I’m getting tired of how many Bible Studies nowadays seem to base all, or most, of their questions on the formulae “How did X feel when ..?” or “How would you feel if…?” or “How does this make you feel?”. I question how much progress in the Christian faith can ever be made by exploring (and discussing) either one’s own feelings or those of Bible characters, on which Scripture is notably reticent.
“How do you think Abraham felt when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac?” How would we know, since we can’t get inside his head to know what he knew when the question was asked? For what you know certainly dictates what you feel, whereas what you feel has no effect on what you know. A better question, and just as relevant to the group’s “heart knowledge,” so called, would be: “What significant factors might affect how Abraham felt about this demand from God?” That would lead on to discussing Abraham’s faith as our example, rather than our own totally irrelevant reactions to his alien situation.
In fact, since Genesis has already revealed that Abraham’s belief in God’s promise was credited to him as righteousness, and Hebrews 11 spells out the part that faith played in his offering of Isaac, it would make sense to start there. I was going to suggest, “How would Abraham’s faith in God’s promise affect how he felt?”, but in fact Hebrews 11:17-19 is no more concerned about Abraham’s feelings than Genesis is – it describes instead how his faith led him to reason, ie that if Isaac was slain, God was able to raise him from the dead. Maybe that made him feel warm and fuzzy, or maybe he was still shivering in horrible anticipation of the deed, but what difference does it make – apart from reassuring us that our emotional states are transient epiphenomena on enduring faith?
A good learning experience in such a study, then, would be for us to be encouraged to reason from faith in God’s teachings and promises, whether our emotions (ephemeral passions in Bible-speak) in Abraham’s circumstances would be shock, dread, or quiet trust. The conclusion, then, is that we need to lay a good store of the doctrines of the faith if we are to govern our emotions in a godly way. I suggest that discussing the group’s feelings does little to encourage that.
Imagine that you’re a scientist, and after years-long labours the results appear on the computer that tell you you really have discovered a cure for cancer. Now, I suppose the most obvious emotional reaction would be exultation, as in Watson and Crick’s famous announcement in the Eagle that they’d discovered the secret of life. But it’s not hard to imagine that if you had spent years of bitter disappointment hitherto, a mild sense of relief might come over you instead, perhaps to your surprise. Or had your wife just divorced you over your obsession with work, your feelings might even ask you bitterly if all the effort was worth it. But in fact, although stupid journalists would be sure to ask you how you felt, the only significant thing is the fact that you’ve discovered a cure for cancer. You can discuss your emotions with your friends or your therapist.
In considering Bible studies, imagine a school lesson in which the teacher warns that there will be a quick test at the end. He teaches the class all about the wonders of the first conjugation of French verbs, and at the end asks, “Talitha, how do you feel about that first conjugation?” It’s totally irrelevant to the task in hand, which is to learn French. Although I gather that general education now has also gone along the feelings route – in history they study the Holocaust and the slave trade, presumably to enable teachers to ask, “How would you feel as you arrived in Auschwitz?” or “How do you feel about your own ancestors enslaving Africans?” The task of education nowadays is to identify, and so identify with, underdogs.
And that seems to be what the point of the Bible study questions is. You identify with Joseph’s sense of injustice in Pharaoh’s jail to learn, if anything, that God favours the oppressed and rescues them. That’s certainly a biblical truth, but it’s not what the passage is about, that being how God’s purposes for Israel in election were being fulfilled despite circumstances. What matters is not that Joseph is a victim, but that he’s fulfilling prophecy. Application: the same purposes and election apply to us (so next question – what are those purposes?).
People will respond, I guess, that the Psalms are full of the writers’ emotions, and that’s true, because humans are indeed emotional beings, and that matters to God. Disasters happen, and lament is appropriate. But the typical psalm will start, “Why are you so cast down, o my soul?”, whilst in the rest of the psalm it will recount all that God is, or the things he has done, in the knowledge of which truths the psalmist’s emotions are transformed to joyful praise. Knowledge, once more, transforms feelings and nurtures faith and character. And nobody in the Bible is crass enough to care to ask, “How would you feel to be exiled to Babylon in chains?”
The bottom line is that, in the Great Commission, Jesus told his apostles to make disciples of every nation – and presumably Bible studies are about discipling – and to teach them to obey everything that Jesus had commanded, rather than to ask them how they feel about it. Our passions will continue push us around just fine, without our making them the centre of attention.
