Side By Side is shorter and less technical. It is less structured around counseling. It is about being a friend and being able to talk about the big or important things in life.
It is structured around need. The first part is We Are Needy, and the second part is We Are Needed. Each of us will gravitate to one of those two sections. We tend to be aware either of our needs or others needs. Truth is we are needy and we are also needed.
Welch begins with the fact that life is hard. He helps us to know (or remember) that our needs are of different kinds. Life is hard in God’s kingdom (while we are still on earth), our work, our relationship and our bodies. At the center of it all is our heart which interacts with the hardness of life. Scripture indicates that our hearts are busy places. The heart produces both good and bad desires (due to our regeneration). Our hard circumstances intersect with our busy hearts.
One persistent problem, though hardly the only one, is sin. Sin and temptation plague us. We tend to hide our sin. We’ll talk with people about our suffering (we love to complain) but struggle to talk to people about our sin. As he will say in the second part, this is often the last thing we talk about. But that I mean we need to develop sufficient trust and intimacy.
This means we need help from the Lord. We need to pray, asking for grace, and exercise trust. We need to read the Word to hear God’s promises and warnings. We also need help from others, at least one other. They can speak those promises and warnings to us. They can hold our hand and weep with us as necessary.
“The goal is to become transparent and humble friends who are at ease with our neediness.”
As we become engaged in one another’s lives through mutual care the church moves forward. Welch reminds us that we have the Spirit to empower us in this mutual ministry. We don’t engage in this alone.
God moved toward us in our sin and misery. As we become like Him thru the gospel we begin to move toward others in their sin and misery. Moving toward them we begin to have thoughtful conversations. We don’t force them to open up, but display honest interest in them. It is basically just beginning a relationship and slowly deepening that relationship. This includes seeing the good in them, and enjoying them. This is done as we share stories, the stories that shaped us. Perhaps we ask some questions about those stories to understand more about how they responded or felt.
As the relationship deepens, you express compassion in trouble. Your theology of suffering will affect how you express compassion. One expression of compassion is prayer. We help one another become aware of Satan’s devices. Eventually you should be talking about sin and helping each other. These are two of the longer chapters.
Though we talk about our stories, Welch reminds us to connect them to the Story. Effective mutual ministry reconnects people to the Story. This means we need to know the Bible’s story line.
How’s that for a brief summary of a brief book? Welch also has Caring for One Another which examines the material covered in the second section in a study guide.
I plan to use this book in my re-formatted officer training class. I want our officers to grow in mutual ministry so our members can begin to grow in mutual ministry. I want our officers to practice and model ministry to one another.
Unlike Instruments, this is not a long and complex book. Welch keeps it very simple so any church member can develop these mutual care relationships. To develop a good working knowledge of Scripture to address this sin & suffering you may want to add Mike Emlet’s Cross Talk: Where Life and Scripture Meet. Ed Welch gives us a great place to start.
While at General Assembly, I spotted a book in the exhibit hall that I was curious about from online. I like to actually flip through a book. Yes, sometimes you can download a sample for a book. But like the one I just did, you just can’t flip through it. You scroll thru blank pages to get to the table on contents. You don’t flip to random pages. It’s just … different.
The goal here is developing vibrant community among Christians. His intention is that the lesson be read, and the questions at the end of the lesson be discussed. There are not so many questions that you will feel the pressure of time constraints.
Where some will struggle is way Scripture is used. There are often references to Scripture to support a point. But it isn’t the development of a text or two in the course of the lesson. As a one off, I can live with that. As a steady diet, it would be problematic.
In thinking about my own church context, this series would likely be a hard sell though the overall subject would likely be quite helpful and what I want to develop. I want them to learn how to talk about these things with one another so they can care with one another. Like most sinners, we struggle with the superficial and the common ground: jobs, sports, hobbies etc.
One of the great needs is to connect a person’s particular needs with Scripture. It does take a growing knowledge of Scripture (it will always get back to that). Welch wants people to see that their problems are addressed by Scripture, and Scripture is one of the primary means of ministry to one another. Another is prayer, as he covers in another lesson.
He wants people to be able to understand more of their heart and begin to address the heart in their conversations- evaluating desires and longings, demands and expectations by Scripture. Ministry becomes more personal and powerful as we do.
At times Welch could utilize some important distinctions. For instance, in the lesson on sin he writes “Suffering, for example, cannot separate us from the Lord, but hard hearts and persistent sin break our relationship with God.”
