Tuesday, February 10, 2015
"To Engage Our Emotions?!"
Jonathon Leeman @ 9Marks on "Why We Sing." He lists three reasons
We assign our pets emotions, but do they really have them? Certainly not like we do. The affection my cat expresses towards me is a function not of emotion, but of attachment as a result of my being a source of food and warmth. The line between love and sucking up is a fine one in a cat. Emotion is an expression of something more primal, but it is not of itself primal.
Many of the problems the church faces today are being faced because we have come to act as if emotion is humanity its the most primal. Emotion is, as CS Lewis once said in a round about fashion "subject to the state of digestion." Emotion is far to fickle to be primal.
We live in such abundance that many of our more primal urges, food, shelter, sex, are satisfied without a great deal of effort. Therefore, emotion seems to be the motivating thing in our lives. But it is not, we are just not built that way. In point of fact, all of those drives, hunger, shelter, and emotion, are drives towards something much, much deeper. The fact that we need on any level is indicative of our need for God.
All need - need for food, need for connectedness, emotional need - is a result of our separation from God. Need, on any level is a symptom of our state of sin.
If you want to emotional needs to line up properly its not about singing - its about confession. If we cater to our emotional needs we are catering to sin.
need primal sin singing
- We Sing To Own and Affirm the Word
- We Sing to Engage Our Emotions with God’s Word
- We Sing To Demonstrate and Build Unity
We assign our pets emotions, but do they really have them? Certainly not like we do. The affection my cat expresses towards me is a function not of emotion, but of attachment as a result of my being a source of food and warmth. The line between love and sucking up is a fine one in a cat. Emotion is an expression of something more primal, but it is not of itself primal.
Many of the problems the church faces today are being faced because we have come to act as if emotion is humanity its the most primal. Emotion is, as CS Lewis once said in a round about fashion "subject to the state of digestion." Emotion is far to fickle to be primal.
We live in such abundance that many of our more primal urges, food, shelter, sex, are satisfied without a great deal of effort. Therefore, emotion seems to be the motivating thing in our lives. But it is not, we are just not built that way. In point of fact, all of those drives, hunger, shelter, and emotion, are drives towards something much, much deeper. The fact that we need on any level is indicative of our need for God.
All need - need for food, need for connectedness, emotional need - is a result of our separation from God. Need, on any level is a symptom of our state of sin.
If you want to emotional needs to line up properly its not about singing - its about confession. If we cater to our emotional needs we are catering to sin.
need primal sin singing
