My Container Fetish

It concerns me sometimes how often I catch myself saying, “that is a really cute container, I don’t know what I’d use it for, but it’s really cute!”

I have a problem.

How do you live, knowing you’re going to die?

Honest question.

This last week I have learned that two of the people I work with have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. How do you live with that?

As a believer in Christ I know where I’m going and might actually be excited about this prognosis, but one of these associates is a Jehovah’s Witness and the other is a former Catholic, agnostic (probably).

I fear eternity for them both. I know the JW will probably have peace with this, but my friend that doesn’t have salvation, how does he handle this. How would I counsel him in this situation. I don’t know. It really does bear studying and perhaps I will and write a post here about it, but for now I’m left puzzled.

Romans 8:28

I wrote this paper for my Hermeneutics class. Our goal in the paper was to look at a verse, that was assigned to us, that is interpreted different ways in our culture and in the church.

I did miss the point in Romans 8:29 and its focus on our sanctification.

Introduction

So as much as I tried to approach this study objectively it has been a challenge. Romans 8:28 is such a commonly used verse and often preached from, it’s hard to attack it without pretext.

Having said that I enjoyed digging into the various views about this passage. Now, I use the term passage specifically because no verse lives in isolation. It is important to understand what Paul is conveying to the saints in Rome. Before we dive into the passage, we should stop to take a look at how this verse has been interpreted in our day.

Calvinist View

The Calvinist view centers around God working out our salvation through the hardships of life.

“…though God does not do away with the troubles of his people as soon as they occur, he does not really forsake them. He has a wonderful way of turning the hardship they experience into a means of their salvation.”

( Haroutunian, Joseph, and Louise Pettibone Smith. Calvin: Commentaries. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958. Print.)

Calvin would have taken the next few verses about predestination to point back at verse 28 to prove that the “good” spoken of in our verse is salvation and the “purpose” is further illustrating the “good”.

Arminian View

The Arminian view is a bit more like the secular view below. They have a more wishy-washy approach to it;

“Paul means that believers know, from observation of God’s past dealings with those who love Him, that he has a mysterious way of working things out for the greatest good. By observing the stories of the saints of old—those called to accomplish His redemptive purposes—believers can rest in knowledge of this truth. God can take whatever evil may come our way and redeem it for good. Believers can know this because God has been doing it for generations.”

( https://soteriology101.com/2018/02/14/romans-828-30-foreknowledge-and-predestination/)

Hobby Lobby Interpretation (Secular view)

This is probably the most prevalent view in our culture, and probably the most inaccurate view. The reason I call this the Hobby Lobby view is that you can probably go into a store today and find this on a sign. This idea that “Everything is going to be OK,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” These interpretations aren’t 100% wrong but the spirit behind them is wrong. This concept that whatever you are going through will turn out good is not right. What happens when it doesn’t. I have personally been through enough situations that didn’t result in the same way as I thought they should. Also, we miss what God is trying to teach us.

Past views

I only bring up past views because I appreciated reading William Barclays commentary on this verse. Let me be clear, I think Barclay is wrong about almost everything, but he brought in the historical view of this verse that I found interesting.

“The Stoics taught that the duty of every individual was acceptance. If people accepted the things that God sent them, they knew peace. If they struggled against them, they were uselessly battering their heads against the unavoidable purpose of God.”

( Barclay, William. The Letter to the Romans. 3rd ed. fully rev. & updated. Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Print. The New Daily Study Bible.)

There simply was too much in the commentary to give an all-encompassing quote here, and Barclay points out something interesting, wrong but interesting. He explains that the Stoics almost have this passive view of a God far off. We should just accept whatever He sends us or we will just be fighting the will of God. The idea that I think is wrong here is the passive nature of God. He is not passive but active in our lives. We have a role to play in our salvation and sanctification. It is not a passive endeavor.

As a note, the section in Barclays commentary about verses 26-27 was interesting.

