I’ve been doing some reading recently pertaining to counseling and the “cure of souls”, and I keep running into the idea that the same problems we’re facing today are the same ones humanity has always faced. This jumps off the page and smacks me in the face when I read books that are hundreds of years old. This might become more apparent in our modern conversations if our chronological snobbery wasn’t so deeply rooted. But we know who we are and scoff at who they were. We think we are so much smarter, wiser, clever, etc. today than the smartest of the smart from, for instance, the 1600’s. With our more developed understanding of how our biology affects our thinking and emotions, what could a pastor from the 1600’s teach us?
How about this?
And pride also, with a desire of liberty, makes men think it to be a diminishing of greatness and freedom either to
be curbed, or to curb ourselves. We love to be absolute and independent; but this, as it brought ruin upon our nature in Adam, so it will upon our persons. Men, as Luther was wont to say, are born with a pope in their belly, though are loath to give an account, although it be to themselves, their wills are, instead of a kingdom to them, mens mihi pro regno [my mind for the kingdom]. –Richard Sibbes, The Soul’s Conflict with Itself
Notice how the author skewers the impulses common to all of us. There are those of us who hate controls from outside of us, “…to be curbed…”. We say, “I will not lay down my rights for the sake of another. For that would be to give away my freedom, to submit to tyranny, and diminish me as a human.” But there are also those of us who hate to exercise control on the inside, “…to curb ourselves.” On this end we say, “I will not lay aside this thing inside that feels so right. For that would be to deny myself this freedom that I desire, to submit to tyranny, and diminish me as a human.”
Someone might object that this is just common sense. “Of course pride is a problem for everyone. Thank you so much for that, Captain Obvious.” But what does it say about us if we’re so proud of our intellectual accomplishments as a culture and yet forget, for all practical purposes, the common sense that by-gone eras practiced so much better? Maybe the author above didn’t know anything about chemical imbalances in the brain or PTSD. But I think he might be able to take us to school on the basics of what it means to be human, to deal honestly with our own hearts, to be willing to lay aside one’s rights in service of others. I know this author has been taking me to school.
Boat14 WV 