Conversations with JWs: Jesus the firstborn

The identity of Jesus as being both fully human and fully God is at the core of the Christian faith. However, it is also something that, throughout history, various movements and individuals have sought to deny – in one form or another. In the 2nd century AD, gnostic philosophy led some to deny Jesus’s humanity – with the stance of docetism claiming he only appeared to be human. A couple of centuries later, Arius denied his eternal divinity. There are many other movements that also have presented skewed representations of Jesus, including various biblical scholars of the last 200 years who would deny anything supernatural about him at all – which, like docetism, is very much influenced by the dominant philosophy of the time – in our case, naturalism. However, one claim that in more recent years would be presented at your front door is that Jesus is an archangel. This is the view of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs).

In this post I will engage with one of their favourite passages for arguing that Jesus is a created being (and therefore not God), then will explore the important question of what difference does this make? 

When chatting with a JW about Jesus, it doesn’t seem to take long before Colossians 1:15 comes up. ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.’ 

In their doctrinal tract, ‘What does the Bible really teach?’ JWs write regarding Jesus that, ‘He is called “the firstborn of all creation,” for he was God’s first creation.’ (p.41) Now, this idea is not new. It is very similar to that spread by Arius in the 4th century – which was condemned as a heresy. 

But superficially the idea makes sense. It is simple and pervasive. However, it is also wrong. 

Ask yourself, which context makes better sense in which to read the language of the New Testament: the context of our own language and culture, or the context of the Old Testament? Surely the latter. 

After all, Paul, the writer of the letter to the Colossians, was a 1st century Jew. For early Christians like him, the Old Testament books were their holy scriptures. And so when he writes ‘firstborn’ we need to fill this word with a concept that is informed by the richness of biblical thought – as expressed in the Old Testament. 

So what did ‘firstborn’ mean?

Obviously there are many references in the Old Testament to people who were literally born first. And there were all the rights and privileges of inheritance that being the firstborn entailed (cf. story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27).

However, as the Christ was a descendant of David, and therefore inheritor of all the Davidic promises, what is more likely on view in Paul’s use of the word ‘firstborn’ is a reference to Psalm 89:27:

“And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” (Context: Psalm 89:19-37)

In this passage, the ‘firstborn’ is evidently a special status of exaltation. David is made the firstborn, which here is juxtaposed with the clarifying phrase, ‘the highest of the kings of the earth’. That is, he is declared by God to have this exalted, ruling status. He wasn’t literally born first – 1 Samuel 16 tells us he was the youngest of his brothers. 

Keeping this idea of exalted ruler in mind, re-read Colossians 1:15. If Jesus is the ‘firstborn of all creation’, then he is the ruler of creation – the one who both rules and inherits it. What is more, this idea of Jesus ruling and inheriting creation comes out in the following verse: 

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16, ESV – Italics mine.)

The passage further goes on to say, ‘that in everything he might be preeminent’ – that is, being first in the sense of having the highest rank over everything – which also ties in with this understanding of ‘firstborn’.

So, reading Colossians 1:15 in its proper context, it becomes evident that, far from talking about Jesus being a created being, the passage is actually exalting him over creation. 

On this note, a related idea that JWs will assert is that after God created Jesus, he used Jesus to create all other things (p.41). However, the passage itself works against this reading. Yes, Colossians 1:16 says, ‘For by him all things were created,’ and, ‘all things were created through him’, however, this places Jesus ontologically on the side of the creator God, rather than the side of a created being. The New World Translation actually inserts the word ‘other’ here at both these points – to support the Jehovah’s Witness’s idea that Jesus made ‘all other things’ (but was himself created by God). However, the word ‘other’ is not in the greek text – I know because I can read it. It’s not even implied. Rather, Colossians 1:16 is saying that all things were created through Jesus. And if he created all things, then he can’t be a ‘thing’ that has been created. John 1:3 asserts the same idea – ‘all things were made through him’, and even repeats it in the negative – ‘without him was not anything made that was made.’ Again, this means that Jesus himself cannot be something ‘made’. (For a video of John Piper making this point see here.) Rather, ‘in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Colossians 2:9). He is fully God dwelling in a man. 

