Ever wondered how an ancient understanding of the soul evolved into a modern exploration of human behavior? Join us as we promise to unravel the fascinating journey of psychology and its intricate dance with spirituality. We'll navigate the historical relationship between psychology and the church, two forces aiming to uplift humanity while often clashing over spiritual matters. Discover why embracing the nuances of psychology is vital for Christians who seek a more profound engagement with mental well-being and hear how spirituality is making its way back into psychological frameworks.
With Thanksgiving as our backdrop, we’re diving into the complexities of trauma, personal responsibility, and identity within Christianity. We explore the risks of defining oneself through personality assessments like the Enneagram and grapple with the ethical tensions of merging secular psychological concepts with biblical teachings. Through scriptural reflections, we'll discuss the challenge of acknowledging past wounds while upholding personal accountability. Witness God's transformative power as it can heal even the deepest traumas, though the path to peace is as unique as each individual journey.
Lastly, we’ll explore how psychology intersects with faith, contemplating the intricate dance between personal growth and spiritual relationships. From examining the impact of attachment styles on one's spirituality to addressing the pitfalls of self-improvement trends in churches, we’ll emphasize the balance between psychological insights and biblical truths. By the end, you'll gain insights into the power of relational service and gospel preaching in transforming hearts and hear our heartfelt thanks for your support as we journey through these compelling discussions.
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM:
@psych_and_theo
Psych and Theo Link
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK:
Psych and Theo Link
Please leave a review, send comments and questions, and share the podcast with everyone you know. We love having these conversations with you all and are thankful for your support!
I look forward to walking alongside you as you draw closer to Christ!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
welcome back everyone to the psych and theo podcast,
and we're getting close tothanksgiving man.
This is, uh, by the time ofthis recording.
We're in thanksgiving week,releasing a couple of episodes
close out the year strong, andwe just want to say thank you to
all of you who have beenlistening, supporting the show
and providing questions andtopics, and hopefully we have
(00:23):
touched on a couple of them andthey were pretty well received
by you guys.
So thank you again just fortuning in and and sending in
those, uh, those topics I willsay so.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The last time we recorded was right before the
election it was.
So we are post-election now andit's a new world.
It is a new world.
We're about to talk aboutpsychology, and then about
trauma as well.
So yeah, yeah, we have two,hopefully two episodes that will
be with knockout, but yeah,we're talking about judging yeah
(00:52):
, judging by the memes and thereels on social media, mental
health professionals are goingto be in good business, okay, oh
man, well, let's get do it.
So this topic is about why it'simportant for christians to
understand psychology.
We talked about apologetics.
That was the episode we justrecorded and should have been
(01:15):
released a week prior to this,but now let's talk about why
it's important for christians tounderstand psychology.
Yeah, and eventually we'll doone on theology.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
But yeah, I'm sure there's a lot there.
You like theology a lot, no.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah.
You can pick a lot from thereWell, good, well, yeah.
Well, why is psychologyimportant?
I guess that's a question thatChristians have, or have, been
concerned about, maybe for acouple of years.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, let's back up and let's define.
It might sound like a basicquestion, but let's define what
psychology actually is.
Oh, yeah, okay.
So when we say it's importantfor original understanding of
psychology was, is that it wasthe study of the soul right.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Then, as the years passed by, they started really
looking at what time period isthis?
This was like 60s, around the60s, 80s, 90s, around there.
(02:21):
It started to become the studyof the mind.
So you started seeing more of,okay, what are your thoughts,
how does it affect your behavior.
And then now it's really becomethe study of behavior, because
we're now just looking andobserving what people are doing
and that's how we're determining.
You know, okay, what actuallyleads to those actions and
behaviors.
What are the consequences ofthat?
(02:42):
So you look at family systems,you look at trauma, different
types of issues, personalitytraits and so on.
So, yeah, I mean, that'sessentially where it kind of
started.
So Christians, during that timethey were battling, I guess, for
the same thing.
They both wanted to help people.
Psychologists wanted to helppeople, the church wanted to
help people.
And this goes way back into, Iwant to say, 1700s no-transcript
(03:34):
in our development, in how wedo church, how we do, how our
relation with God is.
There's a lot of factors thatwe'll get into today, but, yeah,
essentially psychology was thatthe study of the soul.
And now today, what you seemostly is kind of the study of
human behavior that'sfascinating.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So yeah, like the beginning of it is, the
beginning of the discipline isassuming that there's a
spiritual component to humanbeings.
Yeah, and now the moderndiscipline is doesn't assume
that at all, it's just kind of acause and effect, like yeah,
yeah, like yes, there's peoplebehave this way, and that's an
indication of what's happening.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, eternally and I think it's.
It's so interesting, man, thisis one of the the topics that I
like to go to, becauseessentially, what you're looking
at is a market, and what I meanby that is psychologists and
counselors.
They'll look at spirituality.
They were starting to ignorethat piece because they said,
okay, well, let's leave that tothe church.
That's a spiritual thing thatthe church can deal with.
(04:37):
But because everyone and wetalked about this in the last
episode everyone is drawn tospirituality or drawn to the
idea of God or the idea of ahigher power, now they're going
into that space and they say,hey, this is a part of the
emotional, mental andphysiological and spiritual side
, like they do have spiritualside to them.
So there's a lot of emphasisnow being placed by counselors
(04:59):
on the spiritual component.
They want to address it, butit's very subjective because
it's on what do people actuallybelieve?
And you know, as counselorsChristian counselor we just need
to be careful when we touch onthat topic, because you don't
want to impose your values onsomeone but at the same time,
you know that they're wrestlingwith some form of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, since you mentioned counseling, let's help
our audience understand thedifference between psychology
and counseling.
I think that's conflated a lotin people's minds.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I mean in my mind I think in the minds of
many is that counseling is thisrelationship between the
therapist and the client seekinghealing together, right?
So the therapist comesalongside the client and tries
to identify goals and how tomeet those goals, what are the
core issues, and so on.
So that's the counselingprocess.
(05:48):
Psychology is all theterminology for what's happening
.
We could talk about attachment,talk about personality traits
Again going back to just theoriginal definition study of the
mind, study of behavior, studyof the emotions, so on.
So they're separate but theyhave a lot of overlap with each
other.
But counseling is really aboutthe relational process between
(06:11):
the counselor and the client.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, all right, so we've defined what psychology is
.
Why is it important thatChristians understand it?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I think it's something that we neglect
because we don't have anybiblical foundation for it,
right, there's no passage inscripture that we can look to
and say so.
Here's what tells us thepsychology of mankind.
And your next question could bewell, where or how do we see
(06:44):
that?
And probably one of the mostobvious ones and you can add to
this part too about think aboutall the family dynamics that
happen in scripture.
Think about all of the piecesthat reference God as our father
.
So this is the space that I'vebeen with God attachment.
Think about the birth order ofchildren, think about the
(07:06):
favorites, think about all thesedifferent.
I mean, we see it in scripture,right?
So it's there.
It's just not explicitly statedwith the psychology terms that
we use today.
First, christians were kind ofhesitant because they don't want
to mix those two, and in a veryto a very large degree, I agree
(07:27):
with that, right, I think theyare separate.
Discipline, they're separatethings, but there are things
that are related to each other,you know.
So when we talk about Joseph,when we talk about other
characters in the Bible and wetalk about their personalities,
like Moses or Abraham or someonelike that, we see a lot of
(07:49):
psychological traits that we canspeak to.
We don't have to usenecessarily biblical language to
understand all of it.
We can just make ourobservations based on what it is
that scripture does say onthose specific things and
scenarios.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Do you think there's a fear that, if we start to put
psychological categories on someof the behaviors we see in the
scriptures, that we thereforewould lose the spiritual side of
it?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah, there's this.
There's this author.
His name is Jay Adams.
I think I've heard of him.
Yeah, he's a Newtheticcounselor, and Newthetic
counselors are Bible only.