I would address this in terms of the distinction between union and communion or fellowship. If we are truly united to Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not suffering and not even sin because were are fully justified in Christ. It can break our fellowship or communion with Christ. God may seem distant, and He will discipline us like a father should his son. Our relationship is strained, but not broken.
That is quite a mouthful, and he’s trying to be brief in this book. He can’t say everything, but those distinctions are of great importance. The book could use a few more of those.
This book would be helpful for training small group leaders so they can begin to model this to their people. It would also be helpful for a small group so their subsequent studies are more impactful because they know and care for each other. That is what the church should be engaged in because God has cared for us in Christ Jesus, and makes us into people who care for others.
In recent years there have been more than a trickle but less than a flood of books on the topic of idolatry. I’ve read books by Tim Keller and Elyse Fitzpatrick. There is a relatively new out by Brad Bigney called Gospel Treason: Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols(e-book too).
In some ways the subject of idols is under addressed (similar to the subject of the Trinity and Union with Christ). The Bible focuses on the topic a great deal. So I’m thankful for Bigney’s foray into this subject.
He is a pastor and biblical counselor. That shows through in his work. There are enough personal examples and stories (his and other people’s) to flesh it out for us, but not so many that you grow weary. I’m finding there is a fine balance to maintain in this matter.
He identifies the issue in chapter 1:
“To move toward idols is to move away from the gospel and the Savior that the gospel proclaims, so the problem is not peripheral- it is central. … When the gospel loses center stage, your spiritual immune system shuts down, leaving you susceptible to a myriad of spiritual illnesses.”
Because we are sinners, albeit justified sinners, we are still prone to wander. Or drift. We drift toward someone or something that is essentially a Christ-substitute. In other words, towards an idol.
We may see our struggles with sin, but fail to see the idols underneath that struggle. Think of it like addiction. Your addiction often leads to a host of other sins: deceit, sloth, theft, adultery or promiscuity and perhaps even murder. The addiction is driven by something however. If you don’t address that “something” you will just shift addictions. Many AA meetings are filled with people chain-smoking cigarettes and gulping coffee. When we don’t address the idol our sin patterns simply change instead of going away. We think we are more sanctified, but we really aren’t. We continue to be stuck spiritually.
Bigbey is honest. He’s not offering a cure-all. We will struggle with this problem the rest of our earthly lives precisely because, as Calvin noted, our hearts are factories of idols. He also notes that God’s goal is not simply for you to sin less, but to make you like Jesus. Sometimes the process of changing our hearts means struggling with visible sins. He wants a Christ-conformed you, not a haughty person who simply obeys externally. In Jesus’ day they were often called Pharisees.
“Everything outside of Christ is saltwater, and it only leaves you thirstier than you were before.”
How do we see the carnage of idols? Bigney points us to the chaos in our relationships. This is what James does in his letter to the church. We tend to think other people are the problem and that if they will just go away all will be well. While there is an element of truth, we struggle with idols too and contribute to many of our relational conflicts. The conflicts are meant to help us see the idols. They are the visible manifestation of the unseen idol.
Bigney borrows quite a bit from David Powlison and Paul Tripp throughout the book but particularly from this section. That is not a bad thing. It is hard to improve on their work.
Idols also shape our identity. They alter our view of ourselves and the world. They are like fun house mirrors but we think we are seeing clearly and accurately.
“Your idolatry is bigger than just clinging to a few counterfeits. It includes taking on an identity replacement that leads to a sense of losing yourself.”
Bigney continues the diagnostics with a chapter on following the trail, looking at time, money and affections. Idols need to be fed and they consume those three things at an unhealthy rate. He then returns to the topic of chaos. This time it isn’t simply relational chaos but chaos with respect to time or money.
He returns to the heart, again, to warn us against following our hearts. While we are regenerate, and this affects every aspect, we are not fully and perfectly transformed. Therefore you heart can still lie to you and want the wrong things.
“Everybody is following his own heart and making a big, fat mess. Listening to your heart will lead you from one relationship to the next, and one job to the next, and one disaster to the next, with no end in sight. Guide your heart, guard it, but don’t dare follow it.”
Sticking with the heart, he wants to help us see where our hearts are most vulnerable. “Your heart is the compass that points to where you run under pressure.” Each of us has weaknesses. Satan knows them so you better know yours too.
