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Faith and Feelings

Faith and Feelings Part Ten – Conversion is typically an emotional experience

September 30, 2010

Spurgeon argued yesterday that often feelings come before faith, (having previously denied it!).  In today’s quote after carefully reminding us that not every conversion is a “typical” one he goes on to tell us how he feels the typical conversion occurs: Some men have the light of God; but they cannot tell when the light [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Nine – Spurgeon suggests experience comes before knowledge after all

September 29, 2010

Today’s quote from Spurgeon demonstrates that the man believed two points that many today would disagree with.  Firstly, he argues that intellectual assent to the gospel is insufficient for salvation, indeed that it may make you more worthy of damnation. Secondly, he seems to suggest that experience may well need to come first before faith. [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Eight – High affections are to be desired

September 28, 2010

Jonathan Edward’s great work Religious Affections was introduced to us in yesterday’s quote.  In my mind there is probably no better book written to help us to grasp this vital subject (other than the Bible itself of course!)  We should by now be beginning to understand one of the most fascinating paradoxes, our feelings are [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Seven – How the affections of a preacher must be stirred

September 27, 2010

Today we turn to Jonathan Edwards, that master of discussing Christian experince and his concept of the affections.  We would be wrong to assume that affections are simply the emotions as the following quote makes clear.  Although this idea does include emotions, it relates to the entire inclination of our heart and wills. When thinking [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Six- It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!

September 23, 2010

The following post is comprised of Piper material I have posted before at PIPER FRIDAY – It is Impossible to Elevate Emotions Too Highly!. “Don’t I elevate the importance of emotions too highly?” While at Wheaton College, Piper read Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher, who argued that since love is commanded in the Bible, therefore [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Five – Learning from outside our comfort zones

September 18, 2010

Longtime readers of my blog may remember the days before I banned comments. If you do, you will remember that I gathered a group of people who seemed to disagree with almost everything I said. I stopped comments because I didn’t have time to deal with everything they were saying, and because I found moderating [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Four – Spurgeon on Sealing and Faith

September 17, 2010

In today’s quote Spurgeon introduces the vital concept of “sealing” or assurance of our faith and relates it ultimately to the line from our hymn: Note also that this sealing does not necessarily come at once with faith. It grows out of faith, and comes “after that ye believed.” We are not in every case [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Three – Spurgeon on how feelings do not produce faith

September 16, 2010

Our third quote in this little series, makes the very important point that however precious our experiences of God might be, a warm glowing feeling inside us never actually produces faith.  Some of my readers might be surprised to know that I wholeheartedly agree. Faith on the other hand, DOES produce feelings, as in the [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Two – MLJ on why we can’t rely on feelings

September 15, 2010

Regular readers of this blog will know that I sit firmly in the tradition of Piper, Lloyd-Jones, Spurgeon, Edwards, and dare I say it Paul (!), who stresses the vital nature of the experiential side of Christianity. Now, as we begun yesterday, we are looking at the relationship between feelings and faith, initially by sharing [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part One – MLJ on the vital place but unreliability of feelings

September 14, 2010

As promised yesterday, we today begin a series exploring the implications of one line from an old hymn “I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholy lean on Jesus name.” It is my assertion that the writer of the hymn must have known something of the sweet “frames of mind” that Jesus gives us. [...]

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