A stronghold . . . an intense, bizarre stronghold. But you understand,
don't you?
You see, when a difficult emotional circumstance comes into my life,
thoughts will come to me suggesting alternatives for handling that
circumstance. The way that I choose, the behaviour that I act out, will
eventually become my unique flesh patterns, my ways for meeting the stressful
situations in my life. The older I become, the more practiced the pattern, the
stronger it becomes. I will have erected a stronghold.
Flesh patterns? Strongholds?
Patterns that you have learned to walk in through the years in your
private world; patterns where you have experienced success in getting your love
needs met or patterns for surviving in a world where love was never available—a
world without love. Patterns for meeting the stress that enveloped your life.
Patterns for performance. Emotional patterns. Behavioural patterns. Thought
patterns. Patterns that have a strong hold on you—a stronghold in your life.
We need to understand two very important definitions:
(1) FLESH PATTERNS:
Those patterns of behaviour used for satisfying my needs independently
of God and His grace. Patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour that I have
walked in through the years in my private world and on which I have relied to get
my God-given needs met—apart from Christ. These are ways of believing, feeling
and behaving through which:
(1) I have experienced success in getting my love needs met.
(2) I have struggled with the insecurity of not being loved.
(3) I have fought to survive in a world where there is no love.
(2) STRONGHOLDS:
Flesh patterns in my life that have become so deeply entrenched that I
perform in them habitually—perhaps never recognizing that I am exhibiting
“un-Christlike” behaviour or that I even have a choice to resist.
Posted by Journey Encouragement at 10:07 PM No comments :
Ethics and the New Testament
It is crucial we
remember that the New Testament’s behavioral injunctions are predicated on the
new life and identity believers have in Jesus Christ. When this point is
forgotten, the New Testament’s behavioral injunctions are mistaken to be
ethical mandates after which people are encouraged to strive. In this case, we
are adhering to the letter of the New Testament but not to its spirit, and our thinking
is bringing about death rather than life (2 Cor. 3:6).
For example, Paul
teaches that love is not rude (1 Cor. 13:4–5). If we forget what the New
Testament is about—the new life given us in Jesus Christ—we easily misinterpret
this teaching to be an ethical injunction. We read it as saying, “Thou shalt
not be rude.” So in sincere obedience we set about doing our best to avoid
being rude. We will tend to feel good about ourselves when we are avoiding
rudeness, and we will feel bad about ourselves when we find we are rude.
Moreover, given this focus, we will invariably notice the rude behavior of
others and judge them accordingly, just as we judge ourselves.
Of course, it is not
always easy to differentiate between having healthy personal boundaries that
sometimes tell people to go away, on the one hand, and actual rudeness, on the
other. So to fulfill this ethical mandate, we may have to think earnestly and
debate long on what exactly constitutes rudeness and the specific conditions
under which a behavior might look rude but not actually be rude. If there are
situations in which people disagree, we might find ourselves planting ourselves
on one side of the debate or the other. Indeed, if it is important enough to
us, our posturing could result in factions of Christians arguing with one
another—often very rudely!
Now we must notice in
this scenario that we are entirely focused on our behavior, centered on
ourselves, and living out of our knowledge of good and evil. We are living out
of our heads, filtering everything through what we think we know about
rudeness. Most significantly, we have entirely missed the point of Paul’s
teaching. For Paul’s point was not that we should try hard to avoid rudeness
but that we must live in love. If you are living out of the love of God, you
won’t be rude. Indeed, you will fulfill all the law. Conversely, you can strive
to obey a hundred rules you’ve created to define rudeness in particular
situations but be completely devoid of love.
As with all of his
behavioral injunctions, Paul was not giving us a list of do’s and don’ts in 1
Corinthians 13. He was rather describing what life in Christ, life in love,
and/or life in the Spirit looks like. His purpose was not to get us to act
different; his goal was to help us to be different. In telling us love is not
rude, for example, Paul was giving us a flag to help us notice when we are
acting out of love and when we are not—that is, when we are acting out of the
old self and when we are acting out of the new. Paul’s behavioral injunctions
are not things we are supposed to strive to perform, nor are they new universal
ethical rules by which we are to try to motivate all people to live. They are
evidences that disciples are participating in the abundant life Jesus came to
give.