But what difference does this all make?

Firstly, if Jesus were not fully God and human, then when he died on the cross, God would have been punishing an innocent third party. The whole Christian mechanic of salvation – of God taking on the punishment for sin himself in the person of his son – would be put out of joint. There is much more that could be said on this – such as Jesus’ obedience being able to be perfect because of his divine nature, and his overcoming death. But this would be compromised if he were not fully God as well as man.

Secondly, the difference is in who we worship. Because if Jesus is a created being and not truly the eternal God, then we should not worship him as such. But if this is the case, then why is he placed alongside the Father as someone to be given equal honour and worship? (See John 5:23 and Revelation 5:13). Such a thing would be blasphemous if he were a creature. Yet early Christians were recorded as singing hymns to Christ ‘as if to a god’ (Pliny the Younger, writing in the early 2nd century AD – quoted in Andrew Errington, ‘Can we trust what the gospels say about Jesus?’ Matthias Media: 2009. p.17).

And thirdly, the difference is in knowing God. Let’s consider the alternatives: If Jesus is just a man, then he wouldn’t really be all that different to the rest of the prophets who brought God’s word to people, but who did not bring God himself. Likewise, if Jesus were an angel born as a human (as Jehovah’s Witness will claim), then what he brings is not really all that different in weightiness to the Old Testament law (which Hebrews 2:2 indicates was ‘declared by angels’). However, if Jesus is truly, ‘the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature’ (Hebrews 1:3), and if indeed ‘in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Colossians 2:9), and if John said, ‘the word was God’ (John 1:1), then the message he brings is truly greater than all those who came before him – whether prophet or angel. This message is not only of a greater salvation (Hebrews 2:3), but he reveals God’s character to us in his own person (John 1:14, 18, 14:7, 9). As such, to see Jesus is to see his Father (John 14:9-11). Yet if he were just a human, or an angel, then he simply could not do this. We would not see God so intimately as we do in his son, if Jesus were not fully, the same divine, uncreated substance as his Father. 

Death, Pass over.

Egypt, Judgement was coming.

Justice was coming.

Death was in the air.

But where was mercy to be found when death abounds?

Under the blood of a lamb.

Blood, upon the door.

It writes, this family belongs to the Lord.

Death, pass over.

But God’s people were slaves.

Paying an endless debt to their spiteful King.

Not anymore.

The exodus.

God’s people were freed that night.

 Judgement is coming for each one of us.

Justice is coming.

Death is in the air.

But where is mercy to be found when death hunts us like a hound?

Under the blood of the Lamb.

The blood upon the cross.

For the one who looks upon the tree,

The Lord says of you, “This one belongs to me.”

Death, pass over.

Once bound by the prince of the world, we were slaves.  

Once bound by the fear of our graves.

Not anymore.

God’s people are freed.

Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

God, the great storyteller.

He tells his story through history.

He paints a picture with his words.

In the first Passover, God was sketching an outline.

But on that fateful Passover, God fulfilled the work, once for all time.

What he had done, told of what he would do.

And in each of his pictures, he has left us a clue.

In place of the firstborn, a lamb in its stead.

But now the firstborn of all creation takes our place in his death.

Salvation through Substitution.

Death, Pass over.

Kintsugi, Idealism and Moderation.

Some months back I was walking with a mate and we mentally meandered across the topic of Kintsugi. It is the art of repairing pottery with gold joinery. Turns out that this topic is getting the spotlight in Christian circles as a bit of a metaphor. Instead of deeming something un-valuable and not worth fixing (like ourselves) it is instead an opportunity to repair what was broken and make it more valuable than it originally was. To go through the process of being broken can in the end lead to greater value as we are repaired with golden glue. It is basically a metaphor that encapsulates the value of suffering and in a sense redeems the experience. The Christian can look at the work of Christ as having parallels with Kintsugi. We are made more valuable by the Lord Jesus who repairs us by his precious blood. Not bad, not bad.

I don’t mind this analogy, but that was actually incidental in the conversation. Me and my mate were particularly thinking about Kintsugi in regards to modern consumerism. We agreed, it’s got some good value to it. Let’s fight against our consumerist tendencies to merely replace what we break, let’s not give in to inbuilt obsolescence.