After ten chapters of diagnostics and warnings, he moves into how God works to reorient us. He focuses on the means of grace, as he should. Even here there are warnings. We are to seek Christ in them, not just the doing of them to check them off our list. Our life is found in Christ, not in the reading, worship services etc. They point us to Him and we can find Him there but we too easily settle just for the externals. Daily reading? Check. Prayer time? Check. Weekly worship? Check.
We can do that and still be controlled by idols, particularly the idol of control (the need to be in control of your circumstances). We also need to be in fellowship with Christ’s people. They help us spot our sins and idols if we are in meaningful & biblical community (not simply a country club). Together we seek to submit ourselves to God (as seen in James 4).
Bottom line: … this was a good book. At times I found it inconsistent. There were excellent chapters and some that didn’t have much red ink underlining things. Could be a me thing. The bulk of the book is spent on explaining why they are a problem and how to diagnose them in your life. He did loop around some of those things a few times. I wanted him to develop the means of restoration more thoroughly, particularly union with Christ. Unlike Ed Welch, for instance, he doesn’t talk about the role of the sacraments (though E Free churches and pastors typically don’t focus on the Lord’s Table). So this good book could be better.
It took me over 2 years to read Sexual Sanity for Men: Re-Creating Your Mind in a Crazy Culture by David White. It should have taken me 14 weeks. Unfortunately while I was reading it my eyes were growing weaker and I never brought glasses to that room until just recently. Yes, that is pretty lame.
When you read the blurbs by men like Paul Tripp, Tim Keller and Ed Welch you are tempted to think “they have sexual issues??!!” You can understand Stephen Brown but those guys seem, like holy. The fact of the matter is that we all have sexual issues. It is just a matter of degree. Really. We are all sinners, and our depravity extends to every part of our being which includes our sexuality. So, I can safely say that EVERY man (with the sole exception of Jesus) has sexual issues, an element of insanity. (Don’t worry, there is a book for women too!)
As a result, there are times when I am tempted toward self-righteousness because I’ve never done that or struggled with this. But I have enough of my own struggles. Some of what he talks about will be outside of your frame of reference. But it will be part of other readers’ frame of reference. People struggle with some very hard things.
I was reading another book recently and the author gave the example of bucks. Usually you don’t see bucks. They tend to avoid people. But during rutting season (aka mating season) when they smell a doe they become single minded, seemingly ignoring people and cars in the road.
We can be like a buck during rutting season. When our testosterone levels are high we are prone to do stupid, and sinful things. We need help to regain our sanity.
This book is intended to help us in this endeavor. This means it is a painful book at times. We are confronted with the idols that drive our sexual insanity. Forsaking our idols, and our sin, can be quite painful.
In light of that, this book is intended to be read as part of a group. This is the sticky wicket for many men. We (rightfully?) have a great deal of shame around these issues. We think we are alone in struggling with these things. It is hard to open up. The fear of rejection is real at times.
If you are a pastor it is harder. It isn’t just about image management. Some people can’t differentiate between those who know their problems and wish they didn’t have those problems and those who sin gladly. So you aren’t sure who you can trust to walk with you instead of point the finger at you.
David White reminds us that our enemies are the flesh, the world and the devil. We have an internal bent toward sexual sin, the world encourages and facilitates sexual sin, and the devil will first plant sinful suggestions and then condemn you for them and any sin you may have committed.
At times I wish he’d remind us it wasn’t simply about obedience more often. Toward the end he talks about pride. This may sound strange, but God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts than our external obedience. He wants obedience from the heart. To humble us, we can have thorns in the flesh. We will not be 100% sexually sane until we are glorified, but we can grow.
This book does not want us to settle for the status quo, but to press on toward greater holiness. When our sin is about something so central to who we are, our sexuality, progress is slow and painful.
I would recommend this book (based on what I can remember over the course of two plus years). Yes, there are passages that struck me as a bit legalistic (the idea we must be in accountability groups even though this is not mandated in the Scriptures). The general tenor of the book, however, is to drive us to Jesus and the gospel. When we are honest about our sexual sin and struggles, our need and desire for Jesus should grow.
In the last few years there has been an explosion of books on the topic of grace. Some of been excellent. Some have been controversial. Some of those that have been controversial had some significant flaws. Not a fatal flaw, mind you. They were still within the bounds of Christianity but not necessarily within the bounds of the community to which the author belonged (how’s this for vague?).
