June 26, 2023 Show with A. M. Brewster on “The Doctrine of Emotions” (Part 1)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson.

In Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth,.

We're listening to you live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 26th day of June, 2023, and I'm thrilled to have back as a returning guest someone to discuss emotions, which will be our topic for two days, today, June 26th, and tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27th.

His name is A .M. Brewster, and he has become one of the most popular guests, a favorite among the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners. He is president of Evermind Ministries, a biblical counselor, author, podcaster, and conference speaker, and as I said, he's going to be addressing the doctrine of emotions, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, A .M. Brewster.

I am exceptionally happy to be back, and just hearing you say a favorite among the Iron Sharpens Iron listeners, it just swells my heart with joy, or it clouds my mind with disbelief. I'm not really sure which one it is, but I'm very glad to be back.

Well, I'll let our listeners know about Evermind Ministries.

Yeah, my pleasure. So, Evermind Ministries, just really our whole goal is to keep God's truth at the center of the human experience. And when I say that, it sounds kind of a weird phrase, but you think about your experience as a human in this world, and it's so multifaceted.

There's work, there's school, there's parenting, there's family, there's just so many things that happen. And we want to inject God's truth right into the center of all of that, because it's and work is another thing, and our entertainment is another thing, but we want the truth to be right there injected into all of it, because that's what God wants.

And so, Evermind Ministries, we have a biblical counseling ministry. We have a ministry that is dedicated to speaking truth in the family. We have a ministry that's all about personal discipleship and worshiping God better this year than we did the year before.

We have a ministry where I go out and I preach and I teach and I train and I do conferences and things like that, sometimes virtually, sometimes live. And it was really a fantastic opportunity to meet new people and to open God's word.

And I would say that if you want to know more about Evermind Ministries, this is a really great thing to do. Go to evermindministries .com and click on the link to download the app. We have a brand new app that gives you access to everything that is Evermind Ministries, tells you all about who we are, and you really need to check that out.

That is really becoming quickly our go-to place to learn all about Evermind. So, I hope you guys will definitely do that. I think that one of the things that I'm really excited to talk to you guys about today is the fact that I am going to be having a partnership with another ministry you guys know called Striving for Eternity with Andrew Rappaport.

And he and I have got some fun things in the mix that we're going to talk about more so in the future, but that's something I kind of wanted to announce first and foremost here today as well.

Andrew Rappaport. Praise God, I'm happy to hear that. And today is a program that is in my, according to my gift of prophecy, I'm just kidding, folks. But I have a strong feeling, as I think any biblically-based, open, honest platform should do, it's going to annoy people, because if you're always making people happy, I think that there's something wrong with what you're saying.

It's going to annoy people on both ends of the spectrum of the evangelical Protestant experience. And I'm talking about, on the one hand, it may very well and will likely offend not only Pentecostals and Charismatics who put so much overemphasis on biblical emphasis on emotions, and that really has spilled over to mainstream evangelicalism, even if they happen to be cessationist.

Yes, it has. But on the other hand, even on the other end of the spectrum, I have a feeling we are going to offend folks within our own theologically-reformed camp, because we have been guilty of, at times, and depending upon what congregation and maybe even denomination your Reformed church happens to be a part of, but we have neglected emotion.

There have been worship services that have been rightfully described as being reminiscent of funeral services, and hymns singing, even the lyrics of which are clearly intended to create a sense of joy within us that should exude from us while we sing them, can very often sound like funeral dirges.

And sometimes our critics are correct, but many times our critics are guilty of slander and exaggeration, but on occasion they are correct when they describe us that way or describe our services that way and perhaps our worship experience that way.

And there are efforts to counteract that amongst the Reformed, especially those that want to bring an emphasis to experimental or experiential Calvinism, and that has had its critics even within the Reformed faith.

But tell us about the doctrine of emotions.

The Nature of Emotions in Human Experience

Well, I'm really excited that we're going to have an opportunity to have this conversation over the next two days. Today, for those of you who didn't know, today and then at the same time tomorrow, I believe, we're going to be continuing this conversation.

