{"id":9652,"date":"2010-09-23T18:18:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T17:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianwarnock.com\/?p=9652"},"modified":"2020-06-13T06:56:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T05:56:18","slug":"faith-and-feelings-part-five-it-is-impossible-to-elevate-emotions-too-highly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2010\/09\/faith-and-feelings-part-five-it-is-impossible-to-elevate-emotions-too-highly\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Feelings Part Six- It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The following post is comprised of Piper material I have posted before at PIPER FRIDAY \u2013 It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t I elevate the importance of emotions too highly?\u201d<\/p>\n

While at Wheaton College, Piper read Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher, who argued that since love is commanded in the Bible, therefore love can\u2019t be an emotion because you can\u2019t command an emotion. But Piper felt there was something dead wrong with this premise since emotions are commanded everywhere in the Bible<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s because it\u2019s an Arminian premise, it\u2019s not a Calvinistic or biblical premise. An Arminiam says, \u201cIf you can\u2019t do something immediately by your will, it can\u2019t be commanded legitimately, whereas a Calvinist will recognize that I can be commanded to do things that I\u2019m morally incapable of doing, and God has every right to command me to do them, if I ought to do them, whether I can do them or not! So, for example, joy is is commanded (Phil 4:6 \u2013 Rejoice in the Lord), hope is commanded (Ps 42 \u2013 Hope in God), fear is commanded (Luke 12 \u2013 Fear him who can throw both soul and body into hell), peace (Col 3:15 \u2013 Let the peace of God rule in your heart), zeal (Rom 12:11 \u2013 Never lag in zeal), grief (Rom 12:15 \u2013 Weep with those who weep), desire (1 Pet 2:2 \u2013 Earnestly desire the sincere milk of the Word), tenderheartedness (Eph 4:32 \u2013 Be kind to one another), brokenness and contrition (James 4 \u2013 Be broken, you proud), gratitude (Eph 5:20 \u2013 Giving thanks always). All of those are emotions that you cannot control; you can\u2019t turn them on and off like a faucet<\/strong> . . . and for people to come back at me and say my elevation of emotions is out of whack with the Bible, I say \u2018I don\u2019t know what community you\u2019re coming from, but where I live, we haven\u2019t begun to feel emotions that are appropriate to the Glory of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEdwards has this sentence that as a pastor he said I count it my duty as a pastor to elevate, to raise the emotions of my hearers (he uses the word affections) the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided that they are elevated by the truth and in proportion to the nature of the truth.<\/p>\n

Well, what are some of the truths . . . ? Well, that God by grace has saved us. That God has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ. That God has granted us the Holy Spirit. That God has promised us everlasting joy in His presence that will increase forever and ever. That God will work everything together for our good. That God will be for us everything we need and supply all our needs. I mean, has anybody in this room \u2013 now be honest \u2013 has anybody in this room ever felt an emotion that rises to the level of something fitting the glory of those promises?<\/strong> No! So, how can we possibly say we have over-emphasized the importance of this reality of emotion?<\/p>\n

We are dishonoring God by our emotions every day in our churches and we\u2019re defending it by creating a will-power religion \u2013 Arminians do it by decisionism and Calvinists do it with a kind of authoritarian \u201cobedience glorifies God\u201d by sheer doing what He says and that reflects His authority in our lives. Well, that reflects a little teeny piece of His glory \u2013 namely His authority. All right! Granted, you got that one. His glory has ten thousand radiances beyond authority that mean to be glorified in the echo of the emotions of His people that are fitting the beauty of the revelation, and if you don\u2019t call that and help create that among your people, you cultivate a people who dishonor God by the flatness of their emotions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Oh, I wish I had that other quote here from Edwards because Edwards says (I\u2019ll paraphrase it here because he just says it so powerfully) he says, God created his creatures, human beings, rational creatures, with two capacities \u2013 the capacity to will and delight . . . and the capacity to think and reason \u2013 the notional and effectual capacities. And then he says God revealed Himself to be known properly by the rational capacity . . . . and, Edwards says, He reveals His revelation of Himself to be known accurately by the mind, through Scripture . . . and He reveals the glory of that truth to be rejoiced in and delighted in, and satisfied by to the will and to the affections, and he says God is not so much glorified in those who only know Him truly, but don\u2019t delight in Him duly . . . .<\/p>\n

You may know Him wonderfully accurately, and therefore reflected back to Him from your mind is right thinking, and that\u2019s good, and that\u2019s part of the rumination of His revelation that He wants to get from you. But if you don\u2019t take that other huge dimension of the human soul (and it is bigger and more powerful in most people than their little poor brains are) that has longings, and cravings, and desirings, and delightings, and satisfactions, and show them that God is also the satisfaction for that, so that in our worship, and in our lives, and in our families, our hearts are taken out to God with delight, and satisfaction, and joy, then God is not glorified for the value of the truth that is seen, and that, I would say, is the larger part of His glory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following post is comprised of Piper material I have posted before at PIPER FRIDAY \u2013 It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!. \u201cDon\u2019t I elevate the importance of emotions too highly?\u201d While at Wheaton College, Piper read Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher, who argued that since love is commanded in the Bible, therefore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,191],"tags":[475,413],"class_list":["post-9652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-feelings-series","category-worship","tag-church-2","tag-worship-2"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith and Feelings Part Six- It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The following post is comprised of Piper material I have posted before at PIPER FRIDAY \u2013 It is 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