Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I’m delighted to have with me Dr. Jim Fain. Jim and his wife, Shelly, have been married since 1992 and are blessed with four daughters, Alyssa, Madeline, Meredith, and Abigail, three sons-in-law, and one grandson. Jim has served the Lord as a co-pastor of Cornerstone Reform Church in Franklin, Indiana, and as Executive Director of Rod and Staff Ministries, which is an ACBC Certified Training Center since 2010. Jim also served in the United States Air Force for 28 years, retiring in 2018, and he really enjoys supervision, which is overseeing some of our certified members, 225 plus students, where he rejoices with the discoveries of biblical sufficiency for the counselor in training.
And I have a personal word of thanks to say I’m so grateful for your work with Marshall Adkins, who is now a professor with me at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. You were one of his supervisors, Jim, and we have lots of fun discussions about some of the things that you’ve taught him. So welcome to the podcast today. Looking forward to it.
Jim Fain: Amen. Thank you for having me.
Dale Johnson: Now, we’re going to talk about this issue of emotions and what a wild concept in the ways that we think about emotions today. When we think about emotions, people think about these things as really our identity, the driving force behind who we are.
We’re not trying to deny the concept that we have and experience, as human beings, emotions, right? But we’ve misinterpreted and misunderstood those in the modern day. So let’s talk a little bit about what function the Lord has designed, because that’s always the best place to start, is let’s think about God’s design of a thing. And in this case, let’s talk about emotion. So what’s the function that God has given for emotions?
Jim Fain: Well, the first thing I would say is emotions are God given and good. We as biblical counselors are not opposed to emotions. We want to make sure we’re using them for that which God has designed them. The phrase that I’ve adopted has been most helpful for me is they’re instruments of measurement. And as such, by design and by definition, they report two made up words here, “isness,” not “oughtness.” They’re thermometers, not thermostats. They’re gauges, not guides. So they report the temperature of one’s soul as it interacts with circumstance.
If I can, maybe just one example, God Himself asked Jonah twice in Jonah chapter four, do you do well to be angry? So God, He’s seen the anger. It’s a window into Jonah’s soul. And He’s asking Jonah about, I would say, the desires or expectations and Jonah’s interpretations that are behind them. So the emotions are God given and good. They report isness. They report the temperature of his soul, but they do not tell Jonah how he ought to live. He has to go somewhere else for oughtness.
Dale Johnson: I think that’s really important because we want to make sure that we understand biblically what’s happening. And you’re just simply saying this is a part of who we are. It expresses something deeper. The way the Bible would describe that obviously is in the heart. So talk about how the Bible commands an approach to life, because that certainly involves emotions. It’s a part of who we are. So talk about how the Bible commands an approach to life.
Jim Fain: Amen. If I can, let me just add one point and then we’ll jump into that as well. John 5:30, I think is really illustrative for me. Jesus says, as I hear, I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So I think of it, it’s a simple equation. It’s been really helpful. My expectations plus my interpretations of circumstance quorum deo. So I’m always interpreting life based on who I think God is. So I have expectations, interpretations that drives my response.
Well, you see that in Jesus’s life, as I hear, so He hears circumstance, He judges and His judgment is just because His desire is not for His own will, but the will of one who sent Him. So we just go from that. We infer from that how to live with them, with, with our emotions, what they report to us.
But a couple of examples that the Bible commands us to live by thinking and not by emoting. You remember in Matthew 16, when Peter was askew with Jesus, He said, you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on man. Romans 8, Paul tells us those who are, who live by the spirit, set their minds on things of the spirit. Philippians 2:5, have this mind of Christ commanded again. And then just Philippians 4:8, one of my favorite words ever, to reckon or account, to consider, think on these things. The Bible is really clear throughout a consistent witness that we are to live by thinking by faith, right? Faithful thinking of what God has asked us in his word, how to live and respond.
Dale Johnson: Now, I think this is really important because we establish what I would consider to be a normalization of emotions in and of themselves, not as directors or guides, but as expressions of what’s going on in the heart of a person. And as you just described, the Bible certainly commands that, but something funny is happening right now, Jim.
And as we think about this concept of suffering, the modern word that we use is trauma, it’s as if we’ve recreated new rules of engagement when we think about emotions, as if somehow they go against this design of God or the way God commands us to live in relationship to our feelings and our emotions. So, should this approach change when we experience suffering in life?
Jim Fain: Absolutely not. In fact, almost in every text, well, text about suffering, continually there are thoughts to think. Here’s just a smattering of them, Romans 5:3. In the context of suffering, Paul tells us, what do we know? Knowing what suffering produces in our life. Romans 8:28-29, obviously. And we know that for those who love God in the context of suffering. Even Lamentations 3, Jeremiah calls to leb, his heart, but not a bowels, not where his motions were, but to his thinking, his faculties. I call this to mind, therefore, I have hope.