Everything needs to come fromscripture and it's specifically
to teach and disciple the personthat you're working with.
That's the approach that theytake, and throughout time.
(08:36):
Then you have Christianpsychology, then you have the
integration, the integrationistsand so on.
But they were the ones.
Their early counselors inChristian counseling were New
Thetic counselors, which isBible only.
So whatever the Bible teaches,that's what I'm going to teach
you.
It was very behavioristic in alot of ways.
Like the Bible says go and loveyour neighbor, go and love your
(08:57):
neighbor.
How do you do that?
Right, and you have a wholeprocess with that.
But their fear was I want tostick to scripture, I don't want
to pick anything outside ofthat.
No research, no, nothing.
Just if the scripture teachesit, I'm teaching it.
If it's not in scripture, Idon't want to use it.
So, for example, a person, aChristian, can learn a lot about
their personality by taking oneof the personality tests.
(09:21):
You know the big one right nowis the Enneagram.
Right, it speaks to a big partof your personality, but again,
it's not definitive, that's notyour definitive state forever,
but a lot of people take it thatway I'm an INTJ, or I'm a wing
two, wing three, whatever thecase is, and they make that
their whole identity.
And again, we've talked aboutthis multiple times, where
(09:44):
People will attach themselves tosomething, a disorder, a
personality, and make that theirwhole identity.
But as Christians, you know,we're always in that process of
sanctification and growing andlearning more and more about
ourselves and our relationshipwith God.
But that was a fear early onabout mixing those two together.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, it seems like that fear is a little misplaced.
I see this sometimes intheological circles, believe it
or not, and in the ethics world.
I've seen this where in theworld of ethics and philosophy
we have all kinds of categoriesand terms that we use, for
example, in ethics.
There's ethical theories orframeworks, as we call them,
(10:26):
that basically tell you how tointerpret the world, how to come
up with the system of right andwrong, and so you have.
You might have duty ethics orutilitarianism, or virtue ethics
or relativism.
You know you have thesedifferent theories, okay, and um
, sometimes some ethicists willgo to the scriptures and point
(10:50):
out that, well, the Christianityseems to look like some sort of
mixture of virtue and dutyethics.
I think I've actually talkedabout this in a previous episode
and others will will say no,you can't bring in those
categories at all because thoseare philosophical categories.
The scriptures talk about loveand obedience and other things
(11:10):
like that, so they're usingbiblical categories.
But if you're talking about thesame thing, you're just.
It's just different terms indifferent language, and it seems
like in the realm of psychologythat might be happening with
the new thetic counselor guys.
That might be happening,whether they they're saying no,
no, no, we have to use biblicalcategories.
But you're saying well, you'rereally talking about the same
(11:33):
thing, it's just by a differentname.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Right.
Right, I mean, one of theemphasis that Jay Adams did a
lot was identifying things assin.
Right, so there's the naturalsin you know we're born in sin
and then there's everything elsethat you do is a result of sin.
But one emphasis that latercounselors started to place
(11:55):
focus on was well, what aboutbeing sinned against?
Right, and this is where thetrauma piece comes into play.
Right, the person, through nofault of their own, you know,
has a neglectful parents andthat creates in them a system of
a system of insecurity.
Right, and they grow up notknowing who to trust, or
trusting too much and being hurt, and then that leads into a
(12:16):
relationship with god.
So do I trust god?
Because all I've ever had wasbad relationships, so I can't
trust anyone, right?
So there's all these thingsthat happen in real life and,
you know, some christians wouldwant to stay away from
explaining it in psychologicalterms, but we see the hurt
that's been there, that's beendone.
There is that people have alsobeen sinned against and that
creates problems in how theyrelate to others.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So I think this is a good area to talk about with
respect to examples in the Bible, because in modern psychology
there is a tendency to and Iknow you don't know, you're not
saying this, but there's atendency to for people to say,
well, the reason I behave thisway is because of my past hurts,
and sort of to sort ofrationalize and justify their
(13:00):
behavior by their past hurts.
And I think and if I could justspeak in defense of the new
thetic counselors I'm not one,but I'm just going to play
devil's advocate for a minute ifI could just speak in defense
of the New Thetic counselors I'mnot one, but I'm just going to
play devil's advocate for aminute they would say if you
bring that mentality to theBible and say, well, the reason
that people sin is because oftheir past hurts, well then
(13:22):
you're rationalizing sin andyou're you're abdicating or
you're you're absolving peopleof their responsibility.
They're more of aresponsibility.
So how would you respond tothat?
And with it, are there examplesin scripture that you would
point to where it's like thisperson is behaving in a certain
way because of something that'sbeen done to them, but again,
the scripture doesn't absolvethem of the responsibility of
their sin.
So how would you respond to allof that?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
yeah, I mean the way that you explained there and the
second, uh part of that isessentially kind of how I would
address it.
There's a very large difficultythat people have withholding
two things at the same time.
I mean it's possible thatyou've been hurt in your
childhood and that's affectedthe way that you behave and, yes
, it's a tendency that you have.
And at the same time, there'sthe other part of when you
(14:07):
become a Christian, that God isable to change all of that in
your life.
Now, there's a process to thatand I think where people get
discouraged is that they'll hearthese testimonies and this is
what all of us want, right, thishighlight reel of, oh, when I
got saved, everything changed.
And we hear those stories andpeople get discouraged because
they hear that say, well, whyhaven't I changed?
(14:27):
And they have this deep traumathey haven't worked through, you
know, abused by parents, abusedin relationships, all these
different things and they cometo know the Lord and they're
expecting that shift.
But the Lord doesn't work likethat with everyone.
I've seen some people who havegone through some severe trauma
and the Lord I don't know how,but he does it where they just
are healed from that, you knowthey're able to relate better.
(14:49):
The Lord just changes theirhearts.
They, you know, have lived alife of sin and they just
completely change.
But that's not the story foreveryone and people get
discouraged with that.
So what I'm saying is that whenyou go through so many of these
different things or past hurts,is that there's also a process,
and I think a lot of Christiansget discouraged that it's taking
(15:10):
too long to overcome, maybe, acertain sin or to overcome a
certain behavior, and they giveup and they feel like, well, I
must be a bad Christian becauseof that, and we talked about
this on our shame episode.
Is that there's so much shame,especially in these legalistic
cultures.
That ties into that in thatthey're wanting to change,
they're trying to change, butthese deep hurts that they've
(15:31):
had from their past is stillinfluencing their behavior.
So they feel like, am I doingsomething wrong?
There must be something wrongwith me, because I'm doing the
same thing everyone else istelling me to do.
I'm praying, I'm readingscripture, I'm having community
and I'm still struggling withthis.
What's going on with that right?
And a big part of that couldjust be that they don't have an
(15:53):
outlet for sharing those deeperhurts.
A lot of Christians are afraidto just talk about that topic in
general.
Now it's becoming much moreopen.
Right Now, everyone wants toshare trauma, almost that it's
watered it down even so.
I do fear that.
But, yeah, people are becomingmore open to it and maybe even
creating problems that aren'treally there for some not
(16:17):
everyone, but for a good numberof people.
So, yeah, it's possible to haveboth those things together.
You could be affected by theneglect or abuse that you
experienced in your childhoodand even in your teen years, and
it's affecting you today, butalso is true that God is
continuing to do a work in you.
So that's kind of how I usuallytry to frame it for people who
(16:38):
are in that process of trying tounderstand, you know the change
I guess on the side of God'sdoing a work in you.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I think what I'm trying to hone in on is the
personal responsibility side Ishow do we get, how do you
balance those two things of,yeah, you're affected by this
and this drives your behavior,but we do have sin, all of us
sin, and we do things that arewrong.
Yeah, even if what the wrongthing we do is driven by
(17:10):
something from our past, westill have a responsibility of
the way we're behaving.
So how do you balance?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
that yeah.
Well, this is one of the thingsthat we're trying to help
clients understand is that theyhave agency right, that they
have the ability to make thesechanges, and you try to kind of
empower that in them and youlook for examples.
