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Empathy and the Clowns (Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #3)

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INTRODUCTION

Many Christian parents are aware of the fact that the outside world is hostile to our faith, and as a consequence is hostile to the approach we must take in bringing our children up in that faith. We are usually aware of the fact of the hostility, but we are frequently unaware of the root of that hostility. What it is that is necessitating such a radical clash? Why is it that everything seems to have come unstuck?

THE TEXT

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children” (Ephesians 5:1, NKJV). 

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13–14). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

One of the central ways that children learn is through imitation. This is natural and is built into the very fabric of the created order. Because God has adopted us as His children, we have been brought into the family and household of God (John 1:13; Eph. 2:19). In our first text (Eph. 5:1), we are told to imitate God as His dearly beloved children. Now we know that, in the very nature of the case, we can never duplicate what God is and does. But we are nevertheless commanded to imitate it. Our imitation of Him should naturally carry over into how we care for our own children. He has children, and we should imitate Him in how He treats them. 

Our second text provides us with one point where such imitation will be most fruitful (Ps. 103:13-14). A good father pities his children, and God is just like this also. He too pities His children, showing tender care to those who fear Him. He knows and understands our frame. He is fully aware of our frailty. He remembers that we are but dust. And in just the same way, good and godly parents are sympathetically aware of their children’s frame. Godly parents have sympathy. 

SYMPATHY & EMPATHY

So I used the word sympathy just now, and we must begin distinguishing it from the therapeutic uses of empathy. The word sympathy is of ancient use, and it means to “feel together with.” We have a sympathetic high priest in the Lord Jesus, for example. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling [sympatheo] of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). And we as Christians are commanded to be sympathetic: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion [sympathes] one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous” (1 Peter 3:8). 

But the word empathy is of relatively recent coinage, and it is used in two ways. One is the man-in-the-street approach, which simply uses empathy as a synonym for sympathy. That’s okay, no bones were broken, and we shouldn’t freak out about it. 

However the other use of empathy is the use that is currently destroying Western Civilization, and is filled with toxic hatred of all that is good. As you are bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, this is the central threat that your children will face. This is what you must protect them from. It is the central danger.

This is empathy as it is being employed by the therapeutic professionals, and their use has worked its way into our laws, our customs, our HR departments, the media, and our courts. Empathy demands that we feel with others without making any judgments about them or their behavior whatever. Their feelings are to be considered paramount, and no questions asked. And if you do not provide this unconditional empathy, on demand, it must be because you are a hater. 

Here is how we may distinguish the two concepts. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you throw him a rope, while remaining firmly on the bank yourself, that’s sympathy. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you take a header in alongside him so that you might drown together with him, that’s empathy. The difference lies in this—with sympathy, there is an objective solution outside of, and independent of, the person’s feelings. With empathy, those feelings are the only reality that may be considered.  

WHAT THE TRUE DANGER IS

For the sake of clarity, let us call this sort of toxic empathy untethered empathy. But this raises a question. The pathos, the feeling that the person has, is untethered from what? The answer comes at us forcefully, and with the hard and bitter logic of the outer darkness. Feelings, in this understanding, are untethered from absolutely everything else.

This therapeutic heresy, which has insisted on this radical emotional autonomy, has resulted in absolutely incoherent phrases like “my truth.” The demand to untether this way has been a demand, in effect, to “make reality optional.” And it was not long after that when the focus of that coercion shifted and became “make such denials of reality mandatory.” This is the foundation that the pronoun madness rests upon. This is the cornerstone of all the transgender confusion. Take this disordered empathy away, and clown world disappears. Remove the fuel and the fire goes out.  

GRACIOUS TETHERING

What clown world in its lusts is seeking to detach us from—the fixed nature of absolutes—we as believers must be doggedly intent on embracing. “I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame!” (Psalm 119:31). The key word there is cling. All the things the worldlings are jettisoning, we must tether ourselves to. And what is that? Perhaps the word tether is too weak. How about weld?

God is the immutable one. God is a rock and His works are perfect (Dt. 32:4). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Second, His Word reflects the constancy of His character. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). And third, the objective world reflects the character of God as well. “You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever” (Psalm 104:5). God created nature such that it has a nature. 

And this is why your child’s feelings must be taught to obey God, to obey His Word, and to obey His world. This is why we must obey our chromosomes. This is why we must disobey the pronoun madness.