So I don't need to feel the necessity to try to cram it all in today, but I do want to lay a really important foundation, and I want to field any questions that your listeners may have because it really is an extremely important thing to understand.

And I want to start with the fact that, honestly, where we are with the English language as a whole, you can't speak to a lot of other languages. I speak others of them, and I think they have their same problems, but English language as a whole, but then specifically the subculture of Christianity, we have completely lost a and even really, I'll go so far as to say a scientific understanding of what emotions really are.

We've conflated the world's understanding, we've taken our own experiences, we've mixed that with a sloppy vocabulary and a lack of understanding about the scriptures, a lack of understanding about how our bodies are supposed to work, bad philosophy coming from every direction, and almost everything we say about emotions is, like, wrong to one degree or another.

It's not completely true. So, I wanted to start with really a call to something that's almost impossible from a cultural perspective, but it is possible from an individual perspective. I've been doing this in my life.

I've been trying to help my family to do it as well, to try to change our vocabulary, to submit the words that we use to reality. What is actual? Is what I'm saying right now actually biblically and scientifically true?

Because if it's not, it's not valuable, and all it does is confuse us. I'm going to give you some examples of what I mean by this, and I'm going to refer to this, this is kind of my point on my notes, is emotional discrepancies.

So, I'll give you an example. Sometimes when we talk about feelings, we talk about feelings as feelings. So, for example, a person may say, I feel sore. I feel sick. I feel cold. Okay? Those are, those are, we're using words about, feelings words, and we're using them about actual feelings.

What I'm saying is sensations. Cold, sick, sore, that type of thing. But then we also use our, these feelings words to describe what I'm going to call pure emotion. And pure emotion actually is a feeling.

It is a physical sensation. But oftentimes in our minds, we view it as something very different. They say, I feel happy. In our minds, that's a different category of feeling than I feel sore. I say, I feel sad.

That's different than I'm feeling sick. And I feel afraid is different than I feel cold. The reality is, and we're going to learn this, hopefully, over the next couple days, but the reality is, is that actually, that feeling that we associate, which is bodily experiences, and that quote-unquote feeling that we associate with an emotion per se, are actually far more similar than we like to think they are.

However, there's another category. And it's this feeling as religion, which you've kind of alluded to a little bit, Chris. Someone says, I feel like God is talking to me. Or they say, I feel the Holy Spirit's presence.

Or I feel the peace of God. Now, none of those are physical feelings, not physiological feelings like the emotions and the other physical feelings are. And yet we use our feelings terminology to describe those things.

I feel like God is talking to me.

I feel the Holy Spirit's presence. And of course, some people may base those statements on physical feelings. They have goosebumps on their arms after they hear a Christian song sung at a worship service, or after they hear a preacher.

They feel goosebumps. They have a feeling, a physical feeling of euphoria of some kind. And they will base those statements on the Holy Spirit's presence. Yeah, definitely.

And we're going to find that, too. Very often, it's not just one of these things. It's multiples of these things. When we talk about feelings, we're talking about so many different facets of what we're experiencing in our spirits and in our bodies.

So that's going to also be a big part of what kind of makes us mushy and really hard to understand and hard to find agreement on. And the last category is feelings as thoughts. Someone might say, I feel like she doesn't like me.

Or I feel like you're mad at me. Or I feel like this isn't the best decision. And really what they're communicating, they could just say, I think she doesn't like me. I believe you're mad at me. I think this isn't the best decision.

But we're using we've taken these feelings words and we've substituted them for our thinking words. A good example of this is Thomas Sowell said, quote, the problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.

The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is. He confuses it with feeling. Really powerful observation he made. And that's a lot of us, we don't know what thinking is. We do so much of our life based off of feeling.

And oftentimes we communicate our thoughts as feelings and our feelings we think are thoughts. The movie Inside Out, a movie that came out a while ago through Pixar was a really good example of that. They basically all humanity had emotions at the helm of their life.

