Reading blogs I disagree with is frustrating, or sad — depending on your attitude. These responses intensify when the writer flat out denies the clear teaching of Scripture and then claims that she rejects certain doctrines in the name of Christ.
A few weeks ago, I read a blog post arguing that God, being kind and loving, would never assign anyone to an eternity of Continue reading
This past weekend, John and I listened to the debate between Jeff Durbin and Andy Stanley on the necessity of embracing the Old Testament. In reality, the true question revolved around the authority of Scripture. Stanley believes that we cannot effectively evangelize millennials by appealing to the Bible as the standard for truth. Rather, he grounds our authority in Christ’s resurrection, believing that Scripture derives its authority from that singular event.
Honestly, some of his attempts at logic made John want to scream and made me want to bang my head against the refrigerator.
But l don’t want to spend this blog post analyzing the debate. I don’t even want to write about the various Continue reading
Many years ago, I had a quirky little friend who constantly amused people with her funny hairstyles, her unique clothing choices and her droll sayings. For instance, when confronted with distasteful facts, she’d close her eyes, thrust her nose upward and announce, Continue reading
We Evangelicals often get caught up in the narcissism that characterizes this age. Personally, I believe the absorption of psychology into the visible church has a lot to do with this epidemic. But whatever causes this selfishness, too many of us succumb to it. Including yours truly.
I remember avoiding weddings early in my battle with singleness (I didn’t marry John until I was almost 49). For a couple years in my mid-twenties, I’d explain to my girlfriends that attending their weddings would just be too crushing for me.
Usually my girlfriends accepted my decision without complaint. Finally, however, one had the guts to confront me with my selfishness. She wept with me over my romantic disappointment, but now she very much wanted me to rejoice with her. The man who had broken my heart would also be there, she admitted, but having me there meant a lot to her.
I went. I saw the man who had broken my heart, but then I actually enjoyed myself! More importantly, I Continue reading
If you want people to consider you a thinking Christian in this postmodern age, you must reject the whole idea of God’s wrath. Old Testament writers propagated that obviously misshapen view of God as a product of their unenlightened (and generally barbaric) cultures. The New Testament corrects this blasphemy by emphasizing His love for humankind, progressive Christians tell us.
I recently read some articles passionately protesting the teaching that Christ died in order to propitiate His Father’s wrath. Furthermore, one writer insisted that such a notion constitutes “cosmic child abuse.” Whatever atonement means, Continue reading
Back in the 80s and early 90s, my reputation for practical jokes was such that I got blamed even for those I didn’t orchestrate. My personal favorite was in honor of my friend Bob’s birthday.
Bob shared my dislike for cats (which we both greatly exaggerated for the purpose of teasing each other). When his birthday rolled around, I gave his phone number to my friend Terry, whom Bob had never met. At my instruction, Terry told Bob that he was from the SPCA, and wanted to deliver a kitten to him that afternoon.
Bob declined the offer, and wandered out of his room in bewilderment telling his housemate, “I just got the strangest phone call.” Before he could recount what Terry had said, his housemate doubled over with laughter, causing Bob to remember that I’d spent time with that housemate a week earlier. “DebbieLynne!” he shouted knowingly.
I’m still proud of that one!
These days I have fewer opportunities to play practical jokes, largely because I don’t have an accomplice. Also, I have less energy than I did back then. Practical jokes take work!
But, as much as I miss that part of my life, I have changed into a more serious woman. Oh, I still laugh a lot — a robust sense of humor is downright necessary Continue reading
Originally posted October 7, 2015.
Today, just let me vent about the notion that Christians should promote self-esteem. I will, in future posts, look at the origins of the self-esteem movement and the various ways it undermines Biblical Christianity, but today I simply want to express my frustration with its influence in evangelical circles.
I recall sitting in a Bible Study over 20 years ago and feeling my heart break as a young college student twisted these words of Jesus:
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ~~Matthew 22:39 (ESV)
She explained, with the air of intellectual superiority so common to college sophomores, that Jesus taught in this verse the necessity of self-esteem in order to love one’s neighbor. When I countered that Jesus’ statement presupposed that people naturally love themselves quite well, she launched into a verbal dissertation about suicide, self-mutilation and the national “epidemic” of low self-esteem. The Bible Study leader, seeing that the girl had touched a nerve in me, wisely cleared his throat and resumed teaching.
I’ve heard others teach the same interpretation of Matthew 22:39 as that young college girl offered that night, and I still maintain that such an interpretation wrenches the verse completely out of context as well as reading a principle of pop psychology into it. If we look at the conversation in which Jesus made this statement, first of all, you’ll notice that neither Jesus nor the Sadducee lawyer ever mentioned self-esteem as a prerequisite for loving others.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” ~~Matthew 22:34-40 (ESV)
In his article, Why You Don’t Need More Self-Esteem, Stephen J. Cole of Dallas Theological Seminary writes:
The question Christians need to ask is, does the Bible teach this? Does it teach that we need to build our self-esteem? Those who say yes usually support it with the verse, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). They say that you must properly love yourself in order to love your neighbor. But that is not the meaning of the verse. It assumes that we all love ourselves just fine, thank you. If we would show the same regard for others that we do in fact show for ourselves, we would be loving them as God commands. Even those who go around dumping on themselves don’t need to focus on loving themselves. Their problem is precisely that they are too self-focused. They need to consider the needs of others ahead of themselves. The mark of biblical love is self-sacrifice, not self-esteem (see Eph. 5:25).
Even in the case of a suicidal person, the problem is not that he does not love himself. Rather, he loves himself more than he loves anyone else. He is not considering what his death will do to family or friends. He is only considering himself: he is in pain and he wants out of his pain.
And, while Dallas Theological Seminary is a little more liberal than I’d prefer, I believe Cole gets it right here. Jesus clearly spoke from the common understanding that human beings have no difficulty cultivating self-love, but need instruction in loving others. An honest reading of Matthew 22:34-40 simply doesn’t support the self-esteem interpretation. And I resent seeing people distort the Word of God for the purpose of advancing a man-centered system like psychology.
Instead of perverting Matthew 22:39 into yet another excuse to pamper ourselves, why don’t we just obey it? I understand that obeying it may actually involve self-sacrifice, even forcing us to “hate” ourselves in order to truly love someone else. But Jesus modeled just that sort of love when He took our sins upon Himself.