Okay, what are some examples inyour life where you did have
control?
What are some examples in yourlife that you saw yourself be
(17:39):
successful in?
Interestingly, people who haveexperienced a lot of trauma
become very productive in naturebecause it's a way to overcome
all of that pain and, in a bigway, it's also a way to hide
that pain right.
So they get so busy and becomeso successful with other things
that that becomes secondary tothem.
So they become resilientthroughout that process.
Those who have a strongersocial support system are going
(18:02):
to do better in recovering fromany type of trauma or abuse, but
everyone has the capability toovercome whatever issues that
they're going through.
So you emphasize personalresponsibility.
Okay, what's within yourcontrol?
We know what's not within yourcontrol and what happened, okay,
and we can accept that.
But now where you are today,what is within your control?
(18:23):
And that's really where we tryto hone in on and say, okay,
here's where you can takeresponsibility.
There's an author I want to sayit's Scott Peck from the Roless
Travel and he really he does areally good job.
At least it was a kind of ahamoment where he says you know
responsibility, takingresponsibility, ownership of
something is really, if you lookat the word responsibility,
(18:46):
break it into, you have responseand then you have ability,
which means you have the abilityto respond to whatever
situation that you're goingthrough.
Right, and I thought that wasvery important to communicate to
clients, because you're tryingto teach them that, hey, here's
an experience that you're goingthrough right now, in the
present.
How do you want to respond tothis?
(19:08):
We're not focusing on how thepast impacted you.
We're not focusing on any ofthat.
We're just focusing on rightnow.
What do you want to do?
And let's see if we can take acouple of steps towards that.
And, as they see themselves,take step one, step two, step
three, and they're successful inthat.
That's empowering, right, sothey're taking responsibility
for what they're able to do.
Now, christians who live inshame take responsibility for
(19:32):
things they're not able tochange anymore, which continues
that cycle.
Right, they like looking backat their past because it was a
situation that they weren't incontrol of, so they can continue
to justify their behavior.
So the more they focus on themnot having control, the less
empowered they feel in thepresent moment.
So you really have to hone inon what's in the present.
(19:52):
What in their past were theyable to control or take
ownership of and then moveforward from that?
I feel like a lot of counselorsmay feel scared to say, well,
here's where you may have hadcontrol to do right and maybe
you made a mistake there we tryto remove responsibility from.
But that's actuallydisempowering because then
you're teaching them thatanything else that happens in
(20:14):
the future, if it's bad, it'snot their fault and you don't
want to communicate that topeople, because the only way to
change is you acknowledge amistake and you be able to move
forward from that and make thechanges necessary.
So really focus on the present,really focusing on what is
within your control.
To emphasize responsibility,taking responsibility for
decisions.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, that's good Something that was said to me
many years ago.
This person wasn't aprofessional counselor, they
were a pastoral counselor and Ishared with them something in my
past I was dealing with regretfrom this.
I was this event happened,regret, yeah, regret, you know,
from a decision I had made and Itold him, I explained him what
(20:55):
I did and why I did it, and Iwas like I feel like that was
the right, the right thing to do.
You know, I felt like I wasdoing something wrong and so I,
so I did this other thing andthen I was like I feel like it
all blew up in my face, you know, and he said to me you made,
after talking through it, hesaid you, you didn't make a
(21:17):
wrong choice, you made.
You made the right, you made arighteous choice, but a rash
choice.
So you, you acted righteouslybut also rashly, like it was a.
It was like I went to anextreme of doing something the
right, like wanting to do theright thing, and I went to an
extreme and doing that.
And that helped me kind of see,like, okay, yeah, I wanted to
(21:42):
do the right thing, but the wayI did it, I went way overboard
and kind of messed things upagain.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But it wasn't like I was, I wasn't sinning, but it
was a mistake, you know, yeah,yeah, so no, it's good, you know
, there's um, there's a lot offreedom with that, the idea that
that we're human, that we'reaffected by, by sin, that we're,
that we make mistakes.
And I think it's harder whenpeople feel like, not that they
(22:11):
can make mistakes, but that youwant to limit the number of
mistakes.
That you have right, thatyou're learning from your
experiences, and I think that'swhat we look at in human
behavior.
Right, we're talking about whatpsychology is is okay, well,
what are the patterns that arebeing demonstrated here?
So someone keeps going intorelationships over and over and
they're getting hurt in some way.
It's like, oh, what are thepatterns?
So you take a look at that andyou're like, okay, here's what
(22:33):
we can change within that.
Right, if you make a mistakeone or two times and you look at
that and you say, okay, didthat change afterwards?
Yeah, okay, so then you learned.
But if you keep making the samemistake over, then you're not
paying attention to a certainpattern.
And I remember someone said tome I think you even you even
(22:53):
mentioned this to me on anepisode.
It was very encouragingActually you said, like, who has
time to keep going back totheir mistakes and you can't do
anything about that anymore.
But there's some people wouldfind like some sense of uh, not
relief, but it does something tolook back at at a situation
that you weren't in control ofand feel like either it
(23:17):
justifies or just makes you feelgood because you're not taking
responsibility for it, you don'tfeel the weight of it, so it's
not going to spur you to makeany significant changes.
But yeah, if we keep lookingback at past mistakes, you're
never going to be able to moveforward.
Right, you're always lookingback.
You don't know where you'regoing.
You're going to trip again.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Well, and rumination, that's what that is, you know,
like ruminating on the past.
When you ruminate on the past,the problems of the past become
bigger.
Yeah, they are so like.
The more it's like this cycleof, the more you ruminate on
something, the bigger itactually seems in the present
yeah the less you ruminate on it, the smaller the problem
(23:56):
actually seems.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah yeah, and this is important for our faith
because a big part of our faithand you know, timmy and I have
similar backgrounds in in theway that we grew up where, you
know, you felt heavy shame forthings that maybe weren't even
supposed to be your shame right.
And so imagine, when you thinkabout this aspect of okay, why
is psychology important for usas Christians to understand?
(24:18):
Is that, well, when you grew upin a family or a culture where
everything that you do is beingobserved, every action that you
take, you're always lookingeither for the approval of
others or, if you make a mistake, it's the biggest mistake you
could ever make.
So then you take that into yourrelationship with God and it's
hard to understand grace.
So you, understanding yourbackground, your culture, all of
(24:38):
these different things, you'regoing to take that into your
relationship with God and it'shard to understand grace.
So you, understanding yourbackground, your culture, all of
these different things, you'regoing to take that into your
relationship with God in someway, shape or form.
So if you have heavy shame, anylittle mistake that you make in
your relationship with God,you'll pull away from him.
You'll feel like he doesn'twant anything to do with you.
But scripture teaches that hedoes want us to draw close to
(25:01):
him.
He wants us to repent and alsoto draw close to him after that.
So it affects your faith, itaffects your relationships.
So understanding these dynamicsof why you're operating the way
that you are is going toinfluence all these other areas.
So we talk about God attachment,we talk about the avoidance.
So the avoidance, so theavoidant is the person who's
(25:23):
been abandoned or neglected, sothey've had to depend on
themselves and they don't needanyone.
So they're kind of thego-getters.
They use people for onlywhatever it is to get to their
goal and they don't see theycan't develop any deep intimacy
with other people.
So the relation with God isvery similar, is it's like I
acknowledge that God is there, Iknow that he's good, but that's
(25:44):
where it stops, right.
There's no deep, intimaterelation with the Lord, there's
no connection.
It's just I know that the Lordis providing just this general
acknowledgement.
Then you have the anxiousattachment who questions
everything about God, like doesthe Lord like me right now?
Like, am I good?
Am God?
Questions everything about God.
Like does the Lord like meright now?
Like, am I good?
Am I performing well enough?
Like, am I being a goodChristian?
Am I attending all the services?
(26:04):
Am I serving all the home?
