Seeing With New Eyes

I am reading a book called Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture. It's a MUST read -- especially for people like Sylas and I who counsel on a weekly basis...if not daily. I wanted to blog some of the quotes I find especially great from the author, David Powlison.

On anger:

"When Paul writes, "Be angry, and yet do not sin" (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26), he again shifts the direction of application in addressing a very different context. The original appeared as part of an extended meditation on stilling your heart into peace and trust, so that you would not sin when you are upset at the wrongdoing of God's enemies. The fresh restatement develops the necessity of dealing quickly with anger, primarily in the context of the remnant sins that can irritate and provoke those in Christ. It develops the devilish dimension, how unresolved anger plays into the divisive agenda of the accuser of the Brethren. It sets our dealing with anger in the larger context of "learning Christ" (Eph. 4:20), one piece of the transformation of our lives. Psalm 4:4 has been adapted to a larger vision. The quotation sparkles with new meanings, not contradictions."

The first chapter in this book is called Counsel Ephesians and he deals with the ways the book of Ephesians is sufficient to counsel with, saying "What a remarkable, provocative, and unusual door Ephesians opens into the rest of the Bible! The light of the Lord Jesus Christ and current ministry needs lead Paul to rework Scripture and put Scripture to work."

Powlison refers to the OT quotes in Ephesians (and the rest of the NT) as being "Christified" -- or seen in a new paradigm because of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Interesting, isn't it? I'm sure you seminary folk would get more out of this than I do. I have to sort through background noises such as Baby Einstein, pleas for milk and juice, and the phone ringing incessantly. :) It's not necessarily an 'easy read'...at least not for me. I'd love it if someone read it and reviewed it on the booked blog!! I highly recommend it!