If you are distraught in the course of bringing up children in this bedlam, and you have come to see empathy as a ravening monster, which it is, take heart. Your rescuer, your savior, your deliverer from this monster is sympathy. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with [sympathy for] our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Always remember you have Christ.

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A Marriage Tune Up (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

As we begin a new year, it’s worth reviewing some of the most basic assignments we have in our marriages. The central paradigm is the gospel, and the central duties are love and respect. But as with many of these things that we hear often, it is incredibly important that we determine by God’s grace not to be merely hearers of the Word but doers.

The Text: “Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the Savior of the Body…” (Eph. 5:22-33).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The Bible teaches that marriage is one of the central pictures of the gospel (Eph. 5:23-25, 32), and therefore generally speaking, the state of marriage in a land will tell you a lot about the state of the gospel in that land. This gospel is embodied by a wife submitting to her own husband as to the Lord Jesus (Eph. 5:22), and each husband taking responsibility for his wife just as Christ does as the head of the church (Eph. 5:23). This means that a wife is to obey her husband as the church obeys Christ in everything (Eph. 5:24). And husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, laying down his life for her efficaciously, making her pure and holy (Eph. 5:25-27). This love is exemplified in the way a man cares for his own body, nourishing and cherishing, again, just as the Lord does the Church (Eph. 5:28-30). A man leaves his father and mother to become one flesh with his wife, and this is all a great mystery that proclaims Christ and the church (Eph. 5:31-32). Therefore, a man must love his wife, and a wife must reverence her husband (Eph. 5:33).

HUSBANDS LOVE

The command is for husbands to love because men need to be reminded to do this and because it is what a wife particularly needs. A man more naturally tends to respect, but that is not the particular command given. Christ is the model of this love, and what the Bible particularly points out is the duty of taking responsibility for her as her head and sacrificing for her good (Eph. 5:23, 25-27). This requires you to understand the difference between responsibility and guilt: you may not be personally guilty for some sin of your wife, but you are responsible for all of it, just as you may not be guilty for some injuries in your body but you are responsible (Eph. 5:28).

This love also requires thoughtfulness about your wife’s needs. You are not to love her aimlessly. You are to love like Christ, which is to say efficaciously. You are to give yourself for her to make her more holy and pure (Eph. 5:25-26). And you are to do this in order to present her to yourself more glorious and lovely, just like Jesus does (Eph. 5:27). Loving your wife well doesn’t mean doing whatever she wants; it means doing whatever it takes to make her a better woman.

WIVES RESPECT

The command is for wives to respect because women need to be reminded to do this and because it is what a man particularly needs. Women tend to more naturally love, and while that is certainly good (Tit. 2:4), the particular command is for wives to respect (Eph. 5:33). And this is also word for single ladies: your standard for a man needs to be not whether you do or could love him; your standard needs to be: do you respect him?

What is respect? Respect is honor, looking up to, thinking highly of, including the kind of trust that willingly submits to and obeys (Eph. 5:22, 24). Just as we live in a world that despises fathers; we live in a world that despises true husbands. And unfortunately many Christian women feel free to dishonor their husbands openly, making fun of them, talking them down, complaining about them, or simply being difficult for them, and it is often all dismissed with the hand-waving excuse, “but I love him.” However, the example a woman is given is the obedience of the church to Christ. How would you have the Christian Church submit to Christ? Then show the world in your submissive respect for your husband.

FELLOWSHIP MULTIPLIED

This love and respect is designed by God to result in a glorious unity and fellowship. But sin has twisted every son and daughter of Adam, and the curse has particularly attacked marriage, creating tension and hurt where there was none before (Gen. 3:16). This is why the only way for a marriage to have true Christian fellowship is by the blood of the Lamb: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:7). If this is true of Christian fellowship in general, it is most certainly true of Christian marriage in particular. But the thing to underline here is that marriage fellowship is one of the primary contributors to all fellowship. What you are sharing with one another is either true Christian fellowship (koinonia) (1 Cor. 10:16, 1 Jn. 1:3) or else it is some kind of Satanic, pharisaical cancer. You are one with your spouse, and when you come here, you are sharing that with one another (1 Cor. 11).

CONCLUSIONS

Never forget that these instructions come as part of the great “therefore” of Ephesians 4:1. We love because He loved us first. We work because we are His workmanship (Eph. 2:10). Which is to say that all of this is only possible by God’s grace. But grace is not something vague, like a Christian version of “luck” or “good vibes” or random windfalls. Grace is the personal favor and blessing of God in Jesus Christ. It begins with His personal forgiveness, but it also includes the wisdom and power to obey all of His commands: we stand in His grace (Rom. 5:1-2).