Every thought they had, everything that they did was being controlled by their emotions. Another piece of the puzzle that shows us that we don't really get what's going on in our emotions. But the key I tried to make earlier is that whatever our vocabulary consistently tells us makes up the most integral part of our existence, whether that thing really is the most integral part of our existence or not, because our vocabulary tells us it does, it will become the single most important concept in our lives.

And if you have the news on for any period of time whatsoever, you will see without a shadow of a doubt that people are absolutely just controlled by their emotions. Everything they do, they're pursuing certain feelings or running from other feelings.

If something doesn't make them feel good, they melt like a snowflake. People are being triggered and we have all of these concepts that we're facing based off of feelings. And so, we've really, I mean, right from the get-go, there are so many discrepancies.

We have made it this massive hodgepodge that really very few people actually agree on what they're talking about. We all just kind of have this consensus that feeling is whatever I say it is, which is super, super dangerous.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address in the event that they have a question of their own on emotion, the doctrine of emotions. Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you have a strong disagreement with your own church and their view or their practice of emotions in a worship service, a level of practice, and a meaning and an importance assigned to emotions that you disagree with.

Then you'd rather not draw identity or you'd rather not identify yourself at this point. And perhaps you're in a reformed church that appears to be devoid of emotion. Well, we would understand that you would be compelled to remain anonymous.

We would not want you to identify a church when you are being critical of it unless you're in a cult of some kind, like some kind of a Mormon cult or Jehovah's Witness cult, but a specific evangelical congregation, we wouldn't want you to identify it when you're critiquing it because we would want to have both sides of the story when criticisms are made publicly.

But if you're just asking a general question, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. This topic is extremely vital, more vital than people might think, because they may trivialize this discussion to be involving nothing more than the manner and specific aesthetic taste of a specific congregation or denomination when it comes to the expression of emotions.

But there are more serious things involved in this. You have, on the one hand, people making theological assumptions and attaching doctrine to a certain kind of expression of emotion, such as something that we just mentioned, somebody who is a preacher, a pastor, a congregant, who is convinced that what is being taught in this congregation during a specific worship service is true and from the Lord just because of the way people feel when they hear it.

And on the other hand, the lack of emotion present in the heart of a preacher, pastor, or congregant throughout their typical Christian walk could be a very frightening sign that they are devoid of the Holy Spirit, that they may be dead in their trespasses and sins because they are not excited by the things of God.

They are not driven to rejoice and praise and thanksgiving because of the things that they believe and so on. Am I off base here in my two analogies there?

I think there are very few people who really are devoid of emotions. And I think when we communicate that way, I mean, I agree with you. I mean, I've been in churches where I look around and I'm like, wow, these people don't have the joy of the Lord.

But even that statement right there shows a misunderstanding of what emotions are because the joy of the Lord is not an emotion. The peace of God is not an emotion. The love of God is not an emotion. And so, again, we're conflating these concepts.

And so, yeah, these people look like they're not enjoying themselves. They look like they're having a bad attitude. They look all, you know, solemn and not solemn. The solemnity is not bad. They look depressed, you know, which, by the way, isn't always an emotion.

And that's, I think—. And people express their peace and joy in different ways. I understand that. Yeah. But although you said those things are not emotions, they are expressed by human beings through emotions when they are experiencing them and when they are worshiping and so on.

They can. They can. They don't always, but definitely they can. And that's where we, I think, a really good important step to take in our discussion is to move to the next level where we really try to understand from a, I'll say, a physical, scientific basis what emotions are.

And then specifically from a biblical perspective what emotions are, we will start to be able to see a clearer picture of what's actually going on in our bodies. I just want to start with a big picture, like an anthropology, okay?

So, if you have listeners who know what the dichotomous position is and the trichotomous position is, I'll just say right off the bat that I consider myself a modified dichotomist. Oftentimes, the dichotomous position is that there's body and spirit, or they'll say body and soul, but in their minds, soul and spirit are basically the same thing.