But how far do you go? What about repairing your broken jeans? How about learning amateur electronics to fix a broken power board? Do I learn how to bind books to fix the wear and tear mine have gone through? Or stitch myself together like action movie heroes do to themselves… I did do a nursing degree, hmmmm.

As we went through this process the difficulty of it becomes apparent. My mate labelled this difficulty as idealism. I think he was quite right in saying so. There is a sense in which, if you begin on the path of applying ‘Kintsugi’ into your life, you must ask, “where does it stop?” And if it stops sooner rather than later, does that mean you a bad person for not caring enough? When does convenience win?

Kintsugi is a hard practice in and of itself. But it is an especially hard ideal in the absolute sense. It is not convenient, it is against the tide, and time is indeed money. As a society we have lost many basic skills, such as mending things and basic agriculture. But we have gained a huge degree of specialisation. Every trade-off is obviously a trade-off. You are trading some goods for other goods. And in the case of modern consumerism it’s the ability to repair our own things and produce basic necessities for the sake of convenience.

This is not necessarily wrong. It’s just the trade-off we decided to pay. Convenience is not bad, just ask anyone whose clothes washer is broken for a week. It’s the reasoning behind our conveniences. The way we apply the rational of convenience is the issue. When you make the trade of convenience at the expense of justice, or compassion, or greed, you win in some way (such as more time, or ease of access) but you have done so at the cost of your integrity. Perhaps we might say it’s the integrity of your conscience which is now sullied.

In the end, Kintsugi is a nice idea applied more broadly (metaphorically speaking) to everyday life. That takes the art out of it in a sense, and devalues the wonder of Kintsugi. But that’s the price when life imitates art. However, in the end, I like my mate’s insight – it’s a hard master in its idealistic force. The weight of guilt this idealism would bring is impossible to deal with. I think justice warriors of our age might not get that, or they don’t see that (and most likely are just living by some unforeseen double standard).

The Mission of Marriage

Lately I’ve been writing about marriage. It just so happens I read a book on the topic, The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, by Gottman and Silver. Great book! We looked at a whole bunch of stuff in those posts about what the intersection between the bible and those principles were.

But as I wrote those posts I was reminded of a chapter in a book I read before I got married (this is 6 years ago now). It is Francis Chan’s book, You and Me Forever – Marriage in Light of Eternity. As you could imagine if you know the alacrity, the eagerness, of Mr. Chan with all things God Glorifying, his book on marriage has that flavor to it. Exclamation marks in abundance!!! His zeal-infused written manner is a nice pep up – and sometimes I’ll just take them wherever I can get them.

Him and his wife apply this zeal to the consideration of marriage and it provides a wonderful balance (and challenge) when considering marriage theologically and practically. So as I considered life in matrimony (more practically speaking) as I read Gottman’s book, I thought it worthwhile to revisit Chan’s writings on the subject.

The chapter I love most is chapter 4, “Don’t waste your marriage – Marriage in light of our mission”. Here are a couple of quotes I particularly found helpful.

“Our mission does not call us to neglect our marriages. But a marriage cannot be healthy unless we are seeking his kingdom and righteousness first (Matt.6:33). Being in war together is what keeps us from being at war with each other.” P.97

“It is our mutual love for Jesus that binds us, and our love for his mission in particular. We both love helping people repent of their sin, turn to Jesus, and be filled with the Spirit. I love watching her share her faith, disciple young women, care for the poor, and minister to children. This may sound weird, but watching her minister attracts me to her even more. And she loves it when I speak for God fearlessly, even when others hate it. She encourages me to minister and assures me that she will take good care of the kids while I’m out speaking and serving. We love being on the mission together. In fact, it is the times when we neglect the mission and just focus on our own desires that conflict arises. Staying on the mission is what draws us closer together.” p.112

What Chan is trying to do in his book (or at least in this chapter) is bring a bit of perspective to marriage. Marriage isn’t about marriage. The modern notion of marriage for the most part is that it fulfils some sort of longing in me, that it brings some kind of satisfaction to me. But the mission of marriage, which Francis Chan is trying to remind us of here, is not about our marriage. It is first and foremost about the kingdom. In a sense we might say that our mission in marriage is to do more for the kingdom together than we would be able to do apart.