“Pythagoras forbade his disciples to pray for themselves, because, he said, they could never in their ignorance know what was appropriate and best for them. Xenophon tells us that Socrates taught his disciples simply to pray for good things, and not to attempt to specify them, but to leave God to decide what the good things were. C. H. Dodd puts it in this way. We cannot know our own real need; we cannot with our finite minds grasp God’s plan; in the last analysis, all that we can bring to God is an inarticulate sigh which the Spirit will translate to God for us”

( Barclay, William. The Letter to the Romans. 3rd ed. fully rev. & updated. Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Print. The New Daily Study Bible.)

I think that as we look at these various interpretations we see a common thread. It’s all about me. That, I think, is the wrong approach to this passage. Let’s move on to traveling the interpretive journey.

Grasping the Text in Their Town

What did the text mean to the biblical audience?

Who is this Letter written to?

So we need to start by understanding the audience of this letter. Romans is written to “all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints.” (Romans 1:7)

"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world." (Romans 1:8)

Why did Paul write this letter?

The Romans were known for their great faith. So why did Paul write this letter? As we look at so many of the letters Paul writes they are to correct behavior or encourage the saint through persecution.

“I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” (Romans 1:13-15)

These verses give us a glimpse into why Paul wrote to the saints in Rome. One of the things Paul was concerned about is how the Judaizers were making their way through many of the areas that Paul was preaching. We need to understand that there were religious people at that time that advocated for a return to following the Mosaic Law and being circumcised. Paul seems to bring this up in many of his letters.

What is Romans 8:28 saying to the saints in Rome?

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Paul was recognizing the suffering that was going on in Rome amongst the saints. Judaizers were coming in and spreading false doctrine. There was persecution of the Roman believers and they needed hope. Paul is telling them that they need to focus on their love for Christ and keep their hope in the Savior, and God will work everything out for good. He has a purpose.

Measuring the Width of the River to Cross

What are the differences between the biblical audience and us?

The Romans were facing an ideological threat from the Judaizers, and facing persecution from the Roman government. We do not struggle today with much persecution and the persecution that we do endure is insignificant in the face of so many throughout history. We do have our modern-day religious people who teach that we have to do to be saved and that just isn’t Biblical. So the river seems narrow.

Crossing the Principlizing Bridge

What is the theological principle in this Text?

I believe the theological principle here is having hope in hardship. I don’t believe that Paul is saying we should have hope for our best outcome, but rather have hope in the coming glorification and hope that whatever sacrifices that we are making are for the good of God’s plan.

Consulting the Biblical Map

How does our theological principle fit with the rest of the Bible?

What is Paul saying in Romans 8:28

Most of this I covered above, but we should break down the core concepts of the verse:

What does it mean to love God?

John tells us that if we love God we keep His commandments. (John 14:21, 15:10) Paul is not saying that we need the Mosaic Law, but rather do as He has instructed us to do. Die to our flesh, live in the Spirit, eagerly anticipate the return of Christ and pray in the Spirit.

What is God’s purpose?

God’s purpose is to adopt us as sons (and daughters) and to glorify our bodies.

What is the good?

I think there is a beautiful statement in verse 29, “so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren” So that Christ being the firstborn, may have many brethren, that’s us His brothers and sisters in the adoption. In the chiasm here (shown below), this is the central thought. The goal is our being sanctified and glorified into this brotherly relationship with Christ.

How does this verse fit into the Chapter and what we know of the Bible?

Romans 26-39 Chiasm

This seems like a good time to point out the chiasm that our verse belongs to:

A.(26) In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; (27) and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

B.(28) And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

C.(29) For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,

D. so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

C’.(30) and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

B’.(31) What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (32) He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (33) Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;

A’.(34) who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

As we look at this chiasm we see that the main point revolves around Christ being the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. So I believe that further solidifies that God’s purpose is the adoption as sons. There is more to unpack here but out of fear of redundancy, I’ll leave further examination to the reader.

( https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/2016/07/30/romans-826-39/ (Converted to NASB95 using NotionAI))

What this verse doesn’t mean.