In the trichotomous position, there's the body, there's the spirit, and there's the soul. And the spirit and the soul are seen as being two different things, and so we're made up of three parts. I disagree with the trichotomous position, but I also slightly disagree with that dichotomous position I just put forward because I believe that what we see in the scriptures for the most part is that God created us with a body, he breathed into us the spirit, and at that time we became a soul.

So, those two parts, body and spirit, put together creates the whole, and the whole would therefore be then the soul. And so, that's how I'm approaching this understanding. Honestly, if a person were to disagree with me on that, it's not going to really necessarily change our conversation too much here.

That's just, I wanted to put that out there right off the bat. And yet, there's this unique link, okay? So, we have our physical bodies and we have our spiritual spirits. And there's this thing, there's this, almost like this unique bridge between the two that is partially organic and natural and physical, but also there seems to be very much a spiritual element to it, and that is this concept of emotions.

Well, what's going on there? Well, again, unfortunately, the scriptures don't give us a really robust answer of how those two things are synthesized to any more degree than it does how our bodies and our spirits are synthesized.

How is it my spirit is attached to this body and where my body goes, my spirit follows and I can't have an out-of-body experience, right? And yet, you know, this body could die and my spirit will live on.

How does all that work? We really don't have the answers for that at this particular point. However, we need to do our best to understand it with the information that we have. And so, what I want to do is I want to transition to a secular description of what emotions are.

And I think it may surprise some of us because really the secular description isn't too far off. It misses some key things, but it actually is pretty right on in some degrees. Most psychologists, in particular, will agree that an emotional response requires three things.

The first of which is an external experience. So, something happens. Somebody jumps from around a corner and goes, boo. At that moment, there's an internal physiological response. Now, notice what they're saying here.

There's an internal physiological response. This is coming from people who don't believe that we have a spirit. Our mentality, our mental states, our minds. That to them, though they don't understand it, clearly is a biological process.

That's what they believe anyway, even though they don't necessarily understand what that biological process is and how it works. And so, to them, they say the emotional response is a physiological response, which then produces the third thing is an external behavior.

So, somebody jumps out and says, boo. I have this physiological response inside of me, and I might scream. I might run. I might pass out. I might punch the person in the face. It depends on who you are and how your response is.

But for the secular psychologist, secular scientist, the secular doctor, for the most part, that's really what emotions are. And I want to point out that they got some of this right. It does require an external experience, but there is more to the experience.

There is a physiological response, and that's really important. Christians, please understand, when we're talking about emotions and we're talking about what I'm going to refer to as pure emotion, we are referring to a physiological response.

In the same way that you feel hungry, you might feel afraid or feel sad. It's a physical thing. It's not some other level of something. Now, I'm not suggesting that God, as a pure spirit, doesn't have emotions, okay?

However, I am suggesting that God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, do not have the experience of what we have of the physiological response. Now, Jesus, 100 God, 100 man, he does. He's experienced the physical response.

So, God does understand physical emotions. And to the degree that Jesus has a physical body, he experiences emotions, that physiological response that produces emotions. Again, the union of Christ with spirit and his body and Godhead, we don't understand it all, so I'm not going to pretend that I understand it all either.

But these are things that we accept to be true, part of Christ's experience, able to be our substitutionary atonement. He was tempted in all ways that we are. He has had and still does have, I believe, in his perfected body, these physiological responses that produce what we call emotions.

And then, yes, those, of course, produce an exterior behavior. But in order to really get a biblical understanding of what emotions are, we need to look to the scriptures to find out what the Bible says about them.

What we can learn from the scriptures about what these emotions are. And the first of the three points that I'm going to put out today, and there's really three parts to this understanding, is that emotions are a gift.

They're a gift. In fact, can you pick up that emotions are a gift after our first commercial break? Definitely. Do that. Anybody, once again, if you have a question of your own, submit it to ChrisOrenson at gmail .com.

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back with A .M. Brewster right after these messages from our sponsors.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.

Go to g3min .org. That's g3min .org. And enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on the sovereignty of God.

Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 discount off the registration fee.

Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program. The SecureComm Group provides the highest level of security, close-circuit television, access control, and communication systems for Manhattan's top residential buildings, as well as churches, commercial properties, municipalities, and more.

We custom install exactly what you need to protect yourself, including digital recording, off-site viewing, and connectivity from most smart devices. From simple code-activated systems to the latest technology using facial recognition, the SecureComm Group has it.

We also provide the latest in intercom and IP telephone systems. In addition, we provide superior networking platforms. We'll create, maintain, and secure your local network, whether it's a Wi-Fi or hardwire network.

We'll implement the latest secured firewall, endpoint solutions, and cloud backup. I would love to have the honor and privilege of helping protect the lives and property of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners and their associates.

For more details on how the SecureComm Group may be of service to you with the very latest in security innovations, call 718 -353 -3355. That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com.

This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

Here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, praise God for the generous monthly financial support of Royal Diadem Jewelers. Educated by and affiliated with the American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America.

For the perfect custom-designed engagement ring, or any one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications, Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step-by-step through every stage of the process, and even hold a high-tech internet virtual visit using state-of-the-art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you. From rough design to digital model, to photorealistic image, to wax prototype model, to the finished product.

They're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way. This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed, and well beyond your expectations.

Visit royaldiadem .com. That's royaldiadem .com today. Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife Bronnie, his business partner and manager Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And don't forget folks, royaldiadem .com is still offering Iron Sharpens Iron Radio this mind-blowing opportunity. Anybody in our audience who purchases jewelry valued at $100 or more from royaldiadem .com, we will receive 100 of the profits as long as you mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Whether you are purchasing something they already have in stock for $100 or more at royaldiadem .com, or whether you are getting a customized piece of jewelry created. Let's say somebody in our audience loves Aaron Brewster so much that they want to give him a gift of his logo for Truth Love Ministries or Evermind Ministries created into a piece of jewelry like a pendant for a necklace or a ring or another kind of piece of jewelry.

Or if you're getting engaged, you want to get an engagement ring custom designed or anything else that your imagination and creativity can conjure up, they will take whatever is in your brain and turn it into a physical piece of jewelry that will blow your mind.

I have seen firsthand the mastery they have over custom designing jewelry and you are assured to be thrilled by what they create for you because they include you in every single step of the process to make changes and corrections and perhaps even introduce new ideas into the creation of your custom design jewelry.

So go to royaldiadem .com as soon as possible to either purchase your jewelry or get the ball rolling on custom designing jewelry because we don't know when they're going to pull the plug on this wonderful opportunity where we get 100 of the profits from that sale.

So go to royaldiadem .com and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with A .M. Brewster, president of Evermind Ministries, and we are talking about the Doctrine of Emotions.

This is part one of a two-day discussion that will continue tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27th. So make sure you mark your calendars for that. But before the break, Aaron, as you know, you were just about to list some of the main discussion points or elements of the Doctrine of Emotions.

Yeah, super happy to have this opportunity. By the way, just want to let everyone know that if you go to truthloveparent .com forward slash iron, then you can see a bunch of other resources that I've curated specifically to come alongside and help you to learn a little bit more about this particular conversation.

As an example, I've done a number of episodes, podcast episodes, about parenting children through various emotional struggles. We have a general one called Emotions and Parenting. We also have a series called Parenting Angry Children.

We have a Parenting Fearful Children. We also have a series called Children and Shame. And then the Parenting Angry Children series, I also wrapped it up and did it for the Celebration of God podcast, really for us to look introspectively at our lives if we struggle with anger.

And that series is called the Merciful Life series. And so, those will be there as well as a number of other articles and podcast episodes and things like that that I've pulled from other trusted sources.

So, go to truthloveparent .com forward slash iron to be able to see those resources that I've curated for you as well as find a link to download the Evermind app for free. So, I hope you guys will do that.

Now, to the question at hand about the doctrine of emotion, what does this look like? Well, the first one is that emotions are a gift. They're a gift to three different groups. They're, first of all, a gift to the individual.