And then just because we’re in 1 Peter a lot, maybe just two texts there I would go to, 1 Peter 1:13, we heard this morning already, and 1 Peter 5:8, both of those supposed to be sober-minded. In the context of suffering, we have to keep our wits about us. We have to think who God is, what God is doing, what God would expect of me, what’s needed in response, because it doesn’t feel good in suffering.
But again, I really think if we keep the analogy of an instrument of measurement, if I can, just an illustration with that. Imagine you’re making brownies and I don’t bake, but I do eat the brownies. They make them. I have four daughters. I eat them. Works out really well. I just recently found out you make brownies with oil, not milk. Who knew? But you pour your oil into a measuring cup. All that measuring cup can tell you how much oil is in the cup. It can’t tell you how much ought to be in the brownie mix. The back of the box has to tell you that. If you go by the measuring cup, it will mislead you because you’ve misused it as it was designed.
I think the same thing here. In suffering, it doesn’t feel good, but what do I know about God? What do I know about His character? What do I know about His purposes? I think purpose may be one of the most important truths I have to know. This is what sustained Joseph and his suffering. If I’m thinking about who God is and His purposes and what He’s designed suffering to do, I can have hope.
Dale Johnson: You know, I think the reason it feels like maybe there should be different rules when we think about suffering is because certainly in times of suffering, and we’re not denying this, that those emotions are more intense and much more prevalent.
But it doesn’t change anthropology. It doesn’t change the way God designed man to operate. So with that, I think it’s important that if suffering is something that brings out or draws out or intensifies the feelings that we experience, we also have to be cautious about being driven by those things because we weren’t designed for that. So talk a little bit about the dangers of living by these feelings that can be so overwhelming to us.
Jim Fain: Absolutely. I’ll give you five, and much credit to David Powlinson. I’ve come into one of his chapters in his book. I think it’s either Speaking Truth In Love or Seeing with New Eyes. He’s got a chapter on this, so much credit to him. But number one, we’ve already talked about it briefly. If you take the measuring cup of random amount of oil and say how much should be in the brownie mix, how much ought to be, it will mislead you. Use the instrument of measurement for what is designed is-ness. There is turmoil in my soul. Now start asking questions.
Number two, directly from David, it is a form of leaning on your own wisdom. If my emotions tell me how I ought to live, and I’ll get to this in a moment, that’s how Jonah lived. If my emotions tell me how I ought to live, that I’m leaning on those, not the Word of God, not truth, not the Spirit, not prayer, I’m leaning on me, how I feel. And that is, the Bible is devastating – I’m almost quoting David here – devastating to say about people who lean on their own wisdom.
Number three, and this is where we’ll get back to Jonah. If you live by emotions, you’re unassailable, you’re unevaluable. When God asked Jonah, do you do well to be angry? He asked him twice. And Jonah’s response was, of course I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. You think about that. Jonah is saying to God, not even you, God, have the right to ask me whether I should be angry. In Jonah’s mind, it was a bit of a, what a tautology. How do I know I should be angry? Because I’m angry. And because I’m angry, I should be angry. And even God is dispermitted or disallowed by Jonah to ask the, should I be angry question.
If you live by feelings, you will be unassailable to the Word of God, to the Spirit of God, to your counselor. In fact, if we kick Christ off – one of the most dangers I’ve seen in the trauma movement is you put the person who’s been suffering and they are suffering. They displace Christ from his throne. And when they’re enthroned, it’s really difficult to get them off that throne ever. So that’s number three.
Number four, it actually becomes tyranny. Here I hear David’s words again. True for me becomes truth. If I’m angry, that’s the true circumstance. You must be angry with me or you will, you know, meet my disgust, right? So it becomes tyranny for everybody in the room. True for me becomes truth. The truth must be obeyed by everybody in the room.
And the last one, the fifth one I would say is it’s slavery to me. The more I feed my emotions, the more I’m bound to them, the greater they grow in terms of oughtness, right? If they’re a measuring, if they’re a thermometer, I grew up when there was a thermometer on one side of the room and a thermostat on the other, right? Nobody yelled at the thermometer. You went over and changed the thermostat. But if we keep talking to the thermometer, we’re not actually going to, we’re going to miss where we can actually grow and change. So it becomes slavery to me to live under them.
Dale Johnson: And I would argue hopeless because we’re aiming in the wrong direction of the thing we’re trying to fix. And we’ve become really dominated by that emotion. And to your point where you’re saying that it keeps the word out, I think of the language of Jeremiah chapter six, where then the word of the Lord becomes a reproach to them because now it’s pointing at the thing that they think is their identity. And that becomes dangerous. And the hope of trying to manage that within our own strength, as the Scripture describes is impossible. It takes a renewing of our heart and our mind, which is something by the power of the Word and the Spirit that’s accomplished.
So, talk a little bit about like, walk us into the counseling room. We’re dealing with, we’re trying to encourage a counselor here on how to help a counselee live by faith because faith really is the driver. Like what we perceive, we respond to. And that includes not just behavior, but also attitudes and emotions and so on. So talk about how a counselor can help the counselee then live by faith, this renewing of the mind by the things that are true to create the proper perception in relation to God and His world.