So, it was with a measure of anticipation and trepidation that I read Extravagant Grace: God’s Glory Displayed in Our Weakness by Barbara Duguid. I had a sense of anticipation because I have found her husband Iain’s books very helpful. Additionally I saw that she was very dependent on John Newton from whom I’ve also benefited greatly. But I also had sanctification controversy PTSD.
Here is my bottom line: I loved the forest, but some of the particular trees may have issues.
Barbara has some obvious influences, and some that aren’t as obvious. In addition to John Newton, she has a certificate from CCEF, and holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith. When she sticks close to those the book is quite excellent and helpful. When she goes beyond them I found it less helpful and has some of the same issues that troubled me about Tullian Tchividjian’s books on grace. I try to remember what Dr. Pratt taught us: you can’t say everything any time you say anything. Yet a qualification or two saves a world of misunderstanding.
The Good
Throughout the book Barbara Duguid is quite honest about her own struggles, which essentially drive the book. This is nothing new. Many theologians have a doctrinal emphasis that reflects their own personal struggles. Think Luther and his emphasis on justification by faith alone. There is nothing wrong with this, particularly when we consider the providence of God in the matter. Yet we should recognize that we, as sinners saved by grace, can still run off into extremes. Her honesty, to get back to my point, is helpful. She is not writing theoretically, but has walked with God through these difficult places.
“God thinks that you will actually come to know and love him better as a desperate and weak sinner in continual need of grace than you would as a triumphant Christian warrior who wins each and every battle against sin.”
This book is easy to read. It is not a technical book but intends to make theology practical. She does a good job of this. The first chapter, Welcome to Your Heart, easily introduces you to her heart and by extension yours through a story. She shows how pride lurks in our hearts, distorting our experience by trying to make us the center of … everything.
The next three chapters, leaning heavily on Newton, are about the three stages of Christian life: babes in Christ, maturing and grown-ups. Sadly, not many people talk about this. It is helpful to recognize the differences so a person has more accurate expectations. Babes often have few trials and lots of joy. God has merciful on them. There is often, in my experience, significant change almost immediately if one converts as an adult. But then life gets hard. God begins to work more deeply, and most often through hardship and failure. The focus is on developing deeper dependence on God, and the destruction of our pride.
“A mature believer studies all the aspects of a person’s struggle with sin and makes allowances. He never stops calling sin the ugly and evil thing that it is, but he understands how deeply rooted it is in human nature and how helpless every Christian is to stand against it.”
Her book offers hope to all of us who struggle with sin, which is every Christian. She reminds us of the providence of God, the preservation of the saints, and the doctrine of assurance (from the Westminster Confession of Faith) which instruct us that sometimes God does in fact bring us through periods of disobedience. The problem is most Christians don’t talk about with struggles (contrary to James 5) so when we struggle with sin we think we are the only one, or more messed up than everyone else in church. We have to remember that God is up to something bigger than “sin management.”
Our struggles with sin should translate into greater patience with the sins of other Christians. When we consider how patient God is with us, and how sufficient His mercy is to us, we are able to be patient and extend mercy to our brothers and sisters even (particularly!) when they sin against us.
“The more I see myself as the biggest sinner and the worst transgressor, the more I will be able to step up to love others even when they sin against me time and time again.”
I can see Ed Welch’s (a professor at CCEF) as well as Newton’s influence in the last chapter. Part of how we strive for holiness is in community and making use of the means of grace (Word and sacrament). We need each other profoundly. Her the individualism of Americans is anti-thetical to the gospel. We need help to see our sins. We need help through the prayers of others not only for our illnesses but our sins. We need to remember that the Lord’s Table is for us as saved sinners who still need grace along the pilgrim road.
Her audience is those who are depressed and overwhelmed by their on-going struggle with sin. These people need to know of God’s extravagant grace toward sinners saved by grace. There is plenty of truth to encourage them so they can strengthen their weak knees and keep moving by the grace of God.
“Although God did not create your struggle or tempt you to it, he has called you to walk with it. He has assigned it to you, and he loves you as he calls you to walk through it. He is not disgusted by you.”
The Questions the Reformed Community Needs to Address
There are some questions that are raised by this book, reflecting problems with other books on grace. The sanctification debates seemed largely focused on the third use of the law. These go deeper and are, I think, more important.