Like all these questions thatthey'll have, which are good.
But they take it to therumination piece where they're
just constantly thinking aboutall the different ways in which
they not only that they'veserved God, but also the way
that they failed him.
So typically they have a lot ofshame as well.
So, again, all of these arepsychological concepts that do
(26:30):
relate to our faith.
Right, the way that we relateto the church, the way we relate
to family members, the way werelate to God.
It's a big part of it.
Okay, and I'm not saying pleaseunderstand this, I am not saying
that psychology should takeprecedence over the scriptures.
I'm not saying that and pleaseunderstand this.
I am not saying that psychologyshould take precedence over the
scriptures.
I'm not saying that.
I'm really big on making thatclear that the Bible is the word
of God.
Psychology helps us understandparts of ourselves, but it
(26:52):
doesn't help us understand ourdeepest need, which is salvation
through Christ alone.
Which, again to your pointearlier about what is that
Christian's fear?
I think it's that they fearthat the self-help part.
Right, a lot of churches.
This does bother me is thatthere's a lot of churches and
pastors who promote self-help.
(27:14):
The pulpit is not for self-help.
The pulpit is for preaching theword of God and discipling the
body of believers.
You're teaching them the wordof God, you're helping them,
teaching them how to spread thegospel and how to live for the
Lord.
So yeah, the self-help stuffreally bothers me, because
there's a space for that, butnot from the pulpit.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, and not every problem in your life is a
psychological problem.
Exactly you know, like noteverything can be solved through
therapy Good point andsometimes it is a spiritual
problem, like it's not that youand I don't we don't agree with
the new thetic model where it'sBible only but it's sometimes
(27:57):
like a problem can just bespiritual.
I think this is where thepsychologists kind of go wrong
and I think you probably agreewith me on this where there
seems like modern psychologyjust seems to have this naive
naive maybe not the right word alack of emphasis on the power
(28:17):
of human beings to deceivethemselves and each other.
You know, because we we can beincredibly self-justifying but
in the process, self-deceiving,yeah, yeah, and that is a
spiritual thing.
That's going on, you know, andI think we need to recognize
that is like the scriptures talkabout that, where if we say we
(28:37):
have no sin, the truth is not inus.
This is first john 1, 8 and 9.
If we say we have no sin, thetruth is not in us.
This is 1 John 1, 8 and 9.
If we confess our sins, he'sfaithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us ofall unrighteousness.
This is, if we say we have nosin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.
There, it is right there.
We deceive ourselves when wesay we have no sin.
(28:57):
So I think Christiansespecially need to be really
attuned to that.
That it's like we need to becareful that we're not operating
out of like shame or avoidance,and that's the base code that's
running in our minds, you know.
But arrogance and pride canblind us to our own sin and like
(29:19):
.
Even if, even if we do strugglewith shame or struggle with
hurts from our past thatinfluence our relationship with
God, we can still sin, and whenwe sin, we can still hide from
that sin or deny it in some way,and that's a real, that's a
dangerous place to be.
So I could go on about that,but I think there is this when
(29:43):
you talk about the self-helppreachers, yeah, there just
doesn't seem to be a lot ofemphasis calling Christians to
really examine themselves, toask am I deceiving myself here
into saying that I have no sin?
Not in a blanket sense of weknow the Bible enough, all of us
, but like I know I have sin,but specifically, like that
(30:07):
thing you're doing, is that sinor is that a problem in your
life?
Is that a besetting sin in yourlife?
You know a lot of us want tojust sweep that one under the
rug, like I don't want to talkabout that one.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Absolutely yeah, yeah , no, and that's a great point
too.
Just the idea of self-deceptionis that you could tell yourself
a different story than whatreality actually was, so much
that you start to believe it andleads to that self-deception.
I think that's.
You know, it's one of the bigproblems I think for with
psychology is that they thinkthat if you remove the
(30:43):
responsibility away fromyourself, that that's going to
help you heal, and there areparts where you may have been
responsible for.
Now, the difficulty with thatis someone could grab that
passage that you mentioned about.
You know, if one of us saysthat there is no sin, they'll
kind of apply that to thisaspect of trauma and say well,
you know, according to thispassage, you did have some sin,
(31:04):
you did have some plan in this,and they may have not.
And I actually have a book, Ithink it's called Let them Pray,
let them Pray.
So it talks about leaders whoabuse church members and they
use scripture to manipulate them.
And you know, I interviewed alady who talked about that.
I think it was like her youthleader or something like that.
It happened for like threeyears and used passages of
(31:26):
scripture Like here's what thepastor says about your leaders
and the influence that you needto let them have in your life
and so on.
So he used that against her andso they can distort God's word
like that by addressingsomething regarding sin and just
really do a lot of damage topeople.
And again, there's powerdifferential, so that would be a
(31:48):
psychology term here.
There's a power differentialthere which affects the
relationship.
But again, just we just need tobe careful when we're trying to
provide a psychologicalsolution or a biblical solution
for something that may not berelevant in that moment.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You can do a lot of damage there.
So it's being careful on bothsides.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, yeah, there's lots of examples in the New
Testament.
We could spend a lot of time onwhere Christians can be
mistaken about stuff.
They could think something iswrong when it's not.
You know, paul says this isfirst Corinthians seven.
He references he's, he'stalking about marriage and
family and stuff, and he, hemakes reference to a man, this
(32:31):
hypothetical young man, whowants to be married, but it says
he's not able to keep hisvirgin.
That's the language there andessentially it's like he's
basically just consumed withpassionate desire for his
betrothed to the point where, ifthis were to linger, they would
just start having sex.
(32:51):
So he says let them marry.
He does no wrong, but there wasthis mentality in the church,
in church at that time thatsingleness was better than
marriage and so they werepreventing people from getting
married.
So that's why he says do notforbid marriage.
Yeah, so that would be anexample where people got
(33:12):
something wrong, like thechristians were getting
something wrong, and paul saysthat's, that's not wrong for him
to get married.
Let him get, let them getmarried.
You know, with the first Johnpassage we just quoted, john is
dealing with a group of falseconverts who were basically
saying there's really not, therereally is no sin.
(33:34):
Anything you do with the bodydoesn't matter the physical
reality, it's all going to passaway.
It doesn't really matter that.
Your true self is the spiritualself.
So the body, whatever you dowith the body is just the body.
So there can't really be sinand the body so he's, he's
dealing with that problem.
But it does relate to whatwe're saying is that sometimes
people they're engaged in somesinful behavior but they're
(33:57):
listening to the world that saysthat's okay, you can do.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That says that's okay , you can do that, right, right,
that's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You got some trauma.
Go ahead and do that, you know,and that's that's wrong.
The Bible does call us to tolive holy yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, and you know, just to you know, kind of close
this out a little bit is thatthe big part of all of this is
that counseling, psychology,Christianity.
One thing that it does have incommon is that it's trying to
emphasize relationship and therelationship specifically, at
(34:29):
least for us as believers, it'sour relationship with each other
, relationship within the familyunit, our relationship with God
.
These are the things thatinfluence everything else your
upbringing, your parents, yourfamily unit, the church that you
went to, like all of thesethings influence your current
(34:50):
way of relating to others in thechurch and to God, and even to
non-believers.
If you grew up in a judgmental,maybe legalistic church, you
were probably told to avoidnon-Christians because if you
got too close then you'd be in away, stained by them and you'd
start to pick up their habits,which there's some wisdom there,
right, and you know, my, my daddid a pretty good job of
(35:11):
keeping us away from, I guess,other bad kids.
But that that idea of don'tengage with the world at all,
that I mean, that wasn'tsomething, wasn't something that
was taught to us.
It was just don't do the thingsthat they're doing, engage.
But very briefly, others weretold no, go and engage the world
.
You have parents who are sayingto their five, six,
(35:33):
seven-year-old kids no, I wantmy kids to go to post-school so
they can influence otherchildren.
They're not going to influencethe other children, they're not
because they're kids, right,they're being influenced by
everything else around them.