So, God has gifted you with emotions. Really, emotions are really awesome because they give humans a dynamic, passionate experience in this life and the life to come. Emotions allow us to, again, the English language really is kind of really bereft of the ways to communicate this in the best ways possible.

But it really gives us a way to feel, to experience things in a very different way. I don't just see a sunset. There's oftentimes an emotion that can be attached with that. Sometimes a simplest experience.

I went into a mall recently, a mall in Greenville, South Carolina that I had not been in for many years. I used to work in that mall. I walk into this mall and I didn't make it too far into the mall where I was overcome with these emotions because I had spent so much time working there in the past.

And I had so many different experiences, some really hard and some really amazing while working in that mall. Just walking into a mall. I mean, other people weren't struck with the emotions with which I was struck.

But I was tearing up just walking through this place and being hit with all these memories. And so, there's this really great gift that God gives us to experience life on a unique level because of emotions.

Ecclesiastes 3 .4 tells us that there is a time to laugh and a time to weep. God has scheduled it out in his divine timeframe that there are specifically times for this and he's given us the ability, the capacity to laugh and to weep.

Romans 12 .15 tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. Both of those, we might call positive or quote-unquote negative emotions, they were both created by God for a purpose.

He wants us to worship him with those emotions, just like we're to worship him with everything else in our lives. But God, by Christ honoring emotions are also to be enjoyed and though we can revel in emotions like happiness, we can also appreciate God pleasing grief.

There's a time for that, there's a space for it. So, emotions make our lives more meaningful. This one's really the easy one. I mean, if I were to ask any Christian in the average church, why did God give you emotions?

Most people would be able to come up with an answer similar to this. And so, I praise God for the genuine happiness and passion and excitement and exhilaration that we experience. But the second, sorry, the second and third responsibilities of emotions are emotions being a gift are oftentimes overlooked because emotions are also a gift to the body of Christ as a whole.

Galatians 6 .2 tells us to bear one another's burdens. As I read earlier, Romans 12 .15 commands that we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We see Jesus doing this exact thing with Mary and Martha.

So, emotions aren't just a gift to the individual. They're a gift to the church because though, yes, my emotions help me to experience life in a dynamic way, my emotions can also be utilized to help somebody else experience life in a dynamic way and specifically a Christ-honoring way.

And so, God's gift of emotion is a gift to the individual as well as to the body of Christ. But in even a more unique way, God's gift of emotions is a gift to what I'm going to call spiritual authorities.

We include spouses, parents, pastors, counselors, disciplers, you know, whatever term you want to throw on there. And I'm going to use a parenting example. I do that a lot. If you don't have kids, you'll still, you'll get it.

In the same way that our children's emotional responses can help us as parents determine the best way to parent them, a spouse's emotional responses can help the other spouse know how to best minister to them.

The same is true for pastors and counselors and teachers and friends and any other disciplers in a person's life. So, it's a gift. I, as a biblical counselor, when I see my counselee and they're having a certain emotional response, that is a gift to me because it communicates to me very important truths about who they are and what they believe and what they're experiencing.

And that helps me to do my job better. Same thing for, again, spouses and friends and so on and so forth. Anybody who's in the other person's life to have influence on them. So, the first part of our doctrine of emotions is that emotions are a gift of God.

They are beautiful and wonderful. But like any gift, and we'll talk about this later, we can take it and we can twist it and we can use it for our own purposes. And boy, oh, boy, do we do that far too often with emotions.

But beyond being just a gift, emotions are also a tool. So, again, like I mentioned briefly earlier, just like everything else in our lives, including our words and our actions, our emotions, God wants us to glorify him with them.

1 Corinthians 10 31, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do. That whatsoever you do, we could say or feel or emote. We could then say do all to the glory of God. Now, some people may argue, Aaron, I don't do emotions.

Ah, but you do. Okay, and we'll talk, we'll clarify that a little bit more later. Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you feel, we could say do all to the glory of God. God wants us to give him the preeminence in every facet of our lives, every slice of the human experience.