1. Is sanctification monergistic or synergistic? This book seems to give conflicting answers at times. Newton often refers to striving for holiness, and she echos that at times. But she is also critical of unnamed pastors who seem to focus on our responsibility. Philippians 2:13 has been one of the key verses for me to understand the relationship between gospel indicatives (facts) and gospel imperatives (commands). God works in me so I will and work according to His purpose. We can’t focus on only one part of that. Edwards noted that it is “all of God and all of me”. I can only work because He works in me (grace!!). But I actually work. He’s not working for me, believing for me, repenting for me. It is typically a hyper-Calvinist view to minimize the exercise of our wills. At times she comes really close to this.
2. What is the nature, or goal, of sanctification? She frequently criticizes the view that it is “sinning less and less.” This seems contrary to the way it is expressed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism to which she holds as a member of the ARP.
Question 35: What is sanctification? Answer: Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
She doesn’t really qualify or explain what she means. She is correct if she is referring to simply external obedience. The truth is that our “obedience” is often driven by fear and pride instead of faith and love. When we obey out of fear (the fear of getting caught, what people will think etc.) or pride (having a reputation to uphold, a sense of entitlement) we are not really obeying. If this is what she means, I wholeheartedly agree. God is working to address the fear and pride behind so much “obedience.” God also won’t give us “victory” (I hate that term) if it will lead us to spiritual pride. Fear and pride are sins too, but sins that drive other sins as well as counterfeit obedience.
3. What is the Degree of Regeneration?
Our depravity is total, but not absolute. Every aspect of us is affected but we aren’t as bad as we could be. She notes that though saved, we are depraved, weak little sinners. Where is regeneration? To what degree have we changed? Thomas Boston, in the Human Nature in its Fourfold Estate, argues that our regeneration is total in the same way that depravity is. Every aspect of us is affected by regeneration, but not absolutely. While regenerate we still have indwelling sin. We want to be neither triumphalists nor fatalists. She rightly criticizes the former but sounds an awful lot like the later.
4. Does God get angry with us? Can He be pleased by our actions?
She hammers our position in Christ. Indeed there is cause for great rejoicing with regard to our position in Christ as perfectly righteous. This is our hope: union with Christ. But in sanctification does God only see us positionally or does He also see us personally?
She notes the Israelites in the wilderness as the pattern for us in many respects, particularly their failure (she overlooks how many times it does say they did everything the Lord commanded Moses in particular matters). If they were converted (which I think many/most of them were) they were then united to Christ (apart from whom there is no salvation). During the wilderness journey we often see God angry with Israel (with no differentiation between the elect and non-elect). In Hebrews 12 we see that God disciplines us so we bear the harvest of righteousness. He necessarily sees us as less than personally righteous and moves us toward greater personal righteousness. We have Christ’s imputed righteousness in justification, and He imparts Christ’s righteousness to us in sanctification. These distinctions seem to be missing here (and in other some books about grace). If we can’t please God personally, then why does Paul pray for this in Colossians 1.
Love is not contrary to anger, as she seems to argue. Anger is an important part of love to protect the beloved from danger, including the destructiveness of sin. I wonder how much her own anger issues (one of the sins she says she struggles with) influence her views on this. I don’t want God to be angry with me, but I need his fatherly anger at times, as Calvin notes.
“The Spirit of love was given to Christ alone, for the express purpose of conferring this Spirit upon his members; and there can be no doubt that the following words of Paul apply to the elect only: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” (Rom. 5:5); namely, the love which begets that confidence in prayer to which I have above adverted. On the other hand, we see that God is mysteriously offended [wondrously angry] with his children, though he ceases not to love them. He certainly hates them not, but he alarms them with a sense of his anger, that he may humble the pride of the flesh, arouse them from lethargy, and urge them to repentance. Hence they, at the same instant, feel that he is angry with them for their sins, and also propitious to their persons.” John Calvin (Institutes 3:2:12)
The Big Picture Problem?
When she moves away from Newton, CCEF and the Westminster Standards, I pick up an organizational principle for salvation that is more Lutheran than Reformed. Lutheran theology (after Luther’s death) made justification by faith alone the organizing principle so union with Christ and sanctification (and all the other benefits) flow out of justification. This, in my opinion, means that justification flattens the other doctrines, our understanding of Scripture and the dynamic rather than static relationship we have with God. This shows up in focusing on the positional almost exclusively.