That doesn't mean that if youwent to post-school that you're
bad or anything like that.
I'm just saying the realitiesor the things that people bring
up is that I'm going to let mykids immerse themselves in the
world and hopefully I've giventhem enough so that they can
(35:55):
counter the challenges.
But a lot of times it doesn'twork out that way.
So, yeah, I think that is.
There's a good, a good spot tobe in of be relational, be of
service to others and continuepreaching the gospel.
You know that's what's going tochange hearts.
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Everything.
Yeah, it's a good way to wrapit up, Well good stuff, well,
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Well, guys, hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we
will bring back anotherexciting episodes right before
the end of the year.
Hopefully we'll probably finishright before Christmas break or
something like that.
Have a little break and we'llkeep you posted.
Thanks for tuning in.
welcome back everyone to the psych and theo podcast,
and we're getting close tothanksgiving man.
This is, uh, by the time ofthis recording.
We're in thanksgiving week,releasing a couple of episodes
close out the year strong, andwe just want to say thank you to
all of you who have beenlistening, supporting the show
and providing questions andtopics, and hopefully we have
(00:23):
touched on a couple of them andthey were pretty well received
by you guys.
So thank you again just fortuning in and and sending in
those, uh, those topics I willsay so.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The last time we recorded was right before the
election it was.
So we are post-election now andit's a new world.
It is a new world.
We're about to talk aboutpsychology, and then about
trauma as well.
So yeah, yeah, we have two,hopefully two episodes that will
be with knockout, but yeah,we're talking about judging yeah
(00:52):
, judging by the memes and thereels on social media, mental
health professionals are goingto be in good business, okay, oh
man, well, let's get do it.
So this topic is about why it'simportant for christians to
understand psychology.
We talked about apologetics.
That was the episode we justrecorded and should have been
(01:15):
released a week prior to this,but now let's talk about why
it's important for christians tounderstand psychology.
Yeah, and eventually we'll doone on theology.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
But yeah, I'm sure there's a lot there.
You like theology a lot, no.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah.
You can pick a lot from thereWell, good, well, yeah.
Well, why is psychologyimportant?
I guess that's a question thatChristians have, or have, been
concerned about, maybe for acouple of years.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, let's back up and let's define.
It might sound like a basicquestion, but let's define what
psychology actually is.
Oh, yeah, okay.
So when we say it's importantfor original understanding of
psychology was, is that it wasthe study of the soul right.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Then, as the years passed by, they started really
looking at what time period isthis?
This was like 60s, around the60s, 80s, 90s, around there.
(02:21):
It started to become the studyof the mind.
So you started seeing more of,okay, what are your thoughts,
how does it affect your behavior.
And then now it's really becomethe study of behavior, because
we're now just looking andobserving what people are doing
and that's how we're determining.
You know, okay, what actuallyleads to those actions and
behaviors.
What are the consequences ofthat?
(02:42):
So you look at family systems,you look at trauma, different
types of issues, personalitytraits and so on.
So, yeah, I mean, that'sessentially where it kind of
started.
So Christians, during that timethey were battling, I guess, for
the same thing.
They both wanted to help people.
Psychologists wanted to helppeople, the church wanted to
help people.
And this goes way back into, Iwant to say, 1700s no-transcript
(03:34):
in our development, in how wedo church, how we do, how our
relation with God is.
There's a lot of factors thatwe'll get into today, but, yeah,
essentially psychology was thatthe study of the soul.
And now today, what you seemostly is kind of the study of
human behavior that'sfascinating.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So yeah, like the beginning of it is, the
beginning of the discipline isassuming that there's a
spiritual component to humanbeings.
Yeah, and now the moderndiscipline is doesn't assume
that at all, it's just kind of acause and effect, like yeah,
yeah, like yes, there's peoplebehave this way, and that's an
indication of what's happening.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, eternally and I think it's.
It's so interesting, man, thisis one of the the topics that I
like to go to, becauseessentially, what you're looking
at is a market, and what I meanby that is psychologists and
counselors.
They'll look at spirituality.
They were starting to ignorethat piece because they said,
okay, well, let's leave that tothe church.
That's a spiritual thing thatthe church can deal with.
(04:37):
But because everyone and wetalked about this in the last
episode everyone is drawn tospirituality or drawn to the
idea of God or the idea of ahigher power, now they're going
into that space and they say,hey, this is a part of the
emotional, mental andphysiological and spiritual side
, like they do have spiritualside to them.
So there's a lot of emphasisnow being placed by counselors
(04:59):
on the spiritual component.
They want to address it, butit's very subjective because
it's on what do people actuallybelieve?
And you know, as counselorsChristian counselor we just need
to be careful when we touch onthat topic, because you don't
want to impose your values onsomeone but at the same time,
you know that they're wrestlingwith some form of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, since you mentioned counseling, let's help
our audience understand thedifference between psychology
and counseling.
I think that's conflated a lotin people's minds.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I mean in my mind I think in the minds of
many is that counseling is thisrelationship between the
therapist and the client seekinghealing together, right?
So the therapist comesalongside the client and tries
to identify goals and how tomeet those goals, what are the
core issues, and so on.
So that's the counselingprocess.
(05:48):
Psychology is all theterminology for what's happening
.
We could talk about attachment,talk about personality traits
Again going back to just theoriginal definition study of the
mind, study of behavior, studyof the emotions, so on.
So they're separate but theyhave a lot of overlap with each
other.
But counseling is really aboutthe relational process between
(06:11):
the counselor and the client.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, all right, so we've defined what psychology is
.
Why is it important thatChristians understand it?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I think it's something that we neglect
because we don't have anybiblical foundation for it,
right, there's no passage inscripture that we can look to
and say so.
Here's what tells us thepsychology of mankind.
And your next question could bewell, where or how do we see
(06:44):
that?
And probably one of the mostobvious ones and you can add to
this part too about think aboutall the family dynamics that
happen in scripture.
Think about all of the piecesthat reference God as our father
.
So this is the space that I'vebeen with God attachment.
Think about the birth order ofchildren, think about the
(07:06):
favorites, think about all thesedifferent.
I mean, we see it in scripture,right?
So it's there.
It's just not explicitly statedwith the psychology terms that
we use today.
First, christians were kind ofhesitant because they don't want
to mix those two, and in a veryto a very large degree, I agree
(07:27):
with that, right, I think theyare separate.
Discipline, they're separatethings, but there are things
that are related to each other,you know.
So when we talk about Joseph,when we talk about other
characters in the Bible and wetalk about their personalities,
like Moses or Abraham or someonelike that, we see a lot of
(07:49):
psychological traits that we canspeak to.
We don't have to usenecessarily biblical language to
understand all of it.
We can just make ourobservations based on what it is
that scripture does say onthose specific things and
scenarios.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Do you think there's a fear that, if we start to put
psychological categories on someof the behaviors we see in the
scriptures, that we thereforewould lose the spiritual side of
it?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah, there's this.
There's this author.
His name is Jay Adams.
I think I've heard of him.
Yeah, he's a Newtheticcounselor, and Newthetic
counselors are Bible only.
Everything needs to come fromscripture and it's specifically
to teach and disciple the personthat you're working with.
That's the approach that theytake, and throughout time.
(08:36):
Then you have Christianpsychology, then you have the
integration, the integrationistsand so on.
But they were the ones.
Their early counselors inChristian counseling were New
Thetic counselors, which isBible only.
So whatever the Bible teaches,that's what I'm going to teach
you.
It was very behavioristic in alot of ways.
Like the Bible says go and loveyour neighbor, go and love your
(08:57):
neighbor.
How do you do that?
Right, and you have a wholeprocess with that.
But their fear was I want tostick to scripture, I don't want
to pick anything outside ofthat.
No research, no, nothing.
Just if the scripture teachesit, I'm teaching it.
If it's not in scripture, Idon't want to use it.
