December 18, 2013
Back Talk
In my parent’s generation if you talked-back to
an adult you were immediately backhanded. In my generation a sharp tongue
resulted in a spanking. However, today parents are more apt to reason with a
child, or take away their privileges. I recently had a sit-down talk with my
grandkids about back talking. Eight year-old Lydia’s ability to articulate
exactly what she is feeling sometimes gets her in hot water. In sharing my
observations with them I mentioned that I hadn’t noticed David back talking,
but the 10 year-old was quick to say, “Well, I think about it. I say it in my
head; I just don’t say it out loud.” I chuckled at his confession, and then
praised him for his honesty. Often we adults hold our tongues simply because it
is the ‘mature’ thing to do, but we also need to recognize that taking our
thoughts captive is the first step to teaching them obedience. “We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of
God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor
10:5 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----You are so right! The philosophical argument between monism and dualism yet rages. Monists say there is no mind separate from the mechanical interactions of the brain’s physiology. We are simply biological machines of such complexity that a conscious phenomena emerges. The dualists say the mind is an actual thing separate from the biomechanics of the body. It’s funny to watch the paths upon which “brilliant” people run from God.
-----The Bible does not talk of a mind separate from the body. Ecclesiastes especially refers to the end of consciousness that is death. Elsewhere the Bible alludes to death as sleep, or going to the place where there is no knowledge. This sounds to me much like the mind is a generation of the brain’s neurology, even though it also smacks of a very, very temporal viewpoint upon death. Who has heard a dead body recite the multiplication tables? Or say anything else of intelligence? Or say anything? From our side of seeing things, the dead are quite unconscious, although on their side they are quite conscious.
-----For Christ descended into the place of the dead to preach there. Some form of mental activity must be there. Everyone says the story of Lazarus and the rich man was history, not parable. I’m not entirely sold, yet I hold to the point they make - both were volitionally conscious, the stuff of mental activity. The Bible is also replete with concepts regarding spirits and their departure from the body at death. Akin to those who take Lazarus and the rich man as history are those who take the spirit risen by the witch of Endor as actually Samuel's. Paul is ever expressive of being with the Lord at death. The Lord isn’t exactly soul sleeping by what the Bible says. And both monism and dualism are used as escapes from God, for mind is not necessarily spirit, and spirit throws the door wide open to God’s possibility.
-----So what? It all smacks of a three-part soul, kind of an image of God thing. The soul has a body and a spirit like a sandwich has two slices of bread. A good bit of logic says they interact at an intersection of body and spirit we call the mind, like meatloaf between the bread slices. Yes, mental activity is neurons sending signals to each other through sodium ions reacting across cell walls causing neurotransmitters to jump synaptic gaps formed by the tippy-tips of one cell’s “fingers” sensing the correct tippy-tips of another’s to make a firing unified with a particular network of thousands of other firings, which all together register a specific thought. If little David were right about the thought expressing into reality only when it is spoken, then you (and the Word) would be wrong; there would be no need beyond silence to take thoughts captive to the Lord.
-----In as much as physical neurons have responded with the thought, it has been expressed into physical existence. That it has not effected another soul is no excuse. It has effected your soul. And it has stamped a mark upon your spirit. Ouch! If it is a bad thought! It has yet become as much a part of physical and spiritual reality as everything else you do. It only has not directly effected as many people as it will when it has taken full root in all its neural networks and has thus grown into some social expression being even worse than when it was planted. Thought must be captured and subjected! It’s a very, very real place, there, between those ears.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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