The Reformed view sees union with Christ as the organizing principle (to borrow Lane Tipton’s terminology, see Calvin’s Institutes, book 3 and the WLC #65-69). Out of our union with Christ we receive all the (distinct) blessings of Christ. We receive the double grace of justification and sanctification at the same time, though they are distinct. We experience definitive or definite sanctification at that point. It focuses on us as positionally sanctified (see Hoekema’s Saved by Grace). Progressive sanctification necessarily focuses on our personal sanctification. He sees us as we are in ourselves (but doesn’t condemn us because of our position in Christ). Reformed Theology has historically held these two in a biblical tension that appears to be lacking here.
Yesterday I looked at some other reviews to make sure I wasn’t missing the boat, or seeing something that isn’t there. Both Mark Jones and Dane Ortland saw the same things or similar things.
Like Dane Ortland I recognize the many good things about this book which includes some things that are rarely taught which need to be heard. But I want to filter out the ways in which she departs from (my understanding of?) Reformed Theology. Enjoy the forest, even if some trees have thorns. Or to use a different metaphor: it is a good meal, but there is some bone and gristle to toss out.
No one likes to feel shame, even if it is such a regular part of their existence that they are “used” to it. Shame is one of those things we don’t like to talk about unless we are trying to put it on others: “you should be ashamed of yourself” or “have you no shame?”.
I’m sure a book on shame is a hard sell. I mean, who wants to think about their shame? But Shame Interrupted is about “how God lifts the pain of worthlessness and rejection.” This is a worthwhile goal. This is a worthwhile, if uneven book.
At its best this book does two things. First, it gets you to think about your life. Many times I thought of instances where shame was put on me, or lifted from me or I struggled with my shame. Second, it gets you to look at Christ who bore our shame so we don’t have to bear it any more.
Years ago, for a counseling course, I’d compared and contrasted two different books on dealing with sexual abuse. Both were good at describing the ways in which it affects us, but only one really focused on the gospel and its implications for the sexually abused. If I’d had time this week, I would have gone back to another book I read years ago on shame to compare & contrast. I may yet do this very thing. But Ed Welch focuses on the gospel and its implications for your shame.
“Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated.”
There you have it. Welch begins by explaining shame and giving examples from the lives of his counseling clients. Some people just give in to the shame allowing it to define and control who they are. Others fight the shame, often with the wrong weapons. Good grades, a nice car, attractive spouse or celebrity status won’t remove our shame. Shame is like acid, and unless you place a base on it the acid will continue to burn you.
He also compares and contrasts guilt and shame. They are often produced by the same events yet they are quite different. Guilt has to do with the language of the courtroom. It says “you have done something wrong, and you must pay.” Shame has to do with the language of the community. It says “there is something wrong about you and we don’t want anything to do with you.” Guilt is about the wrongness of an action while shame is about the wrongness of a person. When we sin we often feel both guilt and shame. We have done wrong and there is something profoundly wrong with us. As a result we withdraw, feeling unworthy of the love of another.
When someone does something wrong to us we may feel guilt, false or illegitimate guilt. We didn’t do anything wrong. But we will feel shame. Victims may falsely blame themselves, but the guilt lies with the victimizer. Shame, however, now belongs to both. Shame, therefore, is even more commonplace than guilt. It is powerful, often like solitary confinement, above and beyond the general population prison cell of guilt.
Shame can often lead to greater sin. Addicts, who are often buckets of shame, often continue to sin because they “deserve it.” I do not mean entitlement but a sense of I am a pig and belong in the mud. Addictions can relieve the pain of shame, but also function as the validation or just consequences. We think “I am a horrible person, and I don’t deserve happiness.” In this way we see the self-destructiveness of shame as a person ruins whatever good there is in their lives. In some cases, profound shame can drive someone to suicide, the ultimate in self-destruction. So ministry to them should include both guilt AND shame, not one or the other.
Welch writes of how the Bible talks about shame under the term uncleanness. This is the idea that sin pollutes us. Disease also pollutes us, and the unclean person is isolated from the rest of the community so no one “gets it.” This is a frequent subject in Scripture and we often overlook it as some antiquated idea when it really is just about our frequent, persistent experience of shame.
Christ, the sin bearer, not only removed our guilt but our shame. Part of the promise of the new covenant in Ezekiel 36 is that we would be sprinkled clean, our pollution would be removed. The blood of Christ deals with our guilt and shame, not one or the other.
Since shame is about association too, Welch brings us to our union with Christ. Associated with Him, we receive His glory. Our identity shifts in Christ so the shame associated with the old man in Adam has been lifted and we’ve been given alien honor just as we have received alien righteousness.