So, for example, a person, aChristian, can learn a lot about
their personality by taking oneof the personality tests.
(09:21):
You know the big one right nowis the Enneagram.
Right, it speaks to a big partof your personality, but again,
it's not definitive, that's notyour definitive state forever,
but a lot of people take it thatway I'm an INTJ, or I'm a wing
two, wing three, whatever thecase is, and they make that
their whole identity.
And again, we've talked aboutthis multiple times, where
(09:44):
People will attach themselves tosomething, a disorder, a
personality, and make that theirwhole identity.
But as Christians, you know,we're always in that process of
sanctification and growing andlearning more and more about
ourselves and our relationshipwith God.
But that was a fear early onabout mixing those two together.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, it seems like that fear is a little misplaced.
I see this sometimes intheological circles, believe it
or not, and in the ethics world.
I've seen this where in theworld of ethics and philosophy
we have all kinds of categoriesand terms that we use, for
example, in ethics.
There's ethical theories orframeworks, as we call them,
(10:26):
that basically tell you how tointerpret the world, how to come
up with the system of right andwrong, and so you have.
You might have duty ethics orutilitarianism, or virtue ethics
or relativism.
You know you have thesedifferent theories, okay, and um
, sometimes some ethicists willgo to the scriptures and point
(10:50):
out that, well, the Christianityseems to look like some sort of
mixture of virtue and dutyethics.
I think I've actually talkedabout this in a previous episode
and others will will say no,you can't bring in those
categories at all because thoseare philosophical categories.
The scriptures talk about loveand obedience and other things
(11:10):
like that, so they're usingbiblical categories.
But if you're talking about thesame thing, you're just.
It's just different terms indifferent language, and it seems
like in the realm of psychologythat might be happening with
the new thetic counselor guys.
That might be happening,whether they they're saying no,
no, no, we have to use biblicalcategories.
But you're saying well, you'rereally talking about the same
(11:33):
thing, it's just by a differentname.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Right.
Right, I mean, one of theemphasis that Jay Adams did a
lot was identifying things assin.
Right, so there's the naturalsin you know we're born in sin
and then there's everything elsethat you do is a result of sin.
But one emphasis that latercounselors started to place
(11:55):
focus on was well, what aboutbeing sinned against?
Right, and this is where thetrauma piece comes into play.
Right, the person, through nofault of their own, you know,
has a neglectful parents andthat creates in them a system of
a system of insecurity.
Right, and they grow up notknowing who to trust, or
trusting too much and being hurt, and then that leads into a
(12:16):
relationship with god.
So do I trust god?
Because all I've ever had wasbad relationships, so I can't
trust anyone, right?
So there's all these thingsthat happen in real life and,
you know, some christians wouldwant to stay away from
explaining it in psychologicalterms, but we see the hurt
that's been there, that's beendone.
There is that people have alsobeen sinned against and that
creates problems in how theyrelate to others.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So I think this is a good area to talk about with
respect to examples in the Bible, because in modern psychology
there is a tendency to and Iknow you don't know, you're not
saying this, but there's atendency to for people to say,
well, the reason I behave thisway is because of my past hurts,
and sort of to sort ofrationalize and justify their
(13:00):
behavior by their past hurts.
And I think and if I could justspeak in defense of the new
thetic counselors I'm not one,but I'm just going to play
devil's advocate for a minute ifI could just speak in defense
of the New Thetic counselors I'mnot one, but I'm just going to
play devil's advocate for aminute they would say if you
bring that mentality to theBible and say, well, the reason
that people sin is because oftheir past hurts, well then
(13:22):
you're rationalizing sin andyou're you're abdicating or
you're you're absolving peopleof their responsibility.
They're more of aresponsibility.
So how would you respond tothat?
And with it, are there examplesin scripture that you would
point to where it's like thisperson is behaving in a certain
way because of something that'sbeen done to them, but again,
the scripture doesn't absolvethem of the responsibility of
their sin.
So how would you respond to allof that?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
yeah, I mean the way that you explained there and the
second, uh part of that isessentially kind of how I would
address it.
There's a very large difficultythat people have withholding
two things at the same time.
I mean it's possible thatyou've been hurt in your
childhood and that's affectedthe way that you behave and, yes
, it's a tendency that you have.
And at the same time, there'sthe other part of when you
(14:07):
become a Christian, that God isable to change all of that in
your life.
Now, there's a process to thatand I think where people get
discouraged is that they'll hearthese testimonies and this is
what all of us want, right, thishighlight reel of, oh, when I
got saved, everything changed.
And we hear those stories andpeople get discouraged because
they hear that say, well, whyhaven't I changed?
(14:27):
And they have this deep traumathey haven't worked through, you
know, abused by parents, abusedin relationships, all these
different things and they cometo know the Lord and they're
expecting that shift.
But the Lord doesn't work likethat with everyone.
I've seen some people who havegone through some severe trauma
and the Lord I don't know how,but he does it where they just
are healed from that, you knowthey're able to relate better.
(14:49):
The Lord just changes theirhearts.
They, you know, have lived alife of sin and they just
completely change.
But that's not the story foreveryone and people get
discouraged with that.
So what I'm saying is that whenyou go through so many of these
different things or past hurts,is that there's also a process,
and I think a lot of Christiansget discouraged that it's taking
(15:10):
too long to overcome, maybe, acertain sin or to overcome a
certain behavior, and they giveup and they feel like, well, I
must be a bad Christian becauseof that, and we talked about
this on our shame episode.
Is that there's so much shame,especially in these legalistic
cultures.
That ties into that in thatthey're wanting to change,
they're trying to change, butthese deep hurts that they've
(15:31):
had from their past is stillinfluencing their behavior.
So they feel like, am I doingsomething wrong?
There must be something wrongwith me, because I'm doing the
same thing everyone else istelling me to do.
I'm praying, I'm readingscripture, I'm having community
and I'm still struggling withthis.
What's going on with that right?
And a big part of that couldjust be that they don't have an
(15:53):
outlet for sharing those deeperhurts.
A lot of Christians are afraidto just talk about that topic in
general.
Now it's becoming much moreopen.
Right Now, everyone wants toshare trauma, almost that it's
watered it down even so.
I do fear that.
But, yeah, people are becomingmore open to it and maybe even
creating problems that aren'treally there for some not
(16:17):
everyone, but for a good numberof people.
So, yeah, it's possible to haveboth those things together.
You could be affected by theneglect or abuse that you
experienced in your childhoodand even in your teen years, and
it's affecting you today, butalso is true that God is
continuing to do a work in you.
So that's kind of how I usuallytry to frame it for people who
(16:38):
are in that process of trying tounderstand, you know the change
I guess on the side of God'sdoing a work in you.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I think what I'm trying to hone in on is the
personal responsibility side Ishow do we get, how do you
balance those two things of,yeah, you're affected by this
and this drives your behavior,but we do have sin, all of us
sin, and we do things that arewrong.
Yeah, even if what the wrongthing we do is driven by
(17:10):
something from our past, westill have a responsibility of
the way we're behaving.
So how do you balance?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
that yeah.
Well, this is one of the thingsthat we're trying to help
clients understand is that theyhave agency right, that they
have the ability to make thesechanges, and you try to kind of
empower that in them and youlook for examples.
Okay, what are some examples inyour life where you did have
control?
What are some examples in yourlife that you saw yourself be
(17:39):
successful in?
Interestingly, people who haveexperienced a lot of trauma
become very productive in naturebecause it's a way to overcome
all of that pain and, in a bigway, it's also a way to hide
that pain right.
So they get so busy and becomeso successful with other things
that that becomes secondary tothem.
So they become resilientthroughout that process.
Those who have a strongersocial support system are going
(18:02):
to do better in recovering fromany type of trauma or abuse, but
everyone has the capability toovercome whatever issues that
they're going through.
So you emphasize personalresponsibility.
Okay, what's within yourcontrol?
We know what's not within yourcontrol and what happened, okay,
and we can accept that.