As we look at the whole of Scripture how does the idea of “Everything is going to be OK, as long as we love God” fair against what we know.

Joseph was cast out by his brothers. God took evil and worked it for good. What about King Saul? Saul fell out of favor with God because he did not follow the commandments of God and was replaced by David.

"They asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.'" (Acts 13:21-22)

There is certainly an aspect here of “follow God and He will do good for you”, but the problem here is that it’s not this “biblical karma” idea that as long as I’m a good person God will only do good to me. The other logical conclusion that can come from this is that if I do bad and don’t love God then He will do bad things to me. That doesn’t completely track with scripture either. God’s grace, although often paired with His judgment, is still present.

Also look at the Apostles, how many of them ended life with riches and earthly glory? Short answer, none of them. Most died as martyrs with little. Their riches are in heaven and their glory is in Christ.

What this passage does mean.

We can not pull this verse out of its context and think that it means what we would like it to mean. We have to look at what Paul is talking about here.

1. Live in the Spirit, not in the flesh (law)

2. Eagerly anticipate the return of Christ and our adoption as sons (and daughters)

3. Our hope is in things not seen

4. Pray in the Spirit

5. God will bring good for those who love Him

6. We are predestined to the image of Christ

7. We are to be Christ's brothers and sisters

8. If God is for us who can stand against us

9. God did not even spare His son so that He could freely give us all things

10. Who can bring a charge against His people, God is the one who brings justice

11. Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.

12. Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ

13. We will conquer all things through Him who loves us

14. Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus

Paul is encouraging the Romans to stop trying to be good. The law is a way for the flesh to perfect the flesh and that is not possible. Rather we are to live in the Spirit. Confess our sins, and live right so that we can be in right relationship with Him. Look forward to His coming and be excited about it. Don’t try to inject the law back into your salvation but recognize that Christ work on the cross paid that debt and now you are free. struggles will come in life. Through hardship lean on the one that actually brings justice, but don’t forget that Christ is at God’s right hand advocating and interceding for you and there will never be a time when Christ doesn’t love you. In the end, we will stand victorious with Him and through Him.

Grasping the Text in Our Town

How should individual Christians today live out the theological principles?

We have so many in the church today that play the role of Judaizer that it is hard sometimes to keep our message straight. You don’t even have to go into Catholic or Lutheran circles to find Christians that want to add more things on salvation (justification, go to heaven when you die). If you believe Christ died for your sin and was raised from the dead, you’re in.

Many believers want to add a kind of repentance to justification. That repentance often involves some kind of deep loathsome regret for sin. This just isn’t Biblical. The gift of salvation does not come with a list of requirements (John 3:16), that is the role of sanctification.

Sanctification is where we learn to put off the fleshly things in our lives and put on the Spirit. We will go through hardships, and struggle through challenges but the Spirit gives us the tools needed to overcome these things (Gal 5:18-26). Then we can look forward to our glorification and our adoption as sons to God and brothers to Christ.

Eyes Up

My Wife and I have a saying in our home when we are losing focus on Christ, “Eyes Up”. In other words, get your eyes back on Christ, spiritually speaking. I think that is the idea in Romans 8. I believe that what Paul is conveying here is that we, and the Roman saints, need to focus on Christ and the work that he is doing in our sanctification with the eventual result being our adoption in the kingdom and the glorification of our bodies.

We are living in a culture where we are surrounded by this maelstrom of confusion. Each day when we get up there are so many things vying for our attention, and so many false ideas for us to follow, not all religious ideas. We are constantly being told that we should do this or believe that. We are divided by politics, social issues, religious ideologies, gender issues and so much more. This will all burn! None of this means anything in the face of eternity. This is what Paul’s, and the Holy Spirit’s, message is here. Focus on the right things, the things that matter. Keep your eyes on Jesus and the coming Kingdom. As long as you love God, and do what He says, He will make sure that good comes from it, according to His plan. Keep your eyes up!

