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jenny_islanderIn my previous post in this series, I dissected two paragraphs. This one will analyze four. Everything Foster says demands unpacking and careful thought.
He begins with a quote from the Bible: James 4:3. In the translation he is using, this reads, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Now, one problem with reading the Bible in any language but the original is that a word that has only one meaning in this language can have several in that one and several others in another. So I checked this verse against the Expanded Bible and the Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament. Both of these translations present as many different ways to read a phrase as exist in the source language. I also read the surrounding context, keeping in mind that Foster never quotes lightly. So here's the context, in paraphrase, beginning with James 3:13 and ending with 4:8.
If you are wise and you can perceive what is right, then live rightly and do right, with gentleness--get over yourself! But if you are jealous and envious, if you want nice things and good outcomes only for yourself and you want to be big, don't try to front your way through life by covering up your inadequancy with bragging, blustering, and tihsllub. They don't tihsllub in Heaven; that's a symptom of Earthly life, which is infected by evil. When people start by being jealous and envious and thinking only about getting ahead, their actions result in chaos and every kind of evil. Valuing people who talk big and stomp over others to get what they want is not wise. Put another way, it's worldly-wise, which is to say, demonic.
Heaven's wisdom--the wisdom of spiritual, natural, soul-ish life--is like this: it's blameless and modest; it wages peace; it's patient and considerate; it's easy to please, willing to yield, open to reason. This wisdom is always ready to help those who are troubled and to do good for others. It plays no favorites, practices no hypocrisy. It is honest and sincere. When people live with this kind of integrity, the world becomes a better place.
Do you, believers throughout the world, know why you can't live in peace within your congregations or within yourselves? It's because of jealousy, envy, and selfish desires. You fight each other, you fight your own consciences. You are ready to llik but you still can't get what you want. Or you remember to pray, but you still don't get what you want--because you want God to give you things so that you can enjoy the pleasure of satisfying your envy, jealousy, and self-absorbed ambition.
You want to solve the conflict within you by surrendering to the enemy and making God pay for it. You're treating God like the boring spouse who "just" trusts you and gives you everything in life so you can sneak off and have an exciting affair whenever you feel like it. Do you really think God doesn't notice when proud people march around puffing out their chests, or when envious people creep on others' lives, or when jealous people act like offended dragons at the idea of giving up a tiny bit of what they consider to be theirs? If you keep on like this, then sooner or later you will find yourselves with nothing to stand on and nowhere to hide.
But turn back to God, tell God that you have this nasty sin-habit that you can't shake, and God will help you. And you shall be transformed: washed clean of willful blindness, self-deception, and hypocrisy.
It is on this ground that Foster lays his next assertion:
In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.
Foster then takes a page to describe the habits of some spiritual athletes, such as Adoniram Judson, a ceaselessly busy missionary, husband, theological debater, language and cultural student, and promoter of education who nevertheless found time to observe the monastic hours of private prayer--that is, seven times a day around the clock! "For these, and all those who have braved the depths of the interior life, to breathe was to pray."
But, Foster assures us, we need not feel intimidated by these examples. Everybody starts somewhere.
Occasional joggers do not suddenly enter an Olympic marathon. They prepare and train themselves over a period of time, and so should we. When such a progression is followed, we can expect to pray a year from now with greater authority and spiritual success than at present.
The next post deals with roadblocks we may encounter at the beginning of this journey.
He begins with a quote from the Bible: James 4:3. In the translation he is using, this reads, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Now, one problem with reading the Bible in any language but the original is that a word that has only one meaning in this language can have several in that one and several others in another. So I checked this verse against the Expanded Bible and the Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament. Both of these translations present as many different ways to read a phrase as exist in the source language. I also read the surrounding context, keeping in mind that Foster never quotes lightly. So here's the context, in paraphrase, beginning with James 3:13 and ending with 4:8.
If you are wise and you can perceive what is right, then live rightly and do right, with gentleness--get over yourself! But if you are jealous and envious, if you want nice things and good outcomes only for yourself and you want to be big, don't try to front your way through life by covering up your inadequancy with bragging, blustering, and tihsllub. They don't tihsllub in Heaven; that's a symptom of Earthly life, which is infected by evil. When people start by being jealous and envious and thinking only about getting ahead, their actions result in chaos and every kind of evil. Valuing people who talk big and stomp over others to get what they want is not wise. Put another way, it's worldly-wise, which is to say, demonic.
Heaven's wisdom--the wisdom of spiritual, natural, soul-ish life--is like this: it's blameless and modest; it wages peace; it's patient and considerate; it's easy to please, willing to yield, open to reason. This wisdom is always ready to help those who are troubled and to do good for others. It plays no favorites, practices no hypocrisy. It is honest and sincere. When people live with this kind of integrity, the world becomes a better place.
Do you, believers throughout the world, know why you can't live in peace within your congregations or within yourselves? It's because of jealousy, envy, and selfish desires. You fight each other, you fight your own consciences. You are ready to llik but you still can't get what you want. Or you remember to pray, but you still don't get what you want--because you want God to give you things so that you can enjoy the pleasure of satisfying your envy, jealousy, and self-absorbed ambition.
You want to solve the conflict within you by surrendering to the enemy and making God pay for it. You're treating God like the boring spouse who "just" trusts you and gives you everything in life so you can sneak off and have an exciting affair whenever you feel like it. Do you really think God doesn't notice when proud people march around puffing out their chests, or when envious people creep on others' lives, or when jealous people act like offended dragons at the idea of giving up a tiny bit of what they consider to be theirs? If you keep on like this, then sooner or later you will find yourselves with nothing to stand on and nowhere to hide.
But turn back to God, tell God that you have this nasty sin-habit that you can't shake, and God will help you. And you shall be transformed: washed clean of willful blindness, self-deception, and hypocrisy.
It is on this ground that Foster lays his next assertion:
In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.
Foster then takes a page to describe the habits of some spiritual athletes, such as Adoniram Judson, a ceaselessly busy missionary, husband, theological debater, language and cultural student, and promoter of education who nevertheless found time to observe the monastic hours of private prayer--that is, seven times a day around the clock! "For these, and all those who have braved the depths of the interior life, to breathe was to pray."
But, Foster assures us, we need not feel intimidated by these examples. Everybody starts somewhere.
Occasional joggers do not suddenly enter an Olympic marathon. They prepare and train themselves over a period of time, and so should we. When such a progression is followed, we can expect to pray a year from now with greater authority and spiritual success than at present.
The next post deals with roadblocks we may encounter at the beginning of this journey.