But now where you are today,what is within your control?
(18:23):
And that's really where we tryto hone in on and say, okay,
here's where you can takeresponsibility.
There's an author I want to sayit's Scott Peck from the Roless
Travel and he really he does areally good job.
At least it was a kind of ahamoment where he says you know
responsibility, takingresponsibility, ownership of
something is really, if you lookat the word responsibility,
(18:46):
break it into, you have responseand then you have ability,
which means you have the abilityto respond to whatever
situation that you're goingthrough.
Right, and I thought that wasvery important to communicate to
clients, because you're tryingto teach them that, hey, here's
an experience that you're goingthrough right now, in the
present.
How do you want to respond tothis?
(19:08):
We're not focusing on how thepast impacted you.
We're not focusing on any ofthat.
We're just focusing on rightnow.
What do you want to do?
And let's see if we can take acouple of steps towards that.
And, as they see themselves,take step one, step two, step
three, and they're successful inthat.
That's empowering, right, sothey're taking responsibility
for what they're able to do.
Now, christians who live inshame take responsibility for
(19:32):
things they're not able tochange anymore, which continues
that cycle.
Right, they like looking backat their past because it was a
situation that they weren't incontrol of, so they can continue
to justify their behavior.
So the more they focus on themnot having control, the less
empowered they feel in thepresent moment.
So you really have to hone inon what's in the present.
(19:52):
What in their past were theyable to control or take
ownership of and then moveforward from that?
I feel like a lot of counselorsmay feel scared to say, well,
here's where you may have hadcontrol to do right and maybe
you made a mistake there we tryto remove responsibility from.
But that's actuallydisempowering because then
you're teaching them thatanything else that happens in
(20:14):
the future, if it's bad, it'snot their fault and you don't
want to communicate that topeople, because the only way to
change is you acknowledge amistake and you be able to move
forward from that and make thechanges necessary.
So really focus on the present,really focusing on what is
within your control.
To emphasize responsibility,taking responsibility for
decisions.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, that's good Something that was said to me
many years ago.
This person wasn't aprofessional counselor, they
were a pastoral counselor and Ishared with them something in my
past I was dealing with regretfrom this.
I was this event happened,regret, yeah, regret, you know,
from a decision I had made and Itold him, I explained him what
(20:55):
I did and why I did it, and Iwas like I feel like that was
the right, the right thing to do.
You know, I felt like I wasdoing something wrong and so I,
so I did this other thing andthen I was like I feel like it
all blew up in my face, you know, and he said to me you made,
after talking through it, hesaid you, you didn't make a
(21:17):
wrong choice, you made.
You made the right, you made arighteous choice, but a rash
choice.
So you, you acted righteouslybut also rashly, like it was a.
It was like I went to anextreme of doing something the
right, like wanting to do theright thing, and I went to an
extreme and doing that.
And that helped me kind of see,like, okay, yeah, I wanted to
(21:42):
do the right thing, but the wayI did it, I went way overboard
and kind of messed things upagain.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But it wasn't like I was, I wasn't sinning, but it
was a mistake, you know, yeah,yeah, so no, it's good, you know
, there's um, there's a lot offreedom with that, the idea that
that we're human, that we'reaffected by, by sin, that we're,
that we make mistakes.
And I think it's harder whenpeople feel like, not that they
(22:11):
can make mistakes, but that youwant to limit the number of
mistakes.
That you have right, thatyou're learning from your
experiences, and I think that'swhat we look at in human
behavior.
Right, we're talking about whatpsychology is is okay, well,
what are the patterns that arebeing demonstrated here?
So someone keeps going intorelationships over and over and
they're getting hurt in some way.
It's like, oh, what are thepatterns?
So you take a look at that andyou're like, okay, here's what
(22:33):
we can change within that.
Right, if you make a mistakeone or two times and you look at
that and you say, okay, didthat change afterwards?
Yeah, okay, so then you learned.
But if you keep making the samemistake over, then you're not
paying attention to a certainpattern.
And I remember someone said tome I think you even you even
(22:53):
mentioned this to me on anepisode.
It was very encouragingActually you said, like, who has
time to keep going back totheir mistakes and you can't do
anything about that anymore.
But there's some people wouldfind like some sense of uh, not
relief, but it does something tolook back at at a situation
that you weren't in control ofand feel like either it
(23:17):
justifies or just makes you feelgood because you're not taking
responsibility for it, you don'tfeel the weight of it, so it's
not going to spur you to makeany significant changes.
But yeah, if we keep lookingback at past mistakes, you're
never going to be able to moveforward.
Right, you're always lookingback.
You don't know where you'regoing.
You're going to trip again.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Well, and rumination, that's what that is, you know,
like ruminating on the past.
When you ruminate on the past,the problems of the past become
bigger.
Yeah, they are so like.
The more it's like this cycleof, the more you ruminate on
something, the bigger itactually seems in the present
yeah the less you ruminate on it, the smaller the problem
(23:56):
actually seems.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah yeah, and this is important for our faith
because a big part of our faithand you know, timmy and I have
similar backgrounds in in theway that we grew up where, you
know, you felt heavy shame forthings that maybe weren't even
supposed to be your shame right.
And so imagine, when you thinkabout this aspect of okay, why
is psychology important for usas Christians to understand?
(24:18):
Is that, well, when you grew upin a family or a culture where
everything that you do is beingobserved, every action that you
take, you're always lookingeither for the approval of
others or, if you make a mistake, it's the biggest mistake you
could ever make.
So then you take that into yourrelationship with God and it's
hard to understand grace.
So you, understanding yourbackground, your culture, all of
(24:38):
these different things, you'regoing to take that into your
relationship with God and it'shard to understand grace.
So you, understanding yourbackground, your culture, all of
these different things, you'regoing to take that into your
relationship with God in someway, shape or form.
So if you have heavy shame, anylittle mistake that you make in
your relationship with God,you'll pull away from him.
You'll feel like he doesn'twant anything to do with you.
But scripture teaches that hedoes want us to draw close to
(25:01):
him.
He wants us to repent and alsoto draw close to him after that.
So it affects your faith, itaffects your relationships.
So understanding these dynamicsof why you're operating the way
that you are is going toinfluence all these other areas.
So we talk about God attachment,we talk about the avoidance.
So the avoidance, so theavoidant is the person who's
(25:23):
been abandoned or neglected, sothey've had to depend on
themselves and they don't needanyone.
So they're kind of thego-getters.
They use people for onlywhatever it is to get to their
goal and they don't see theycan't develop any deep intimacy
with other people.
So the relation with God isvery similar, is it's like I
acknowledge that God is there, Iknow that he's good, but that's
(25:44):
where it stops, right.
There's no deep, intimaterelation with the Lord, there's
no connection.
It's just I know that the Lordis providing just this general
acknowledgement.
Then you have the anxiousattachment who questions
everything about God, like doesthe Lord like me right now?
Like, am I good?
Am God?
Questions everything about God.
Like does the Lord like meright now?
Like, am I good?
Am I performing well enough?
Like, am I being a goodChristian?
Am I attending all the services?
(26:04):
Am I serving all the home?
Like all these questions thatthey'll have, which are good.
But they take it to therumination piece where they're
just constantly thinking aboutall the different ways in which
they not only that they'veserved God, but also the way
that they failed him.
So typically they have a lot ofshame as well.
So, again, all of these arepsychological concepts that do
(26:30):
relate to our faith.
Right, the way that we relateto the church, the way we relate
to family members, the way werelate to God.
It's a big part of it.
Okay, and I'm not saying pleaseunderstand this, I am not saying
that psychology should takeprecedence over the scriptures.
I'm not saying that and pleaseunderstand this.
I am not saying that psychologyshould take precedence over the
scriptures.
I'm not saying that.
I'm really big on making thatclear that the Bible is the word
of God.
Psychology helps us understandparts of ourselves, but it
(26:52):
doesn't help us understand ourdeepest need, which is salvation
through Christ alone.