In conclusion, this paper came out much different than I thought. I thought that I had a handle on what this passage meant and not that I was wrong, but I didn’t see the whole picture. I also found myself constraining tangents that I wanted to take about the text. It is so important for us to understand our place in Christ and know that our “job” is to maintain our relationship with Christ. Confess our sins and live in the Spirit. If we can do that everything that God wants from us can flow, unhindered, through us. My struggles and hardships are to glorify Him and to sanctify me. James 1:2-4 says it well, we should embrace the hard times and grow through them.

All Scripture quoted from: New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995. Print.

My Change Paper

It was a cold night in December as I found myself sitting on the side if the road waiting for the State Patrol officer to come speak to me. I knew what had happened, I had been rear ended by another vehicle, but what I wouldn’t realize until later is that I had a slight concussion. My head had hit the head rest so hard that my stocking cap was thrown off my head into the back seat. In the end I was towed to our local service center, that is owned by one the the elders at our church, and they provided me a loaner car.

I start my story here because this event was the catalyst of the change that was , and is, to come.

Many years ago, probably about ten years as I write this, I drove home fearlessly in the middle of a blizzard. It was a hour and fifteen minute drive normally but it took over three hours on this fateful night. Ever since that drive I have had a lot of anxiety about snow. I would say driving in snow, but occasionally just knowing there is snow in the forecast can cause me fits. Then about two years ago my Wife and I bought our first four wheel drive vehicle. Now I can have the confidence to deal with the snow. It worked, I was able to drive in snow and get myself home from work a few times and the streets were covered with an inch or two of snow. This would not have been possible with our previous car. So for the last couple of years I have been doing better with that anxiety. Coming into this winter I figured there would be some challenging drives to and from work but all in all I have a vehicle that can handle the drive so I’ll be alright.

Then the accident happened.

The loaner car that I was given to use was a Chevy Malibu. It’s not a bad car for what it is. It got me to and from work fine and was reliable. The problem that I had though is I had no confidence that it could handle the snow, and inevitably it snowed. The anxiety came back with a vengeance. One of the days that there was a fair amount of snow predicted I woke up the night before with an anxiety attack, shaking uncontrollably and consumed with fear. That night I learned something. I got up out of bed and went down to the living room and sat on our couch. I began to pray through the anxiety and God revealed to me that I had placed my trust in my Jeep and not in Him. As I confessed this to Him I began to feel peace. He showed me where my failing had been and gave me grace. In that prayer I saw in my mind His hand having been lifted from me and as I prayed He placed it back on me. This was the point He wanted me to see. If I lived with Him as my refuge and I put my complete trust in Him, He would give me the strength that I needed. I ended up calling off of work that day, but I felt confident in that decision. So fast forward a few weeks in and I discovered a chip in the windshield of the car. I panicked a little but took comfort in the fact that Jerry, the before mentioned elder, would take care of it and everything will be fine. Two days later the windshield wipers just stopped working. This was on a Saturday and I would see Jerry on Sunday. I’ll speak with him and everything should be fine. Jerry wasn’t at church that Sunday, and as I left the church wondering how I was going to figure this out I heard, “Is your faith in Jerry or Me?” Ugh, I did it again.

So to prevent making a long story longer, within that next week I returned the loaner car, and got a rental. To show the sovereignty of God in all this, my insurance covered the rental for 30 days. I had the loaner for about a month and half and it took the collision center two and a half months to return my Jeep to me. So if you did the math, I had the rental for 28 days technically, but if the collision center would have taken any longer with the Jeep I would have been paying out of pocket for the rental. Praise God for His perfect timing.

So know after recounting the events that drove this change in me, how does this relate to the change project?

First, this was 100% God driven change. I could make the decision to deny Him and be miserable, but I saw it for what it was, it was an opportunity to learn and grow, to draw closer, or as A. W. Tozer calls it, coming into alignment with God. This was the actual expectation that God had in this process. It wasn’t to stump out anxiety from my life. The truth is that comes from the flesh and the flesh is desperately wicked and can not be improved. The focus here is to learn to operate in the Spirit daily and deny the flesh and its evil.

