fbpx

Five phrases Christians should never use again

phrases

We all have certain sayings that we regularly use. In my house, we often remind the kids, “You’ll get what you get and you won’t get upset,” particularly when it’s time for a snack. Another favorite: “We’re gonna have fun whether we like it or not.”

These are well and good, at least to a point—that is, only in as much as we ascribe no more value to them than their due. Christians are no different; we have short hand phrases that are sometimes helpful, but often not. In fact, many we treat as downright biblical, when they’re more likely to be found in 2 Hesitations. Here are five that I’d love to see never ever used again:

God won’t give you more than you can handle. I’m pretty sure Paul, Peter, the rest of the apostles, all the prophets, and Jesus would disagree on this. Although Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is kind, the Christian life is most definitely not. Paul described himself and his co-laborers as “so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:8). “Beyond our strength,” incidentally, means it was more than he could handle. But the purpose was to cause them to “rely not on ourselves but on God” (2 Cor. 1:9). Jesus described Paul as one who would suffer greatly for the sake of the gospel. Jesus in taking our sin upon himself most definitely carried a burden so great his sweat looked as though it were drops of blood and he pleaded for the burden to be lifted by the Father, were it his will to do so. Instead the Father sent an angel to strengthen him (Luke 22:43). (This is a subject I dealt with in greater detail in this article which appears in my eBook, Everyday Theology).

“Let’s pray for a hedge of protection.” I’ll be honest, I’m not even sure what this means. I get the reference—but the first place you see this language used in the Bible is in Job. However, there, it’s Satan accusing God of not playing fair with Job, that the only reason Job doesn’t blaspheme him is because God has placed a “hedge around him” (Job 1:10). We do find a few other examples as well, but only a couple have a protective connotation (notably Isaiah 5:5 and Hosea 2:6). A later example in Job (3:23) suggests one having his path obscured. Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to pray for such a thing, but the biblical evidence is slim.

God helps those who help themselves. To be clear: God does not reward slothfulness, apathy, or laziness in any way, shape or form. We also can see that faithful people are full of ingenuity and a sort of godly ambition that God blesses. But, the Bible has nothing close to this sort of admonishment, which finds its origins in Aesop’s fables (and was later popularized by Benjamin Franklin). Instead of encouraging us to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps (which I addressed it in this article some years ago), we are to remember that even as we work, God is working in us (Philippians 2:13).

“Let go and let God.” As you can guess, this one is related to the one I just mentioned. The Keswickian notion that if you just surrender and have faith and if you’re struggling just surrender harder is, well, kind of silly (to say nothing of how it leads to classism among Christians). No matter how hard you look, you’re not going to find anything in the Bible that confirms it. Instead, you’re going to be told constantly to strive, do, go forth, fight, and so on. God commands an active faith, not passivity. So stop saying this! (And for those interested, Andrew Naselli’s got a tome analyzing Keswick theology in great detail. If you’re a Logos user, it’s worth checking out.)

“When God closes a door, he opens a window.” This is a weird one that I’ve never quite understood. The whole “open door” theology thing has always seemed strange to me, though. I can’t find anything that would give any sort of credence to this notion in the Bible. At all. (The only thing we have that’s close is the admonition that God never leaves us without escape from temptation in 1 Corinthians 10:13.) Further, it seems that not every door that is open to us is one we should actually go through. Sometimes opportunities are presented as choices for us to say no to. But maybe I just don’t have enough faith…

There are, no doubt, more that could be added to this list. But for now, maybe it’s enough for us to commit to thinking carefully and biblically about the things we say and how much weight we give those sayings. But just a warning: If we do this, we might find we probably shouldn’t say some of them at all. And may God be glorified because of it.

Everyday Theology: Just Listen to Your Heart

Back in the 80’s, the Swedish pop group Roxette had a hit song called “Listen to your heart.” If you were either a fan of the group (I’m sorry) or survived the 80’s relatively unscathed (except for the odd Duran Duran flashback) you might remember.

Listen to your heart—when he’s calling for you
Listen to your heart—there’s nothing else you can do

Now you remember, don’t you?

Sadly, this awful song was in my head as I sat in the Zurich Airport waiting for my connection to London Monday morning (yeah, I know). But this song reminded me of something we all too frequently think is a good idea:

Just listen to your heart.

It makes for a great…err, well, it makes for a pop song, but it’s lousy theology. Why?

Because, “my heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick!” (Jer. 17:9)

I’ve written about this subject before, but it bears repeating:

Often the worst thing we can do is listen to our hearts. Because our hearts are naturally inclined to sin, they will always lead us to things that displease God, but seem right in our own eyes. The serpent’s tempting of Eve in the garden is a perfect example. He convinced her to distrust God, that He was holding out something really good from her and Adam. The text says, “[W]hen the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Gen 3:6).

