In the last 150 years Western culture has given birth to the science of psychology, investigated how life has evolved on earth, explored the strange uncertain world of relativity and quantum physics, learnt how DNA influences our heredity, and made huge advances in understanding how our brains - our consciousness - works. The impact and influence of these areas of knowledge can scarcely be overstated: we think, and think about man, very differently as a result.
This morning, I found Piper's observation about a new congruity between modern and ancient thinking very interesting. I think it is new: in between, our culture embarked upon a long love-affair with rationalism. Philosophers and scientists really thought they would soon understand how the universe worked, which was conceived like a vast clockwork mechanism determined precisely by knowable laws. In religion, everything outside that box was rejected, and blinkered scholars got to work 'reconstructing' biblical texts with anything miraculous stripped out.
I love hearing about all these new, mind-blowing developments in scientific thinking. Physicists talk like priests nowadays: they speak of searching for the 'God particle' and 'heaven's field'! Where they now spend their days thinking and researching has expanded into a vast 'open field' of possibilities and mystery. Sounds familiar? "The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound; but you cannot tell where it comes from nor where it is going" (John 3:8).
As Piper points out, these new insights have brought us closer to the outlook of the Bible, which recognised the reality of evil spirits, the power of words to curse or bless, and of spiritual consequences down the generations. And again and again, using a variety of words, the first followers of Jesus testified how their lives were starting again on a new basis, free from everything in their 'old life' which held them back in fear. Jesus' freedom and fearlessness had become theirs too. And believers ever since have testified that this goes much, much deeper than the inspiration of His example: mysteriously, as I contemplate my God dying for me on the Cross, I am changed and healed and united with Him.
Over the past 5 years, I have at last connected effectively with this process of spiritual transformation and personal change. Or I should say 'reconnected'. Because God did many changes in me when I first believed, aged 21. But I see a long period of over 20 years when little changed. I'm not negative about that period - I was a husband and father, I acquired important skills and experience, and I absorbed the Bible in detail. I accept the need for fallow seasons, when God still works but in a less visible way.
This came to an end in 2007: and I may consider copying my testimony about that time onto a separate blog post. But what I grasped then, initially through the ministry of the Arnotts from TACF, were practical ways to understand, identify, confess and receive freedom from strongholds of fear and unbelief - all made possible by a profound encounter with God's unconditional love and forgiveness.
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