I think that Watchman Nee says it well in the Preface of his book “The Spiritual Man”:

Our rest lies in looking to the Lord, not to ourselves. In the degree that we look off unto Him to that degree are we delivered from self. We rest on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not on our own shifting experience. True spiritual life depends not on probing our feelings and thoughts from dawn to dusk but on "looking off" to the Savior! (p. 14)

Psalm 139:23-24 (NASB95)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.

I learned to daily ask God to evaluate me, to search my soul and to confess my sins for the purpose of being in right relationship with Him. He is the one who must drive the change.

Matthew 6:25–34 (NASB95)

25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

God showed me in Mathew 6 that He will take care of us, He will watch over us. There are two conditions in this passage: seek first the kingdom and His righteousness. We need to pursue living in His spirit. There is a deeper study to be had into what it means to seek the kingdom, but for interest of time I will leave that for another time. The most relevant part of this for me through this experience has been seeking His righteousness.

Evaluate my heart of God, and pursue His righteousness.

So for this final portion I have struggled with what it means to “Evaluate Theological Change” but I think the point is to compare how secular change works verses theological change.

I have tried for years to just not be anxious with terrible results. Why would I have less anxiety with nothing to replace it. I have gotten advice like: “just don’t think about it”, “stop worrying so much”, “what are you afraid of” and my personal favorite, “Anxiety is being afraid of a bear that you can’t see, fear is seeing it, so what is the point of being afraid of something you can’t see?” Needless to say none of this was helpful, especially that last one.

On the other hand, searching God’s word has been illuminating and has actually helped. Understanding that we have a war in us continuously and the anxiety is just an outward symptom of the greater issue. Our soul is a battleground where the flesh is at war with the Spirit. We must not allow the flesh to control our actions but constantly pray that God would show us our sins and confess them. Stay in right relationship with Him and we have a fighting chance to overcome the things that drag us down.

In conclusion, in the struggle I have been through, God has been so gracious to show me through His word that I need only trust in Him. Trust was the issue, not the anxiety or fear. Do I trust Him or am I trusting other people or things to get me through. This is still a work in progress, but I am trusting Him more and more everyday.

Unexpected Grace

I’m constantly amazed by how God teaches and tests us. I wrote a paper that I I meant to post here but apparently I haven’t It was about what God did for me through an accident that I had last Christmas. I will get this posted shortly, but God tested me through that incident and taught me so much about myself and His grace. Today He tested me again. I pulled into the church parking lot and as I was getting out I notice something on my tire. It was glinting. I wondered if it was water to I touched it and it was the metal belt from inside the tire. This is bad. I need to get the tires replaced ASAP.

Last time I took my car into the dealership for an oil change I ask to setup an appointment to have the tires replace. The guy asked why, my tires looked good. I told him that last time I was there that the tech told me that the tires would need to be replaced soon. So naturally I was looking to get it in for that service. He told me that I should just get the tires rotated and I’ll be fine. Apparently that is not the case.

So today I need to talk to some people, but we are going to have to drop off the car at the shop to get the work done. I am a rather emotional person and I immediately began to get anxious and worry about the situation. After I got settled in at church I found a quiet place to hide and talk to God. As I prayed the Lord showed me that I shouldn’t be looking at it from the point of view that this terrible thing is happening to me, but rather God showed me, in His grace, that there is a problem and now I can fix it before it becomes a problem rather than dealing with a tire shredding on the highway and damaging the car and potentially damaging me.

It is interesting to me that sometimes God’s grace doesn’t always look like what we expect. Sometimes we totally miss His grace in our everyday situations.

God is good.

Fun with MidJourney (Abstracts)

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The prompts used for these images were related to Angels at war and Anger and Resentment.

People

I wish I had a higher opinion of people, but people keep ruining it.

Shane & Shane - Hymns Live

This album blesses me so much. Today I was anxious and afraid and I put this on while working and the Lord gave me such peace through this.