We can’t miss that—she saw that it was a delight to the eyes. It seemed like a good thing. Her feelings told her, “Go for it!”

And both she and the man did, which brings us to today; to a culture that continues to pummel us with the same message, over and over again: “Just listen to your heart. Do what feels right. You deserve it.” Read More about Everyday Theology: Just Listen to Your Heart

Everyday Theology: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

Continuing to look at some of the more common ideas we have about, or relating to in some way, God, we get to this saying:

“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

The saying, a common one used in arguments surrounding corporal punishment of children, is an adaptation of several of the sayings in the book of Proverbs, notably:

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die (Prov. 23:13)

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Prov. 13:24)

From Reacting to Overreacting

Frequently, this adage is used to advocate for corporal punishment, in the form of spanking. However, there are some that would suggest that it advocates for the abuse of children. To use this saying, or any other, as justification for child abuse goes far beyond the bounds of its original meaning, and is a notion that must be rejected, whether you are for or against spanking as a parent.

It is never acceptable for any parent to shame, berate, or belittle their child.

For the Christian, we are never given permission to punish our children. You will not find an example of this for us to follow anywhere in the Bible.

The example and command we are given is to constantly and consistently discipline our children, just as God disciplines His. Read More about Everyday Theology: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

Everyday Theology: Money is the root of all evil

As we continue to look at some of the more common ideas we have about, or relating to in some way, God, I wanted to address the following:

“Money is the root of all evil.”

The origins of this one are fairly easy to trace, as it is a misquotation of 1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV), which says “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Four Missing Words

Some might wonder, what’s the big deal? Does a misquotation change the meaning in any significant way? In this case, yes. In the saying, “money is the root of all evil,” money itself is given moral value, and is determined to be all bad, all the time. This attitude, in many ways, is the heart of poverty theology — an overreaction to prosperity theology that essentially says, “if you’re financially poor, God loves you more than if you had money.” It is a demonizing of money.

Is money bad? Nope. We need money for groceries, for our mortgages or rent, for paying our church leaders, for helping the poor… None of these are bad things.

But the love of money is a very bad thing indeed.

1 Timothy 6:10 (ESV) says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” A love of money can cause people to wander away from the faith because the object of their affections is not Jesus, it’s cash.

It is idolatry. Read More about Everyday Theology: Money is the root of all evil

Does the Bible say, “God helps those who help themselves?”

“God helps those who help themselves.”

This sounds like something that makes a lot of sense when you first hear it, doesn’t it? We see examples throughout Scripture of men and women who seem commended by for their ingenuity—Abraham, David, Joseph, even Jacob to some degree… all are men we see (apparently) take matters into their own hands and come out on top and in God’s favor.

On top of that, we’re told by the Apostle Paul to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12b); we’re to be active in our faith, not simply sitting back and doing nothing. So it almost sounds like this could be a biblical truth, doesn’t it?

Almost.

Where does “God helps those who help themselves” come from?

One of the earliest forms of this saying goes back to Aesop’s fable, Hercules and the Waggoner, where the moral of the story is “the gods help them that help themselves.” The modern variant, “God helps those who help themselves,” was allegedly first coined by the English political theorist Algernon Sidney and later popularized by Benjamin Franklin, a Deist. In case you’re wondering, a Deist is one who believes that while a supreme being did indeed create the universe, that supreme being does not involve itself in human affairs. Therefore, miracles and special revelation (such as healing, prophecy, the virgin birth & resurrection of Jesus, and the inspiration of the Scriptures) don’t actually happen.

At the risk of oversimplifying, according to this view, God just isn’t interested in his creations. He’s got better things to do.

Okay, we know the origin. So, what does the Bible really say? Does God really help those who help themselves?

The better news the Bible give us

Nowhere in Scripture will you find the idea that God helps those who help themselves. It’s not there. Instead, you find the opposite. For example, when Paul wrote about trials, he said that he and his team were “so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:9). Their burden was so great they felt they’d received a death sentence (10). That’s a big deal—like entirely contradict the platitude big. Jesus also described our redemption and the forgiveness of our sins as something reserved for those who can help themselves. Instead, he described us as sheep, needing a shepherd to come and rescue us (Luke 15:4-6).

God does not help those who can help themselves because, from this perspective, we cannot help ourselves. We cannot save ourselves from our bondage to sin, nor from the wrath of God, so He does. Our own power fails us when we rely on it, rather than God. To believe that God helps those who help themselves, is not only foolish, but it’s proud. Pride motivates the belief that we can do everything by our own gusto and go-to attitude. That we can pick ourselves up by our spiritual & moral bootstraps. But, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5).

How do we respond?

We know that the idea that God helps those who help themselves is false, so how do we respond? I need to spend some time asking God to reveal to me in what ways I live like this is true. And as He reveals them, my desire is to repent. I have no doubt that there are areas in which I am doing this, and I hope that I am learning to be humble enough to admit them.