfield’s essay, The Emotional Life of our Lord, Al Martin’s sermons on Christ: the Pattern for our Emotional Life and more recently, Matthew Elliott’s Faithful Feelings
Perhaps the most significant influence, however, came when I was doing my D Min at Westminster. I focused on the role of the emotions in preaching, in both the preacher and the listener. I was surprised by how much the Bible has to say about it and how much our spiritual predecessors thought about it. This, coupled with pastoral counseling issues, led me to think more deeply about the emotions and the role they play in the Christian life.
How does right feeling relate to right thinking?
Right thinking is key to right feeling. Right thinking is the starting point for emotional vitality. For instance, we will be a real mess if we have wrong thoughts about God. We can actually throw ourselves into an emotional vortex if we perceive God as vindictive, capricious, angry, unkind or cruel. Although this sounds extreme, many Christians think that although God may be good, He is not good to them. Another example would be incorrectly thinking about salvation. There is a direct connection with anxiety, unfounded fear, or arrogance and works-righteousness. Incorrect thinking about what this life is supposed to be like can also throw us into despair. If I really believe that God’s plan for me is my best life now in terms of health, prosperity and temporal happiness, then I am setting myself for despair, distress and and weakening faith, especially when trials come. On the other hand, there is tremendous emotional equilibrium that comes with right thinking. Right thoughts about God, who He is and what He is like, are an anchor for our lives. A great example of this is found in Psalm 16:8-9. Right thinking about the work of Christ and His full salvation can bring us rest, peace and joy. Properly thinking about our struggles in this life and God’s purposes in them can spare us from worry or disappointment. So one of the important pieces of our sanctification is the renewing of our minds with God’s truth and having our emotions shaped by that truth. Feelings and Faith is filled with Scripture texts that make these points.
What are the most common misunderstandings Christians make regarding their emotions?
The misunderstandings are across the board. On the one end of the spectrum you have the anti-emotion view which looks at emotions as dangerous, unreliable and even undesirable. From this perspective, one of the goals of the Christian life is to ignore or suppress the emotions. All of the emotive words in the Bible are recast into mental or volitional activities. On the other end of the spectrum you have the view that the emotions are king, they sovereignly rule the Christian. This can manifest itself in “I can’t help the way I feel” emotional victimization. I have seen grown men and women justify sins of all sorts because they “couldn’t help the way they feel.” This notion of the sovereignty of the emotions can also be turned into something quite mystical. From this perspective, one lives by the emotions. The emotions (how a person feels) determine whether they are close to God, what they believe, how they conduct themselves and even determine God’s will. In this camp virtually nobody considers the tougher doctrines like election or hell, because they don’t like the way they “feel.” The correctives for these views are to see that the emotions, although fallen, are a good part of our humanity which reflects the image of God and that they are not soverign over us, but rather through the Word and Spirit we can grow in emotional maturity and balance. Making that case is the burden of Feelings and Faith.
How is Jesus our pattern with regard to our emotions?
This segues from the previous question nicely. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. He redeems us from our sins (Matt. 1:21). For those who are saved by Him, He is also now their perfect example as we see in so many NT texts. When we consider that Jesus, as the God-Man perfectly reflects God and perfectly reflects perfect, sinless humanity then He must be our example. Jesus said that when we have seen Him we have seen the Father (John 14:9). Paul calls Jesus the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) and the writer to the Hebrews calls Him the exact representation of God’s nature (Heb. 1:3). Jesus is also perfect humanity, without sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). This next point is vital, Jesus perfectly displayed the full range of sinless emotion during the incarnation. He is displayed joy (Lk. 10:21), anger (Mk. 3:5), compassion (Mk. 1:41), love (Mk. 10:21) and every other emotion that is native to human nature, reflecting the image of God, yet without sin. The goal of our redemption is full conformity to the image of Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29; 1 Jn. 3:2). The goal of the Christian life is to be increasinly conformed to the image of Christ (Col. 3:10). We have a call to imitate Christ (Phil. 2:5; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 Jn. 2:6). This call to be conformed to and imitate Christ extends not only to our attitudes, word and deeds, but also to our emotions. Our whole being is to be transformed and conformed to His image. So we look to Christ to see our standard of compassion, love, devotion, delight and even anger. The emotional transformation comes by beholding Christ (we become like that which we behold, 2 Cor. 3:18), meditating on Christ and seeking change by the Holy Spirit through prayer. This is obviously a process that takes a lifetime.
Update: See more endorsements for Feelings and Faith.