There are particular strengths and glories that men and women bring to the world, and they take shape as men take responsibility and love their wives and as women submit to their husbands and respect them. Harmony is not the result of everyone singing the same music. Harmony happens when each part sings the part assigned to them.

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How to Raise Christian Kids

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INTRODUCTION

We have had a couple of sermons on how to be a Christian kid as of late. And this sermon is designed to stay in a similar vein while coming at the matter from the opposite end. The kids among us need to know that they are Christian kids and what to do about that. Likewise, parents need to know their kids are Christians and how to raise them as such.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Ephesians 6:4

Paul tells fathers that they must not provoke their children to anger. Instead, they must go in the other direct entirely. That direction involves them raising their children in both nurture and admonition. But not just any nurture and admonition: the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

KNOW 

The first thing necessary in order to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is to know that they are in it. That word “in” is an important preposition. It refers to location. Where are your kids, Christians? Well, they are in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are not outside of it. They are not strangers, aliens, and exiles. Paul does not address them as such. This truth, however, of the insider status of the Christian’s children is not without controversy in our times. So, we need to examine the covenantal foundations of such a claim.

When God covenanted to Abraham in Genesis 17:7, He did only swear an oath of eternal life to the man Abraham. He also swore this oath to his household: “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” God wanted His sworn oath to Abraham and his children to be so plain, He established a sign of that covenant: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Genesis 17:10-11).

If we were to ask Abraham, “When God covenanted to be God to you and to bless you, were your children included as members of that covenant promise?” His answer would clearly be, “Why yes, indeed, they were.”

So it is with us, who are children of Abraham. As Paul says, our children are holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). They have been set apart into the realm of the holy people of God.

FAITH

What are we to do given this kind covenant grace of God? That is a good question, and the answer is quite plain: We are to believe His promise. We are the just ones. And the just shall live by faith. Examples of this parental faith abound.

Consider Job, who sacrificed for his children. He did so by faith, looking for the blessing of God on his household. Then, there is Joshua, who announced, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” This was not Joshua presuming upon God, as if he assumed God would do something for him and his household that God had not promised. No, Joshua had a promise. And it was not a special and individual promise that God made only to Joshua. Joshua was living by faith in the covenant promises God made to his father Abraham and his seed. We see that this covenant promise extends to Gentiles in the new covenant as Paul and Silas declared to the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).

This is the faith we exercise in covenant baptism vows when asked, ” Do you trust in God’s covenant promises on his/her behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his/her salvation, as you do for your own?

This faith in God’s promises must continually be exercised. We do not only exercise it once. And for this reason, we must have the fuel for this faith, namely the word of God.

RAISE

It has been wisely said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” So it is with raising Christian kids. Imagine James stepping in at this point and saying, “Show me your parenting faith without works, and I will show you my parenting faith by my paddling of the hind parts.”

There are three directives embedded in the call to raise children in the Lord. First, fathers must not provoke their children to wrath. Quite simply, don’t frustrate them. Don’t be a wet blanket on their joy. This kind of thing happens when fathers forget the covenant promise God has made to them and their household. 

Second, fathers must raise children in the nurture of the Lord. This means that fathers must nourish their children, teach them, show them the way. If you don’t feed them, they will be hungry. This takes time and effort, and grace abounding. So this is when you look to God for the manifestation of that glorious promise that God will “turn the hearts of fathers to the children, and the heart of children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6).

Third, fathers must raise children in the admonition of the Lord. That means that fathers must correct their children. They must not only teach them what to do. But they must teach them what not to do, what to avoid. 

All of this teaching and correction must not be the father’s, although he is the one who must do it. But the training itself must be the Lord’s. This we can do because He has set His face toward them to bless them to a thousand generations.

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Honesty, Cheating, & Lies (Workbench of Practical Christianity) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

Satan is the “father of lies,” and this why those under his sway speak lies and murder with their words and deeds (Jn. 8:44). This is also why Christians are frequently attacked here by the Devil, just like the woman in the Garden in the beginning. The fundamental lie is about the goodness of God and His Word. But if we repudiate that lie, we will hate all other lies and love the truth. 

The Text: “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members of one another” (Eph. 4:25). 

WSC Q. 77 What is required in the Ninth Commandment? The ninth commandment requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbors’ good name, especially in witness-bearing.