Click here to listen on Apple Music

That’s it I’m done, officially

https://512pixels.net/2023/01/the-end-of-an-era/

Many have commented on Twitter cutting out third party apps. I will say that I agree that Twitter needed to do this. They can’t make money with third party apps and it Twitter needs anything right now it needs money, but they way they did it was stupid and classless. I am seriously thinking about closing my account all together, but I have my name @mitchcraig and I don’t want to lose that if I decide to go back so, I don’t know. It just angers me that one man can destroy what so many of us have loved for so long. I’m pretty sure o have been using Twitter longer than this man-child that is running it now. So sad.

Twitter is doomed…

https://www.macstories.net/stories/twitter-intentionally-ends-third-party-app-developer-access-to-its-apis/

I should have pick in the Inner Dialogue Annual Predicties that Twitter goes bankrupt this year. Cutting off the third party APIs to the biggest Twitter apps like Twitterific and Tweetbot is a real jerk move. And to find out that this could be intentional, I’m done with Twitter!

No Boys Allowed?

https://notthebee.com/article/mms-introduces-all-female-candy-packs-to-support-womens-equity-in-the-creative-arts/

I thought it curious that the sign in this image is written with two letters backwards. Like M&M is celebrating women having an inability to spell.

Pro Marriage Tip

When your Wife mentions that she isn’t feeling well and is achy and sore, don’t suggest she’s just getting old.

Food for thought.

Leaving Twitter & How I Replace it with RSS

So as I write this Elon Musk is promising to step down as CEO of Twitter. Sp maybe things will improve but either way Twitter has a much smaller role in my life than it did.

So it was my first thought to replace Twitter with some other kind of social media, namely Mastodon. I realized that I think social media is the problem. I left Facebook years ago, to my friends and family it was me not you. Facebook is an unfair platform not to mention run by an infinitely corrupt company. What do I mean by unfair? When you join Facebook you immediately get inundated by friend requests. Friends and family and other people who think they fall into one of those categories. This leads to expectational debt to friend people you really don’t want to be friends to. There is also an obligation to interact with people you wouldn’t interact with normally. There are many other reasons, but these are a few of mine that are less than obvious.

Why am I leaving Twitter?

There are several reasons to leave Twitter, and to be clear I am not planning on deleting my account but taking a hard break. The easiest way to explain why I’m leaving Twitter is Elon. I’m tired of the toddler like behaviors of the CEO of a social media company. He is not the guy to lead a company like this.

So I had to evaluate what I was getting out of Twitter that I wanted to continue to have access. It came down to two main things:

1. Sharing my ideas and faith with people

2. Keeping up with news and a handful of people I enjoy reading

So the product of the first reason is what you are reading write now. I started my blog. The second was to find a way to use RSS to fill that need.

Obviously RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is an old technology to follow websites and blogs and use a reading app to collect those feeds in one place. Many people used Google Reader back in the day, but after Google shut that down the landscape has created a variety of different feed aggregators. I have used a few, most recently Inoreader.

So I started my journey asking a couple of questions: I can get news, but how do I follow Twitter accounts in as RSS feed aggregator. I heard about Feedbin and after looking into it was excited to find out that not only can you subscribe to Twitter profiles but they give you an email address to send email newsletters to and have them mixed in with the rest of your news feeds. This solution has so far been amazing. If any of the Twitter posts have links to articles it pulls the text from the articles and has been awesome to read. I use Reeder on my iPhone, iPad and Mac to read the feeds and its been great.

I’m so happy with this solution so far.

Gurman says “Apple cancels 'M2 Extreme' chip”

https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/18/gurman-apple-cancels-plans-for-high-end-mac-pro-with-m2-extreme-chip-m2-ultra-mac-pro-still-planned/

This is what I thought. Apple is having a problem with the 4 die M1 or M2 chip and that is why we haven’t seen a Mac Pro on Apple Silicon yet.