In the Gospels we see that Jesus often touched unclean people. This is exactly what you were not supposed to do because it made any mere mortal unclean. But Jesus was not a mere mortal. As the God-man Jesus was not overcome by their uncleanness but their uncleanness was removed. Everything was upside down because Jesus came to reverse the curse.
This is a lengthy book at about 300 pages. Not all of it connected to me, particularly in the middle. However, in light of the pervasiveness and power of shame this is a very important book. Even if you don’t struggle with shame your spouse, kids or congregants will. We should want to understand their struggle and be able to point them to the One who can break the self-destructive cycle of shame. In the process, however, you might find that shame plays a bigger role in your life than you ever realized.
One of the rare aspects of Welch’s work is that he sometimes includes discussion of the sacraments as how God changes us. This book is no different. I wish he’d gone deeper into the subject. It is unfortunate that we don’t see many discussions of the sacraments from a Reformed perspective, as means of grace meant for our growth in Christ. So we have to take it when we can.
One word of caution, I suppose. People struggling with shame may not want to read this until they are ready. We are odd people. The right medicine at the wrong time can magnify the problem by hardening hearts. So be gentle with those struggling with shame. Learn to recognize and respect what boundaries they do have because those boundaries may be all that keeps them in relationship to you.
Ed Welch has a new book out that looks much like an old book, When People are Big and God is Small, for a younger audience. God is Small. But that would be a superficial assessment. Ed Welch continued to think about the fear of man, and the fear of God. He thought about the topics with respect to teens and young adults. The result was What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?. I’m glad he kept thinking about all this.
The book does have a different vibe due to the intended audience. It looks less formal (including the questions for thought & discussion) and more “trendy”. He encourages the reader to write liberally throughout the book. The sentences are less complex, reflecting a lower reading level. He continues to provide a lot of instruction from Scripture on the topic. He walks us through the texts so we understand what they mean and how they apply.
He breaks it down into 3 big questions: Who is God, who am I and who are they? He begins with talking about how it starts in the heart. And that we all have this problem (fearing people). We all give the opinions of people far too much weight in our lives. Toward the end of the book he talks about how with family we are not (very) self-conscious. But once we go out the door, most of us care far more about how we look and act. While this is good in one sense, so we don’t all end up on People of Walmart, it can run our lives. We give other people far too much power to control us.
In Seinfeld they talked about having “hand”, short for “the upper hand”, in a relationship. This is not to be confused with George’s short time as a hand model. They were addressing the reality that in relationships there is often one in control, the one who has the most power in the relationship.
This is not particular to human. My sister-in-law’s German short hair pointer Billy was “top dog” in their neighborhood for years. Those years have caught up to him, so he’s probably lost that status. The top dog is literally the dog on top because the dog on the bottom has submitted. He’s the boss.
Yesterday on the Shamrock Farms tour, I learned that cows have a pecking order. One is the boss and all the others know their place in line and follow along. This usually makes life much easier for the dairy farmer. Control the one cow, and you control the others in her group of 20. When you have 10,000 cows, you can see why this matters.
Relationships are all about negotiating the balance of power. Typically the one least concerned with the relationship has more power, “hand” and is in the driver’s seat. They have less need for the other person’s love, affection, admiration, attention etc. So they are less likely to be manipulated into doing the other person’s will. We can see this in the recent labor negotiation in the NFL and NBA. The owners typically have the upper hand- they don’t need the sport to make a living. They have other revenue streams. The players on the other hand are dependent upon their paychecks. Unions are only successful if a company has no other revenue streams. But in these cases, they don’t.
“We prefer to be liked, loved, admired more than we want to like, love, or admire. That imbalance gives power in a relationship, and by power I mean the less invested person has less chance of being hurt. So goes the arithmetic of human relationships.”
There you have it. The person who wants out of a relationship usually has all the power, unless the other person poses a physical, emotional or financial danger. Most of us cave in when the other person leaves. What are our options? Unless we are willing to blackmail, beat or rob them blind we recognize we can’t win and move on with life.
Nehemiah’s enemies sought to promote fear. Oddly, they feared him because they saw that he was getting the job done. They knew they had to cripple or remove him somehow. They sought to inspire fear in him & the people (the Hebrew word for fear is found in 6:9, 13,14 & 19). Rather than fear man, Nehemiah feared God. The tables are turned because after the wall is completed the surrounding nations were afraid.