Which, again to your pointearlier about what is that
Christian's fear?
I think it's that they fearthat the self-help part.
Right, a lot of churches.
This does bother me is thatthere's a lot of churches and
pastors who promote self-help.
(27:14):
The pulpit is not for self-help.
The pulpit is for preaching theword of God and discipling the
body of believers.
You're teaching them the wordof God, you're helping them,
teaching them how to spread thegospel and how to live for the
Lord.
So yeah, the self-help stuffreally bothers me, because
there's a space for that, butnot from the pulpit.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, and not every problem in your life is a
psychological problem.
Exactly you know, like noteverything can be solved through
therapy Good point andsometimes it is a spiritual
problem, like it's not that youand I don't we don't agree with
the new thetic model where it'sBible only but it's sometimes
(27:57):
like a problem can just bespiritual.
I think this is where thepsychologists kind of go wrong
and I think you probably agreewith me on this where there
seems like modern psychologyjust seems to have this naive
naive maybe not the right word alack of emphasis on the power
(28:17):
of human beings to deceivethemselves and each other.
You know, because we we can beincredibly self-justifying but
in the process, self-deceiving,yeah, yeah, and that is a
spiritual thing.
That's going on, you know, andI think we need to recognize
that is like the scriptures talkabout that, where if we say we
(28:37):
have no sin, the truth is not inus.
This is first john 1, 8 and 9.
If we say we have no sin, thetruth is not in us.
This is 1 John 1, 8 and 9.
If we confess our sins, he'sfaithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us ofall unrighteousness.
This is, if we say we have nosin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.
There, it is right there.
We deceive ourselves when wesay we have no sin.
(28:57):
So I think Christiansespecially need to be really
attuned to that.
That it's like we need to becareful that we're not operating
out of like shame or avoidance,and that's the base code that's
running in our minds, you know.
But arrogance and pride canblind us to our own sin and like
(29:19):
.
Even if, even if we do strugglewith shame or struggle with
hurts from our past thatinfluence our relationship with
God, we can still sin, and whenwe sin, we can still hide from
that sin or deny it in some way,and that's a real, that's a
dangerous place to be.
So I could go on about that,but I think there is this when
(29:43):
you talk about the self-helppreachers, yeah, there just
doesn't seem to be a lot ofemphasis calling Christians to
really examine themselves, toask am I deceiving myself here
into saying that I have no sin?
Not in a blanket sense of weknow the Bible enough, all of us
, but like I know I have sin,but specifically, like that
(30:07):
thing you're doing, is that sinor is that a problem in your
life?
Is that a besetting sin in yourlife?
You know a lot of us want tojust sweep that one under the
rug, like I don't want to talkabout that one.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Absolutely yeah, yeah , no, and that's a great point
too.
Just the idea of self-deceptionis that you could tell yourself
a different story than whatreality actually was, so much
that you start to believe it andleads to that self-deception.
I think that's.
You know, it's one of the bigproblems I think for with
psychology is that they thinkthat if you remove the
(30:43):
responsibility away fromyourself, that that's going to
help you heal, and there areparts where you may have been
responsible for.
Now, the difficulty with thatis someone could grab that
passage that you mentioned about.
You know, if one of us saysthat there is no sin, they'll
kind of apply that to thisaspect of trauma and say well,
you know, according to thispassage, you did have some sin,
(31:04):
you did have some plan in this,and they may have not.
And I actually have a book, Ithink it's called Let them Pray,
let them Pray.
So it talks about leaders whoabuse church members and they
use scripture to manipulate them.
And you know, I interviewed alady who talked about that.
I think it was like her youthleader or something like that.
It happened for like threeyears and used passages of
(31:26):
scripture Like here's what thepastor says about your leaders
and the influence that you needto let them have in your life
and so on.
So he used that against her andso they can distort God's word
like that by addressingsomething regarding sin and just
really do a lot of damage topeople.
And again, there's powerdifferential, so that would be a
(31:48):
psychology term here.
There's a power differentialthere which affects the
relationship.
But again, just we just need tobe careful when we're trying to
provide a psychologicalsolution or a biblical solution
for something that may not berelevant in that moment.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You can do a lot of damage there.
So it's being careful on bothsides.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, yeah, there's lots of examples in the New
Testament.
We could spend a lot of time onwhere Christians can be
mistaken about stuff.
They could think something iswrong when it's not.
You know, paul says this isfirst Corinthians seven.
He references he's, he'stalking about marriage and
family and stuff, and he, hemakes reference to a man, this
(32:31):
hypothetical young man, whowants to be married, but it says
he's not able to keep hisvirgin.
That's the language there andessentially it's like he's
basically just consumed withpassionate desire for his
betrothed to the point where, ifthis were to linger, they would
just start having sex.
(32:51):
So he says let them marry.
He does no wrong, but there wasthis mentality in the church,
in church at that time thatsingleness was better than
marriage and so they werepreventing people from getting
married.
So that's why he says do notforbid marriage.
Yeah, so that would be anexample where people got
(33:12):
something wrong, like thechristians were getting
something wrong, and paul saysthat's, that's not wrong for him
to get married.
Let him get, let them getmarried.
You know, with the first Johnpassage we just quoted, john is
dealing with a group of falseconverts who were basically
saying there's really not, therereally is no sin.
(33:34):
Anything you do with the bodydoesn't matter the physical
reality, it's all going to passaway.
It doesn't really matter that.
Your true self is the spiritualself.
So the body, whatever you dowith the body is just the body.
So there can't really be sinand the body so he's, he's
dealing with that problem.
But it does relate to whatwe're saying is that sometimes
people they're engaged in somesinful behavior but they're
(33:57):
listening to the world that saysthat's okay, you can do.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That says that's okay , you can do that, right, right,
that's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You got some trauma.
Go ahead and do that, you know,and that's that's wrong.
The Bible does call us to tolive holy yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, and you know, just to you know, kind of close
this out a little bit is thatthe big part of all of this is
that counseling, psychology,Christianity.
One thing that it does have incommon is that it's trying to
emphasize relationship and therelationship specifically, at
(34:29):
least for us as believers, it'sour relationship with each other
, relationship within the familyunit, our relationship with God
.
These are the things thatinfluence everything else your
upbringing, your parents, yourfamily unit, the church that you
went to, like all of thesethings influence your current
(34:50):
way of relating to others in thechurch and to God, and even to
non-believers.
If you grew up in a judgmental,maybe legalistic church, you
were probably told to avoidnon-Christians because if you
got too close then you'd be in away, stained by them and you'd
start to pick up their habits,which there's some wisdom there,
right, and you know, my, my daddid a pretty good job of
(35:11):
keeping us away from, I guess,other bad kids.
But that that idea of don'tengage with the world at all,
that I mean, that wasn'tsomething, wasn't something that
was taught to us.
It was just don't do the thingsthat they're doing, engage.
But very briefly, others weretold no, go and engage the world
.
You have parents who are sayingto their five, six,
(35:33):
seven-year-old kids no, I wantmy kids to go to post-school so
they can influence otherchildren.
They're not going to influencethe other children, they're not
because they're kids, right,they're being influenced by
everything else around them.
That doesn't mean that if youwent to post-school that you're
bad or anything like that.
I'm just saying the realitiesor the things that people bring
up is that I'm going to let mykids immerse themselves in the
world and hopefully I've giventhem enough so that they can
(35:55):
counter the challenges.
But a lot of times it doesn'twork out that way.
So, yeah, I think that is.
There's a good, a good spot tobe in of be relational, be of
service to others and continuepreaching the gospel.
You know that's what's going tochange hearts.
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Everything.
Yeah, it's a good way to wrapit up, Well good stuff, well,
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Well, guys, hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we
will bring back anotherexciting episodes right before
the end of the year.
Hopefully we'll probably finishright before Christmas break or
something like that.
Have a little break and we'llkeep you posted.
Thanks for tuning in.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!