In the second quote he talks about the joy that comes while husband and wife are about the task of kingdom growth together. But he also touches on the fact that when our focus is on ourselves what can often arise is conflict. He is speaking anecdotally here, but at least anecdotally I agree with him. I have found that to be the case in my own marriage (and my wife would agree). Our marriage is often at its best when we are most focused on doing kingdom work.

Let me encourage you that if you are married, make mission the mission of your marriage, not marriage the mission of your marriage. Does that even make sense? Not sure, but it sounds neat.

Chan, F. and Chan, L. (2014) You and me forever: marriage in light of eternity. San Francisco: Claire Love Publishing.

The Seventh Principle, Shared Meaning – An Addendum?

Is it possible that a good marriage could be defined by a negative, the absence of conflict? The arcane, the esoteric knowledge behind a successful marriage, could it really be as simple as avoiding the higher levels of the decibel range? Not at all.

In the book, The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, Gottman and Silver go on to talk about what makes a good marriage is a marriage that is creating within itself shared meaning, a marriage that is striving to achieve common convictions and goals. As Gottman puts it, “In the strongest marriages, husband and wife share a deep sense of meaning. They don’t just ‘get along’—they also support each other’s hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together.” (p. 28)

Reading this book and getting to the seventh principal (creating shared meaning) made me realise my naïveté. I mean, surely no one would commit to a long-term relationship (even marriage) without first considering (or at least considering early on) what the purpose, goal, meaning and convictions of the relationship are going to be… I know you mock me now as the blue light filters through your corneas and into your grey matter. I acknowledge, I am naïve.

I have a theory as to how it is possible that so many relationships could go on to develop into something as serious as marriage and yet lack something as serious as shared meaning. Now of course you might echo the words of Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade of Scotland Yard, “You and your theories Mr Nichols”. But humour me a moment.

Physical attraction and the glue that is sex are quite powerful. And nowadays, it is totally unheard of for a couple to abstain from sex until marriage. So it is no wonder that people find themselves together and maybe eventually married, then discover that they do not share the same goals or fundamental values in life. Quite an amazing predicament to be in. Our age’s near-sightedness and lack of circumspection is something to behold.

How does all this happen? Well, feelings of affection and attraction occur for the most mundane of reasons. One of the most prevalent is simply that of proximity. The more time you happen to spend around someone, the more attracted you are to them (to a degree). Interaction breeds the anticipation of interaction.* People who have a catalogue and backlog of these mere exposures go on to develop affections. These affections coupled with physical attractiveness lead to something saucy known as sexual tension… And we all know that sexual longing must be fulfilled in every circumstance no matter!

In the end, at least humanly speaking, the mundane laws behind attraction boil down to a matter of mere opportunity, that is; proximity, interaction (and physique).

So we should not be surprised that there is such a capacity for superficiality when it comes to our relationships in the modern age. Two people might simply share the same job or the same friend circle, be attracted to each other, sleep with each other, and then the next minute you’ve got a serious relationship going on. What does this mean for future them? Well, down the line they might realise they actually don’t share any life goals or deep convictions, but have cooled down to a toleration of each other’s opposing views, because for the honeymoon time they were enjoying lots of sex…

It’s all rather childish and displays a great lack of self-control and reflection. Now of course I am making broad generalisations in my story-telling description of the situation. But to my mind it seems that the factors at play are rather obvious and well documented and understood.

As Christians, when it comes to the seventh principal of making marriage work (creating shared meaning), we must not take it for granted that we are provided with this meaning from God. We do not search it out on our own all the while hoping that someone out there who is searching for meaning themselves just happens to come up with the very same convictions and goals as ourselves. We are given meaning from God, to know him, love him, live with him, and glorify him.

The Bible urges us to practice a good degree of earnest circumspection when it comes to marriage. The seventh principal ought to be the very first for the Christian.

*These principles were drawn out from the book Exploring Social Psychology. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012, written by David G. Myers. (pg 315-327)

Gottman, John Mordechai, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, 2018.