One resource in exploring and addressing the fear of man is Ed Welch’s excellent book When People are Big and God is Small. I can’t recommend it enough.
In doing some research for illustrations, I realized I wish I could play this Monty Python clip for them.
It was a bit more than 30 days, but I finished Running Scared: fear, worry, and the God of rest by Edward Welch this morning. Though the book was a tad uneven, overall it was a very good book providing meaningful help for all who struggle with fear and worry (which would be all of us).
Welch covers fear & worry in general, and then moves into some specific fears and worries. He covers money and possessions, people and their judgments and death, pain & punishment. Along the way, Ed Welch keeps connecting them back to the gospel. Our fears are about more than our thoughts or chemical inbalances (though medications may relieve extreme symptoms enough for you to begin dealing with the root issues).
“Your fears are more about God than you realize. Along the way that light also helps you see yourself more clearly. What you see is that the world is organized into two kingdoms, and the boundary between those two kingdoms, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, cuts right through each of our hearts. Our preference is to straddle that line, but our patient God keeps persuading us to be wholeheartedly devoted to his kingdom. There is no other way to distance ourselves from fear and anxiety.”
That is a great summary of this entire book, found in his last words. The chapters I found most meaningful were: Your Fear, Fear Speaks, Anxiety and Worry Chime In, The Manna Principle, When the Kingdom isn’t Enough, Grace for Tomorrow, Where is My Treasure? Whose Kingdom?, and Pray.
Ed Welch isn’t holding out a simplistic version of “believe in Jesus”. This is about the tough work of faith and repentance which is continually opposed by the flesh (Galatians 5, Romans 7, Ephesians 5 among other places. He paints the picture of an on-going war, not a decisive experiential battle. The decisive battle that won the war was fought, and won, by Jesus. What He did, He did as our representative. Among other things He resisted the temptations to fear anyone other than God, and anxiety. He also paid the price for our sinful fear, worry and anxiety which are signs that we are really struggling with our allegience to God and His kingdom. This is why it is important that Welch keeps bringing us back to the Gospel and its implications which alone can truly transform us rather than put a bandaid on the problems that distort our hearts.
Well worth reading for any pastor, counselor and person who just plain wants to understand what is really going on with their own fears & worry, as well as what Jesus has done on our behalf regarding them.
The Westminster Bookstore has some of the CCEF authors on sale right now, up to 50% off. I just picked up Ed Welch’s When People are Big, God is Small and Paul Tripp’s War of Words. Already had the David Powlison book and Paul’s Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands. There were some DA Carson books I’ve been meaning to read, so I got those as well.
When we think about ministry to one another we probably think of Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands. There is a new book to consider in training people to be involved in people’s lives. Side By Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love by Edward Welch.
How’s that for a brief summary of a brief book? Welch also has Caring for One Another which examines the material covered in the second section in a study guide.
Anyway, that book is 
Where some will struggle is way Scripture is used. There are often references to Scripture to support a point. But it isn’t the development of a text or two in the course of the lesson. As a one off, I can live with that. As a steady diet, it would be problematic.
In recent years there have been more than a trickle but less than a flood of books on the topic of idolatry. I’ve read books by Tim Keller and Elyse Fitzpatrick. There is a relatively new out by Brad Bigney called 
It took me over 2 years to read 
In the last few years there has been an explosion of books on the topic of grace. Some of been excellent. Some have been controversial. Some of those that have been controversial had some significant flaws. Not a fatal flaw, mind you. They were still within the bounds of Christianity but not necessarily within the bounds of the community to which the author belonged (how’s this for vague?).
I’m sure a book on shame is a hard sell. I mean, who wants to think about their shame? But 
Ed Welch has a new book out that looks much like an old book, 
In Seinfeld they talked about having “hand”, short for “the upper hand”, in a relationship. This is not to be confused with George’s short time as a hand model. They were addressing the reality that in relationships there is often one in control, the one who has the most power in the relationship.
Nehemiah’s enemies sought to promote fear. Oddly, they feared him because they saw that he was getting the job done. They knew they had to cripple or remove him somehow. They sought to inspire fear in him & the people (the Hebrew word for fear is found in 6:9, 13,14 & 19). Rather than fear man, Nehemiah feared God. The tables are turned because after the wall is completed the surrounding nations were afraid.
It was a bit more than 30 days, but I finished 
Cavman Considers 