Five Star Links

Each Friday, we share links we found especially interesting or inspiring during the previous week. 

Persis:

As human beings, we are body and soul, and our souls include thinking and emotion. However, it is easy to pit one against the other, and we become imbalanced. That's why I appreciated this article by Brian Borgman - "God Cares About How You Feel". Rather than elevating vs. suppressing our emotions, God is restoring them. 

Our emotions received the fatal infection of original sin and a fallen human nature. Like a few drops of dye into a pitcher of water, every molecule of our nature has been colored by the toxic dye of sin. Emotions, which were designed to be good and work in tandem with the mind and will, now either dominate or become dormant. On the one hand, they can dominate our thinking so that what controls us is how we feel, how we determine what is true is based on how we feel, and how we relate to others is based on how we feel about them. The chaos of such life can be painful. On the other hand, trying to ignore or repress our emotions (and be like a Star Trek Vulcan rather than a human) is also a recipe for disaster. Truth and beauty in God and in life become black and white, and we fail to be whole people. What we need in our mangled humanity is full restoration.

Rebecca:

Lamentations is one book of the Bible that I haven't spent a lot of time in. But this piece made me want to change that: How to Read Lamentations Theologically. Or, to put it another way: What does Lamentations teach us about God?

As I was searching for this link, I found a similar piece from a few years ago: Can Your Theology Handle the Book of Lamentations?

If you can’t handle the themes and trajectories of Lamentations then you can’t handle the gospel. Every thread in this book is divinely stitched to Calvary. 

Therefore, take up and read Lamentations!

Now I really want to!