Reading the Seven Principles – What you’re prepared for from the Bible

In our last post regarding the seven principles we considered some of the novel concepts that a Christian reader would encounter, that is to say, novel to Scripture. For example we considered the wisdom and recognition that Gottman and Silver had in identifying certain problematic patterns that persistently creep into marriages causing them to nosedive into a deadly divorce.

At the beginning of that post I said that the Christian doesn’t strictly need to read this book. I flagrantly and insanely stated that the Bible sufficiently directs us in a life of godliness. It’s madness! But it’s true. So what I wanted to do in this post is to look at some of the ideas that are presented in the seven principles which do have an overlap with biblical principles.

One of the most important pieces of practical advice given in the seven principles is the identification of what they call “repair attempts”. The repair attempt proffered by a spouse could take any guise from poking the tongue out to defuse tension through to direct statements of apology. Repair attempts do not occur in the midst of bliss but rather in the midst of an emotional and verbal battering that’s occurring.

Strictly speaking one could either accept or rebuff the repair attempts. Of course rebuffing them will eventually lead to a deep dark place. But in accepting them, quite the opposite. However, consider how hard it is to put aside our pride and offer an apology, or still yet to reciprocate kindly if a repair attempt is made towards us when we are suffering from an injustice and we are out for blood.

It’s a steep call. But the Christian is prepared for that call. The Lord Jesus calls us to repent (confessing our sins and shortcomings to God and each other) and also to forgive. But because marriage (in principle) is for life, you will be taking on a certain set of persistent problems in the form of another human being. To quote Gottman quoting Dan Wile, “When choosing a long-term partner . . . you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that you’ll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.” (p.139) What then? We might ask with Peter, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” And Jesus responds to us as to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matt. 18:21–22)

In another section of the book Gottman and Silver identify some common areas of conflict. One of them unsurprisingly is the “in-laws”. They state, “At the core of the tension is a turf battle between the two women for the husband’s love. The wife is watching to see whether her husband backs her or his mother. She is wondering, ‘Which family are you really in?’ Often the mother is asking the same question.” (p.202)

Could it be that the Bible has an answer to such an ancient problem? Absolutely! And it’s in the simple and ancient statement at the very beginning of the Bible (it’s as if God built his wisdom into the very fabric of creation), “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)

The Christian is prepared for these potentially hostile hot havens of emotion by accepting their responsibility, specifically the men, to put their wives before all else and to love them as Christ loves the church. A man’s family (particularly his wife) becomes his primary responsibility regarding loving service and relational importance.

Gottman adds a little bit more worldly wisdom to this stating that at the heart of this conflict the man’s wife is longing for a sense of “we-ness” (which is not to be mistaken with the piece of skin at the end of your elbow). The man can provide this solidarity with a little bit of elbow grease directed towards his marital relationship.

There is more to mine from this book through the lens of the Bible than I’ve done here in this short reflection. But I hope to have sparked a degree of deferential acknowledgement to the sufficiency of the Bible in guiding us through some of life’s most important relationships.

Gottman, John Mordechai, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, 2018.

Introduction to Conversations with JWs

A few years ago, when I was in Bible college, my husband and I were door-knocked by some Jehovah’s Witnesses (which I will refer to with the abbreviation, ‘JW’ or ‘JWs’). At the time, we were in the second year of our studies, and in our doctrine subject were learning about the Trinity. God was very gracious in his timing as he effectively showed us why such a doctrine is both relevant and crucially important for the Christian faith. Over the next couple of years we continued to meet up with a couple of the JW ladies who had door-knocked us, and even once visited their Kingdom Hall (and what a cultural experience that was! If my little artsy church gathering felt like home-brew craft beer, the JW service felt a bit like a mega fast-food chain – with content imported straight from America and re-heated locally).

Anyway, as I was at Bible college and studying the biblical languages, I was keen to examine the differences between the Jehovah’s Witness New World Translation (NWT) and the mainstream Bible translations I was using (ESV, NIV, NLT… etc.). The NWT is unique in that it intentionally narrows the meaning of many passages which would otherwise contradict JW theology – or mistranslates them. Most of these are an attempt to exclude the divinity of Jesus or the personhood of the Holy Spirit. 

