Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Feelings and Emotions: The difference between your feelings and emotions and the thought content of the soul. Part 1.
Friday, November 19, 2004
PHI 4:10 Now, I have received much inner happiness by means of the Lord greatly, that now at length you have revived your concern or thinking for me; indeed, you also were thinking about me, but you lacked the opportunity to express it.
NAS - PHI 4:10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity.
KJV - PHI 4:10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.
Concern or care = phroneo - no emotional connotation at all; instead it connotes a system of thinking not feeling.
MAT 16:23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind [phroneo] on God’s interests, but man’s.”
ACT 28:22 “But we desire to hear from you what your views are [phroneo]; for concerning this sect, it is known to us that it is spoken against everywhere.”
PHI 2:2 Bring to completion my inner happiness [in your life] by thinking [phroneo] the same things, maintaining the same virtue-love, united in soul, concentrating on the same objective.
PHI 2:5 “Keep on thinking [phroneo] this [doctrine] within yourselves which was also resident in Christ Jesus,”
PHI 3:15 Therefore, as many as are spiritually mature, let us have this attitude [phroneo], in fact, if in anything you have a different attitude, the God will also reveal that to you.
Having compassion and being concerned has nothing to do with feelings or emotions, but with the thought content of the soul.
Point 1. Definition and Description.
a. Emotion is part of the essence of the soul.
Emotion has two functions in life as a part of the soul: a normal and an abnormal function.
The emotions of the soul are designed to respond to what is in the mentality of the soul.
The other parts of the soul include self-consciousness, volition, and the two frontal lobes, mind [nous], heart [kardia].
Emotion is the female part of the soul and is to respond to the right lobe, the male part of the soul.
Category two-love, right man, right woman, illustrates the relationship between the emotion and the right lobe.
1CO 11:3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
1CO 11:7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.
1CO 11:9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.
1CO 11:11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
The divine order of the soul = the emotion is to respond to the thoughts in the heart as the right woman is to respond to her right man.
The right lobe [heart] possesses a frame of reference - designed for thought, the memory center, vocabulary and categorical storage, the conscience, the momentum department, the wisdom department, and the subconscious.
The right lobe also contains the norms and standards.
Inside the right lobe of the soul is everything that should dominate emotion, so that emotion can become what it was designed to be by God - an appreciator and responder of things.
EPH 5:22-24, Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
EPH 5:33 and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.
COL 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
EPH 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her;
EPH 5:28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;
EPH 5:33 Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself;
COL 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them.
The heart contains all thought and standards. The emotion contains nothing.
Koilia - the emotions = something that is empty, or hollow.
Emotion contains no doctrine, no thought, no common sense, and no ability to reason.
PHI 3:18-19, For many keep walking, concerning whom I have warned you many times, and now continue to affirm, even weeping, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose termination is destruction, whose god is their [koilia] emotion, and whose time of glory will be a momentary time of shame, who keep thinking about earthly things.
ROM 16:17-18, Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own [koilia] appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
If emotion controls the soul you cannot think or apply doctrine to life.
By definition, the emotions are the appreciator of the soul.
By function, the emotions respond to the right lobe.
It is like an empty bag lined with sensitivity - sensitive to music, art, drama, the opposite sex, love, etc.
Emotion is not designed to assume authority over the soul, but is designed to be dominated by the right lobe.
Emotion has no ability to love - emotional revolt produces all forms of adultery, fornication, immorality, homosexuals and lesbians.
Capacity for life is related to the right lobe, thought, not the emotions.
While certain portions of the anatomy double for parts of the soul in the Bible, it is not difficult to distinguish the essence of the soul from the physiological anatomy of the body.
Kardia = heart, as the physiological anatomy of the body it refers to the area of thoughts in the soul.
English words used in the Bible to describe the emotions include: bowels, belly, reins.
KJV -
GEN 43:30 And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there.
NAS -
GEN 43:30 And Joseph hurried out for he was deeply stirred over his brother, and he sought a place to weep; and he entered his chamber and wept there.
1KI 3:26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son,
NAS -
1KI 3:26 Then the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son
SOS 5:4 “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.”
- KJV
NAS -
Sol 5:4 My beloved extended his hand through the opening, And my feelings were aroused for him.
JER 4:19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me;
NAS -
JER 4:19 My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart! My heart is pounding in me; I cannot be silent,
PHI 1:8 For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
- KJV
NAS -
PHI 1:8 For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Anatomy in the languages of the ancient world always doubled for the functions of the soul, because they did not have in ancient languages a psychological vocabulary.
Only in the right lobe, the kardia, exists the frame of reference, memory center, viewpoint, norms and standards, and doctrine.
Emotions are stimuli for action, and therefore must be regarded as a form of human energy.
Positive response to the heart produces the spectrum of happiness, from tranquility, inner peace, to ecstatics in the emotions.
Negative response to the heart produces the spectrum of misery: the back-up of mental attitude sins, revolt of the emotions, psychosis, instability of wide emotional swings, because the emotions take over control, become the aggressor, and dictate to the right lobe.
When this happens, after awhile, the whole function of the soul is backed-up with mental attitude sins and emotions controlling every area of the soul: self-consciousness, mentality, volition, conscience.
Since the emotions of the soul were never designed to dominate the soul, wide emotional swings demonstrate the inability of the emotions to dominate.
The garden was perfect until the woman took over and dominated the man, then the Fall occurred.
Only in the right lobe exists frame of reference, memory center, viewpoint, norms and standards, and doctrine.
Emotional stress causes people to act on impulse.
The emotion of fear, also a sin, causes flight.
The emotion of disgust causes repulsion.
The emotion of anger causes violence.
Instincts are reflex behavior based on emotion rather than on
thought.
MAT 27:46 “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Emotion = a complex, biological, physiological process, or function concerned with somatic expression or feeling.
Two categorical functions of the emotions: the conscious sensations of the emotions of the soul, and the effects of emotions on the organic function of the body, especially the nervous system.
The prefrontal lobes, the cortical areas of the brain, are associated with thought, motives, and decisions.
Emotional activity can occur without the presence of thought.
Emotion without thought is a tragic complication in life.
When emotion functions without thought, that is abnormal emotional activity - emotional instability.
Normal functions of the emotion include pleasure or entertainment, excitement, appreciation.
The greatest enemy of Christianity is human good and emotion - the doctrine of pseudo spirituality.