Gestalt Psychology Paper

I am publishing here my paper on Gestalt psychology. This paper was written for the first module of my Biblical Counseling Training Enjoy.

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In deciding what to do for my course paper I was searching the web for methodologies of psychology and ran across a list of options. Of course, being on brand for me, I notice the oddest name on the list which was Gestalt. After reading through the descriptions I realized that this could be a very interesting field to study and write my paper on. I think what interested me the most was that it seemed to be unique in the fields of study I looked at, and how it ties into modern graphic design, it felt like the right fit for me. Hopefully, as I conclude this paper I can sit back and enjoy the journey of writing this and bring you along with me. 

What is Gestalt Psychology?

To understand Gestalt Psychology it’s important to understand what came before. The first real school of thought in Psychology was Structuralism. 

Structuralism was the first school of psychology and focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components. Researchers tried to understand the basic elements of consciousness using a method known as introspection.

This school of thought led to many of the ideologies we have today, but where structuralism broke down things into its basic parts Gestalt did the opposite, it encourages the idea of looking at the greater rather than the lesser parts.

In a loose translation, the German word ‘Gestalt’ (pronounced “ge-shtalt”) means ‘configuration’, or ‘structure’. It makes a reference to the way individual components are structured by our perception as a psychical whole (Wulf, 1996).

The origin of Gestalt Psychology is credited to Max Wertheimer. Wertheimer’s observation of the phi phenomenon while watching alternating lights on a railway signal led him to conclude that we see things as a whole rather than in parts. The phi phenomenon is an optical illusion that is caused by two or more objects that create a sense of motion using alternating lights. We see this effect used in Christmas lights that appear to “chase”.

Other notable Psychologists that helped to popularize the field were Wolfgang Köhler who connected Gestalt psychology to the natural sciences. A part of his study included hearing and problem-solving in chimpanzees. Also credited with bringing Gestalt psychology to the United States after fleeing Germany during the rise of Nazism was Kurt Koffka. Koffka is considered the founder of the field and applied it to child psychology claiming that infants first understood the world holistically before learning to divide it into its parts. In his article Principles of Gestalt Psychology, published in 1935, he showed how the Gestalt Laws applied to motor action, learning and memory, personality and society.

Gestalt Laws of Perception

These principles are grounded in the idea that as humans we tend to try to bring order from chaos perceptually. Have you ever looked at a tile on the floor of a public bathroom and seen a face? It seems we are wired to notice patterns in the randomness of the patternless. This concept is what so many paranormal sightings end up being credited to. Evolutionists will claim that this is a survival trait that we developed to notice the minutest change in our environment that could lead to a threat. Of course, as believers in Christ, whether for survival or otherwise, we believe we have been designed in a way that allows us to perceive these things.

The Six Principles of Gestalt

There are six main principles of Gestalt psychology:

• Prägnanz: This is often called the law of simplicity, which states that we will see a complicated image and our brain will simplify it into the most easily understood idea.

• Similarity: This principle suggests that we group shapes or objects that share similarities. 

• Proximity: As the name would suggest, this principle says we group objects that are close together.

• Common Region: This principle states that we group objects located in the same closed region.

• Continuity: This principle shows shapes and objects that are positioned in a way that suggests lines, curves or planes.

• Closure: This principle states that the human brain has a tendency to visually close gaps when seeing familiar images.

If you are reading this thinking that I’m writing a graphic design tutorial instead of a psychology paper I feel the same way. These concepts are used heavily in graphic and logo design today. Have you ever seen the arrow in the FedEx logo? 

This is a great example of the principle of closure and maybe a little continuity. 