For example, in some places it inserts words that are neither implied nor actually there in the Greek (such as the word ‘other’ inserted twice in Colossians 1:16). In other places, it narrows the meaning of a word to include one aspect of its sense but not others – such as when Jesus says he is ‘in the father’ (John 14:10), and the NWT would say that he is ‘in union with the father’ (which focusses on the aspect of them being united in mission, but excludes the divine mutual indwelling of the Trinity). In yet more places it seems that the NWT translators have used every superficially possible but actually unlikely alternative in translation in order to deny Jesus’s divinity. Examples of this include the famous John 1:1 ‘the Word was a god’ (NWT) instead of the usual translation, ‘the Word was God’ [ie, the quality of being God in his very substance], and Hebrews 1:8, where they prefer to jumble the word order a create a non-sense ‘your throne is God’ rather than to allow it to imply that Jesus is God (i.e., ‘But of the Son he says, “your throne, O God…”.’).

If these aspects weren’t onerous enough, probably the most unique feature of the NWT is its insistence in inserting the name ‘Jehovah’ into the New Testament whenever the NWT translation team thought the word ‘Lord’ was referring to God. The tragedy of this decision is that many of these instances are actually references to Jesus. Acts 2:21 is just one such example (compare Acts 4:10-12 – the point being that in Acts the name by which we are saved is the ‘Lord Jesus’, not ‘Jehovah’). The effect of all this is to obscure who Jesus really is to the minds of everyday Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

As I observed this practice of the NWT and considered this insistence on the name ‘Jehovah’, I was curious to delve deeper and actually devoted a good part of my final year at Bible college investigating a biblical theology of the name of God. 

In future posts I hope to outline some of the wonderful things I discovered in this, as well as other miscellaneous matters relating to NWT mistranslations of key passages that I researched over my time at college.

My writing on this subject comes out of both extensive conversations with these JW friends, combined with my own research and reflections. I share my thoughts in the hope that they will be of benefit to anyone who likewise finds themselves in conversation with JWs.

If you are trying to evangelise some JWs who have come to your door, might I recommend the book, ‘Sharing the Gospel with a Jehovah’s Witness’ by Tony Brown and published by 10 Publishing, 2019. He has far more experience than I do and writes in a more concise manner – the book is small and very helpful! 

And finally, my own reflection on the topic of evangelism to JWs is to be prepared to patiently share not only the gospel but your life as well – and this over a long time. As when trying to reach anyone from a close-knit faith community, it takes time and genuine friendship, as they will have much more reason to believe the people they know and trust than you who they may not.

Reading the Seven Principles – What you won’t find in the Bible…

Plenty of people get married. And of that group of people a reasonable deal of them slowly trudge their way towards a bitter breakdown in relationship culminating in the tragic event of divorce. Plenty of books have looked at why this happens. But what about the ones who not only survive but thrive within their marriage relationships? How do they do it? 

Gottman and Silver set themselves out to do the study and write up the answer – titling it “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”. The book uses a scientific framework, particularly statistical analysis and psychological analysis of couples, to come up with the seven principles.

After having read the book I have greatly benefited from its insightful categorisation of issues and solutions.

But after reading it I had a question lingering in my my mind. Does the Christian need this book or is the Bible enough?

Well…the Christian doesn’t need this book. Don’t build your marriage on the foundations of the seven principles, rather build your marriage on the Bible. But, supplement it with the seven principles. In fact, if you build your life on God’s word there will hopefully be an overlap with the seven principles because they are taking worldly wisdom built into God’s creation and presenting them in some easy-to-understand categories.

So if we don’t need the seven principles but would rather benefit from them, I wanted to do some thinking about the book’s overlap with the Bible and its novelty aside from the Bible.

In this post we will consider the ways in which this book doesn’t overlap with the Bible and introduces some novel and helpful concepts to the reader. In the next blog post we will consider how it does overlap with the Bible.