Jim Fain: The first thing that I would say is I am interested in what they’re, so again, I like the equation, what were you wanting? So I am interested in their expectations, their desires. I’m really interested in how they’re interpreting their circumstance. Again, quorum Deo, and light of who they think God is. So I’m asking a lot of questions about desires and interpretations, desires and who God is.
And I do want to know, and what was your heart response? Now I’m going to say it that way, because I think that’s where the Bible presents it. What came out of your soul? And the counselee tells him, well, anger came out of my soul. Now I’m going to follow God because the Bible teaches methodology, it’s not just content. We actually follow the Scripture and how it tells us to interact with people. So I want to know, like God wanted to know of Jonah, thank you. What were you wanting when that anger came out of you? Again, so I then began asking questions about their desires and interpretations.
And then, right, as part of a solution, let me just give you, if I can, maybe two texts. 1 Peter 1:13, again, we’re in 1 Peter for the pre-conference. “Therefore, preparing your minds or girding up your loins for action and being sober-minded, set your hope…” There’s the command, first command in the epistle, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you, the revelation of Jesus Christ.” That’s methodology right there. That’s telling me what to tell the counselee.
If they’re going to do well in suffering, they’re going to have to have a massive view of the end, end-time eschatology, the reward when you die. They have to have an eternal gaze. What is suffering doing? It collapses everything to the moment, right? But we have to have a long word look to see, and we have to set our hope there on who Jesus is, what He will bring to us that day when we see Him. Those are the kinds of methodological truths that I want the counselee to know as they’re processing what’s coming out of their soul.
Let me give you one more. Colossians 3, right? I mean, we biblical counselors, we love ourselves some Colossians 3:5-17, right? It’s put off and put on. We’re in our happy place there. But 1-4 sets the stage, right? Three commands to seek the things that are above, set your minds on things that are above, and then negative, don’t set your minds on things around the earth. Why? Because I’m dead, right? And Christ who is my hope.
But those are, that’s methodology before I, we heard this morning, right? In the middle of suffering, how’s your holiness? Because it squeezes out things suffering, it’s like 100 pounds of pressure on my soul. It squeezes out what’s in my soul, what’s coming out of my soul, right? So is, am I in the moment setting my mind twice over on Christ and not on things of the earth? That’s methodological gold for counsel. Let the Bible tell you the kinds of truths you need to tell the counselee. So that would be number one.
Number two, I would tell all the counselors and I, I don’t know, I hope they appreciate this, Dale, but I correct it every time I read it in a case report. They say, I feel, and I write, you think, and they write, I feel, and I correct it and say, you think. And by the time we’re done, they meet me in the hallway, they smile, they’re gracious to me, but they say, you know, it helps. It helps. I think, because thinking can be evaluated, right? Again, I’m not on the throne, something else outside of me evaluates my thinking. So I think we’d help all of, all of ourselves if we learn to say, I think, we mean, I think.
And then the third one that, this one may be the hardest is you’re going to have to help the counselees who have lived by their emotions, not live by their emotions. They’re going to have to re-submit to Christ. Christ is Lord. There’s only one Lord. There’s only one seat for Christ to sit on. I’m going to have to lay, everybody, counselor, counselee, offender, offendee, everybody has to lay prostrate before Christ, right? That’s some of the most difficult conversations. I love you. I want the best for you. The best for you is that you lay before your Lord and please Him.
I know that you don’t feel like you’re being loved. That doesn’t mean you’re not being loved. Let the Scriptures define what love is. So we’re, again, we’re raising their eye to a better, a better guide, not their emotions, but the Bible that can tell us all this. There’ll be three things I would, I would pass along.
Dale Johnson: No, I think that’s so helpful. And just as an addendum, what I would, what I would add is I think it’s important that we also help people to see where their emotions have gotten them at this point. And I think that’s convincing. It’s convincing to show that the Bible is actually true, that the way they’re understanding their emotions at this point really leaves them in this chaotic, helpless place. And just what you described is to turn their eyes specifically to faith. What God has spoken as indicative about us and indicative about Him is the most true thing, not what we feel. And that really helps to change our gaze and it helps to instruct our heart.
As you mentioned in first Peter, it really helps us to set our hope in a different place. Whereas if you’re driven by emotion, your only hope is in a circumstance changing. And that becomes a really huge problem because we’re not in control of those circumstances. And God never promises that those things are actually going to change until the eschaton, right?
So we’re longing for that day when he’s going to make all things right, but he’s not promised to do that on this side of heaven. And so we’re called to set our mind, Colossians three, on things above. So really helpful discussion and biblical context. I appreciate the way you’re helping our counselors think. And this is a phrase I’m using a lot these days, from text to method.
The Bible is full of methodology and just learn how to read the Scriptures in such a way where you see God’s established methodology and it just starts to leap off the page. And it is that practical in life. And let that be our anchor as opposed to what we hear, see, or even feel emotionally in our culture. So well done, Jim. I appreciate the time.
Jim Fain: Amen. Thank you very much for having me.We’re blessed.
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