WSC Q. 78 What is forbidden in the ninth commandment? The ninth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbor’s good name. 

Heidelberg. Q 112 What is required in the ninth commandment? That I do not bear false witness against anyone, twist anyone’s words, be a gossip or a slanderer, or condemn anyone lightly without a hearing. Rather I am required to avoid, under penalty of God’s wrath, all lying and deceit as the works of the devil himself. In judicial and all other matters I am to love the truth, and to speak and confess it honestly. Indeed, insofar as I am able, I am to defend and promote my neighbor’s good name.

INTENTIONS & CONTEXT MATTERS

Whenever we come to this subject there are Christians with overly tender consciences tempted to think that if they told someone it was raining outside one time (because they thought it was) and then they went outside and it wasn’t, they’ve lied. But we really do need to make distinctions between lying and being mistaken (which we should be ready and willing to correct as necessary), as well as the difference between intending to deceive (lying) and intending to give the necessary information. Related, context and relationships matter: you do not owe strangers the same amount of information as you do your parents or spouse. “A prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools proclaims folly” (Prov. 12:23). Your conscience should not ordinarily be troubled if you did not read all of the fine print of the user agreement, and you clicked “I have read and understand…” The intentions of everyone involved is to communicate that you are liable for certain standards, and you understand that. 

CHEATING

Cheating is actually a form of stealing and lying. In school settings, you are passing yourself or your work off as an accurate representation. But if you copied the answers from an answer key, looked over a classmate’s shoulder, or told your teacher you finished the reading that you didn’t really finish, then you are lying and attempting to get credit, praise, and promotion that you don’t deserve. In work settings, cheating may consist of lying about your work or work hours, or you may lie by breaking your word, your contracts, or your promises. There are many warnings in Scripture about making vows/promises, and here we should be particularly careful about promising to do things that we really aren’t sure we can fulfill, including to our own family. The righteous man “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Ps. 15:4). 

FLATTERY VS. ETIQUETTE

Sometimes empty promises are a form of flattery, which is another form of lying and cheating. It is attempting to win respect/friendship through false complements, empty promises, or ignoring real problems. Speaking the truth to one another, as members of one another, means that we must love our neighbor as ourselves, not using others for what they can do for you. And here, we should make a distinction between good etiquette and flattery. Thanking someone for dinner need not mean it was your favorite meal ever, and again, it is kindness not to say everything that comes into your head and love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). But this must not be an excuse for not addressing sin or addressing weakness or ignorance (Gal. 6:1). 

RASH JUDGEMENTS/GOSSIP/SLANDER

While the ninth commandment certainly applies to judicial situations, this also includes the court of public opinion. The Bible teaches that a good name is worth more than great riches (Prov. 22:1), and the duty of honesty requires the protection of our own name as well as the good name and reputation of our neighbors. This means we must be very reluctant to receive negative reports about our neighbors’ marriage, parents, kids, business dealings, or even those of our enemies. Of course this does not prohibit seeking help from those who can actually provide it, and this does not prohibit giving feedback on public matters like quality of work. 

SELF-ACCUSATION

Thomas Vincent points out that the prohibition against lying includes to and about ourselves: “in accusing ourselves in that wherein we are not guilty, and denying the gifts and graces which God hath given us, endeavoring to lessen our esteem, that thereby we might be numbered amongst those from whom we are through grace redeemed.” This also includes “unnecessary and imprudent discovery of all real infirmities, unto the scorn of the wicked and ungodly.”

Satan is the father of lies and the accuser, and he loves to accuse sinners with real and false accusations. The answer to every accusation is the cross of Christ, whereby we have been crucified with Christ and all of our sins completely paid for (Gal. 2:20). We must not listen to or give any credence to lies that say otherwise. If God says you are forgiven, and you have confessed to anyone you have sinned against, then do not give lies the time of day. 

CONCLUSION: HONESTY & AUTHORITY/TESTIMONY

Jesus Christ is the authoritative Truth made flesh. He is the true Word of God, and by His death and resurrection, He has been given the name that is above every name. In Him, we have that honest name and therefore, our good name reflects His good name. We should want our reputations in the community to be something like “honest as a kirker.”

If Christians have lost a great deal of authority in our modern world, we should look nowhere else but here: we rejected God’s true and authoritative word for many lies, and in turn, we have told and embraced many lies. But God’s Word is the truth (Jn. 17:17), and that truth sets us free.

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