Gottman and Silver’s book talks about marriage through the lens of the scientific framework with a certain kind of modern lingo. One concept that is flagged early on is the idea of “emotional intelligence”, understanding our own feelings and the feelings of others. The concept of “emotional intelligence” is a modern category for thinking. You won’t necessarily find this explicitly mentioned in the Bible. The Bible speaks in different terms, calling us to love one another and love our spouses, it calls us to service. There is a focus on doing and being rather than understanding each other. Not that they are antithetical or anything, I mean – in order for one to love and serve the other we need to know what they (personally and particularly) want and need.

Let’s consider this quote,

“At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams. They have an abiding regard for each other and express this fondness not just in the big ways but through small gestures day in and day out.” (pg 21)

You won’t find this concept of deep friendship explicitly talked about in the Bible in relation to marriage. While in the Old Testament book Song of Songs there is a sense of deep friendship between the two characters, in the New Testament the emphasis isn’t necessarily on friendship. I think it would be fair to say that the Bible (generally speaking) doesn’t put an emphasis on “friendship” in the marriage relationship.  Not to say that it is not there, only to say that is not where the emphasis is placed.

However, the idea behind this quote above is that having such a positive relationship with your spouse tends to put out the flames of adversity. The good is more readily remembered and cherished in comparison to the ill.  In that sense Gottman and Silver’s concept can be seen as a means to the end of Phil 4:8, “…whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Something else you won’t find in the Bible is Gottman and Silver’s very helpful observation regarding the pattern of marital conflict. It goes as such, first is a harsh start-up (start bad = end bad), then comes “The Four Horsemen” as they put it; criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. The recognition of this pattern in marital conflict is indeed very helpful for the reader. Perhaps it’s one of the most enduring contributions of the book. It gives the reader a tool, the alarm. Now you’re watching out to see if these are occurring in your own marriage in order to curb their destructive effects. Who doesn’t want to do that?!

There are many more things to mention from Gottman and Silver’s book which don’t appear in the Bible such as: comments on communication skills, insights regarding perspective, the phenomenon of flooding, stuff about a baby’s effects on a marriage, a whole range of helpful questionaries, and etc., etc.

But if there is one principle I want to share about the seven principles, it’s don’t start with them. Start with the Bible. Cultivate a robust knowledge of the Bible and its principles. Furthermore, cultivate a steadfast application of those principles to your whole life. From this you will be in a much better position to read the book by Gottman and Silver and you will be in a better position to live them out, because you will have the Spirit of the Living God helping you and sanctifying you first and foremost through His word and secondly the wisdom of others.

Gottman, John Mordechai, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, 2018.

The Servant, Culture.

It seems to me that our time is steeped in a certain kind of self-awareness of culture. At least that is how I feel as I listen to the podcasts, peruse the articles and read the books. That’s beside the fact that there is this “culture war” thing happening at the moment as well. But it is not necessarily a new phenomenon. In one sense there are endless “culture wars” as different people-groups vie for control and amongst those groups are subgroups seeking out their own dominance, and amongst the subgroups there are splinter groups doing the same.

But the frontiers of the cultural battles are no longer across literal tribal lines or national borders. We are increasingly a globalised humanity with instant access to each other through mass media communication technologies. So it is that the everyday punter needs to have their wits about them because they will engage with a variety of cultures in a variety of settings in a short period of time.

The Christian wants no stumbling block to come between the gospel and those who need it (so far as is possible). Now, there is a good deal of material about the particularities of this challenge. I have recently read one such book called, “Changing Lanes, Crossing Cultures: Equipping Christians And Churches For Ministry In A Culturally Diverse Society.” This book has all sorts of little particulars that it addresses, which the reader will appreciate very much.

But early on it had a great point regarding the preservation of church culture. I think that this quote goes behind the particulars and looks at the purpose of culture more broadly speaking. The authors write,

“It is certainly true that church culture is often a major hindrance to the advancement of the gospel. Many Christians lack the cultural intelligence and competence needed to negotiate cultural differences. Further, by its very nature, culture exists to serve the needs of those who belong to that culture. The more dependent we are on preserving our own religious culture the more preoccupied we will be with meeting our own needs. The needs of outsiders are then inevitably neglected.”

