Author: Tim Challies

Today’s post is sponsored by BJU Seminary and written by Brian Hand, professor of New Testament interpretation. BJU Seminary equips Christian leaders through an educational and ministry experience that is biblically shaped, theologically rich, historically significant, and evangelistically robust. Melancholia—on a spectrum from simple sadness to profound discouragement, then crossing a moral line into despair—marks nearly every life at some point. Sorrow even appears throughout Scripture, and the biblical evidence seems to run the gamut of mild sorrow (the rich young rule in Matthew 22, whose sorrow was induced by personal sin) through severe despondency (Job and David among others, whose sorrow was induced by circumstance, sickness, or Satan) to depression with despair (Judas), and it does so without ever using modern, scientific designations.  A biblical-theological examination of melancholy should help us nuance our understanding of human sadness, and it shows us that melancholy is an emotional reflection of a fallen world. Upon such examination, which is detailed in my article in BJU Seminary’s Journal of Biblical Theology & Worldview, I find three avenues of application useful for sufferers and counselors alike.  First, the Church should strive to exercise great tenderness in handling cases of melancholy, understanding that distress is not always connected with specific personal sins.  Second, Scripture addresses the full range of melancholic emotions by depicting them as part of normal human experience under the curse. They reveal what we value, love, and believe, how badly we hurt, how dark this world really is, and, therefore, how desperate and vital our faith really…See AlsoFree Stuff Fridays (BJU Seminary)Free Stuff Fridays (BJU Seminary)Free Stuff Fridays (BJU Seminary)

There are many different ways to chart the journey through life. We can do it in life stages, like childhood to adulthood to middle age to old age. We can do it in decades, like teens to twenties to thirties and so on. But lately I’ve been pondering the passing of the generations, how when we are young we lose our grandparents, and then when we are a bit older we lose our parents, until finally we come to the stage when our own generation begins to fade—when we have to bid farewell to the people we counted as friends and peers. In the past few years, I have watched a number of dear friends grapple with terrible and ultimately terminal illnesses. I have watched people I only ever knew to be whole and strong fade until they were broken and weak. I have watched them accept the reality that their time was short and the Lord was calling them home. And through it all, I’m convinced that I’ve seen their faith shine all the brighter. I’ve seen an inner beauty and an inner glory that has become all the more evident as everything outside has been slowly pulled off and peeled away. I want you to imagine that you are walking toward the Old Testament tabernacle, that you are seeing and experiencing it for the very first time. The twelve tribes of Israel are camped in a great rectangle all around it—millions of people, hundreds of thousands of tents, countless cattle. In the center…See AlsoIf Just One Person ReturnedA La Carte (July 31)Monkey See, Monkey Do