So, how does this relate to psychology? I think that Koffka’s idea was that we tend to start with a broad view of the world and as we learn more and more we focus on simpler concepts. A focusing of perception in a way. I think that this is incorrect. In my experience, especially in the church, we tend to take simple ideas and make them more complex. Why? Because we are trying to justify our sins. An example of this would be that I like to have a drink occasionally. I like how it relaxes me and I enjoy the taste of beer and some mixed drinks, but there comes a point sometimes where I may want to have more than I should and I may say that the Bible says that we shouldn’t get drunk and so I rationalize that having a buzz isn’t being drunk yet how does God see this. I think it is valid for some to say that all drinking should be avoided. It keeps it simple and puts a hard line in the sand. Is that what the Bible teaches? I don’t think so, but if you are going to have a drink you must limit yourself. My conviction is that if I don’t think it is safe to drive, I’ve had too much. What the Bible teaches is simple, drunkenness is a sin. We have a clear line, but we as Christians with the flesh, want to justify our sinful behavior. This complicates the issue. It makes the lines vague and leads to more sin. 

Gestalt Therapy

In the 1940s Fitz Perl and his wife Laura, who was trained in traditional psychoanalysis, became dissatisfied with certain Freudian theories and methods. So along with Paul Goodman developed a form of psychotherapy that was humanistic, and focused on the person and the uniqueness of their experience.

Perls applied Gestalt to human experience suggesting that a healthy person organizes their field of experience into needs to which they respond appropriately.

Gestalt therapy is said to help people suffering from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, relationship difficulties,  and physical difficulties such as migraine headaches, ulcerative colitis and back spasms.

Concepts of Gestalt Therapy

• Self-Awareness - Perl claimed that people who are struggling with the things listed above are not aware of their senses, emotions, don’t have good recognition of their bodily sensations and had poor awareness of their environment. Perl stated that “awareness in itself is healing”. 

• ‘Here and Now’ - The focus of Gestalt therapy is the present. The past has already happened and the future can only cause anxiety. If you are to overcome the current problem the past is only relevant as much as it affects the problem and the future has little to no effect on current issues.

• Context is important - Gestalt therapists are taught that we are the sum of our experiences so we and they must accept that their experiences are valid.

• Experience can influence perception - the therapist is to take a holistic view and understand that the patient’s experience is intricately linked to their perception.

• Dealing with painful experiences - Painful experiences will come up during therapy and must be dealt with, but once dealt with should no longer be an issue.

The goals of Gestalt therapy are to have the patient concentrate on being present, increase self-awareness, take personal responsibility and increase self-regulation.

Critique of Gestalt Psychology

First I want to state that I chose this school of thought for the reasons listed above but I also love Gestalt design and after studying the concepts I was excited to see how the actual therapy faired, and it doesn’t fair well. 

The evidence doesn’t show that this was ever a successful field of psychology. The treatments that they used as far as role-playing, confrontation, exaggeration or locating emotions all seem silly and pointless. 

In the mirror of scripture, it’s easy to see the failures of focusing on self and focusing on the present. The Bible draws us to abandon self in exchange for being filled with the Holy Spirit. Gestalt also leaned into the ideas of relativism, where the individual’s experiences inform their needs, this is counter to Scripture as well. The fact that Gestalt puts so much focus on perception is also damning. There is one need and that is Christ and He can be approached from whatever your background or position in life is. That fact is that your position in Christ is all that matters. 

The idea that the past and the future mean little in the face of the present doesn’t track with Scripture either. We look at the past to a degree to understand how far we’ve come but more importantly look to the future to know that we have hope in Christ and a future in the Kingdom.

Another point against Gestalt is that a painful experience once dealt with should no longer be an issue. I would wonder how successful therapists were with this approach. I have dealt with a lot of issues in my past and the enemy loves to remind me of my past. So things come back up and we need to be clothed with the armor of God to fight off the advances of the evil one. 

This is yet another handful of spaghetti that the world has thrown against the wall to try and find solutions to life problems without turning to their creator.

In conclusion, I think it’s clear that Gestalt runs counter to the Bible. I did end up enjoying this study and in the end, I still love Gestalt design and the simplicity inside of the complex, and perhaps it makes for great comedy to watch an individual practicing the two-chair therapy, but there is no truth and no actual help for the patient.

The only true help anyone can receive comes from the one who so carefully molded and shaped us in our mother’s womb and put purpose to our lives. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.