I found this quote particularly helpful. It is all too easy to get caught up in the “culture wars” that are currently being attended to but never ask what the purpose behind any given culture is in the first place. What is the underpinning purpose behind any culture? The authors of this quote helpfully point out that culture exists to serve those who belong to it. But as we battle it out for top place we may all too readily slip into the error that is warned against in this quote. To preserve a culture (of which the authors are particularly thinking about church cultures) to the nth degree is to flip on the head the purpose of culture itself. No longer is one helped by one’s culture, but one is ceaselessly attending to propping it up.

To fully take on board the weight of this quote is asking a lot of us. It would take a great deal of self-reflection and self-awareness to do justice to this kind of thinking. That is because our culture is the air that we breathe. We never stop to ask what it’s made up of, we simply understand that it keeps us going.

Nevertheless, I think that this quote is very helpful at prodding us to consider the purpose of culture in the first place, particularly our church cultures. Are we helping the propagation of the Gospel through our church culture? Or are we propagating our church culture despite the difficulties it poses to those outside the church?

To answer and address these questions will take great help from the Holy Spirit, a careful guard against easy-going groupthink, and the input of many saints from all sorts of backgrounds.

Culturally relevant engagement is a daunting task. But that’s okay, because it’s worth it.

Work cited:

Schachtel, Andrew, Choon-Hwa Lim, and Michael K Wilson. Changing Lanes, Crossing Cultures: Equipping Christians and Churches for Ministry in a Culturally Diverse Society, 2016. p.73

Does a baby’s spirit return?

Over the past few months I’ve had a couple of people express the idea to me that the spirit of a deceased baby returns with the birth of a subsequent child. 

While I realise that this idea may comfort some people, as a Christian I find it to be problematic with what I understand of God, the finality of death, and the relationship between our body, spirit/soul and personhood. I’ll expand on each of these.

In thinking about God, as someone who knows him though his son Jesus, I am comforted by the indications in the Bible that my child is safely with him (For more on the topic of infant salvation, both Perman and Mohler have written helpful articles). While obviously I would love for my deceased daughter to be with me, at the same time with David I can say, ‘I will go to [her] but [she] will not return to me’ (2 Samuel 12:23). And where David was going was to be in the presence of the Lord – ie, heaven. Rather than finding comfort in the idea of my child returning to me in the body of another baby, I am comforted that I will one day see her again in heaven and the future new creation – when she will have a beautiful new resurrection body that is not broken like her old one was. 

This verse also touches on the finality of death for our time in this present world – the Bible does not say that we return in another body. Rather, ‘it is appointed for man to die once’ (Hebrews 9:27). Even though it is grievously sad and unnatural for one so young to die, the Bible does not indicate any exception to the finality of death in their instance. Rather, it joins us in grieving such occurrence – and even describes the new creation as being a place where, ‘no more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days’ (Isaiah 65:20). I look forward to that.

What’s more, to believe that the spirit of a deceased infant will return in the next baby is to deny the importance of our bodies for our personhood. Contrary to popular western notions of self, biblically our bodies are an important part of who we are. We are not a soul trapped within a body, but an embodied soul. This is reflected in the fact that our hope as Christians is in a bodily resurrection. While of course these will be glorious, new bodies that are no longer subjected to disease and decay, our ultimate destination is to be embodied – not wandering, disembodied spirits. Also, although they can’t communicate and express their individuality as much as an older child or adult, babies are just as much unique persons as the rest of us – and their bodies are an important part of them too. When my husband and I try for a second child, (if we are blessed with another) they will be a unique person as well – not a replacement of our first, and certainly not a reincarnation of her. 

Losing a baby is very distressing, and I intimately understand the desire to want such a precious, little-one back. However, I think that the position I hold is ultimately more robust and comforting than one which believes the baby’s spirit will return in another child. After all, if my hope were in my child returning to me in this life now then how would I cope if I discovered I had secondary infertility? Or if I were too old to have another? How miserable!

Also, what factual foundation is there for such a belief? In my experience it seems to fall more into the category of ‘nice idea’ – with maybe a good dose of contemporary Australian New Age syncretism thrown in there for good measure. But rather, the truth of the Bible’s claims is supported by history’s testimony to Jesus’ resurrection. Such testimony has been tested and tried and passed on as true for a long, long time. And such truth not only has more helpful implications but gives much, much better comfort.