Missions Exists because (Unpleasant Emotions tell us that) Worship Doesn’t

John Piper famously wrote, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t. When this age is over, and the countless millions of redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more… So worship is the fuel and goal of missions” (Let the Nations Be Glad, 2013) If worship is the fuel of missions, then unpleasant emotions are both the “low fuel” indicators of our souls and the electric starter spark that ignites the fuel and initiates the internal combustion engine that propels the missions vehicle. For we only know that worship is lacking, and thus that missions is needed, through the testimony of unpleasant emotions arising in healthy souls when faced with a fallen world. Put another way, without unpleasant emotions indicating the sin resulting from a lack of worship, missions ceases to exist.

The thesis of this article is that God’s redemptive mission is always catalyzed by unpleasant emotions as the initial manifestation of love in a broken world. We are told that a passion for mission should arise from a desire to glorify God― from our worship of God and our desire to see him worshipped by all― but we are neither told where this desire originates nor how it is cultivated. We are taught that if we love God and love people, we will obviously be involved in his mission. But then we wonder at the hardness of our hearts and lack of love in our lives as we callously drive by the homeless and entertain ourselves by watching (often graphic) depictions of violence, sexual immorality, and evil. For we do not recognize that love is only as deep as the depth of pain it experiences when that love is offended.
Far too often we do all in our power to flee, repress, and minimize pain in a desperate effort to avoid the accompanying unpleasant emotions. As Larry Crabb incisively writes, “Modern Christianity, in dramatic reversal of its biblical form, promises to relieve the pain of living in a fallen world” (Inside Out, 2013). In short, our theology of emotion (specifically, unpleasant emotion) is found wanting in this broken world in which God’s mission of redemption is taking place.

Thus, the purpose of this article is to serve as an introduction to the subject of how unpleasant emotions play a crucial, yet often unidentified role in the missio Dei. This topic is broad and deep enough to merit study far beyond the scope of this mere blog article. However, to introduce this topic, I will focus on the biblical, missiological motif of unpleasant emotions catalyzing the mission of God by examining four passages of Scripture. These passages have been intentionally chosen to reflect a diversity of biblical genres and a diversity of unpleasant emotions. The four selected unpleasant emotions are loosely based on the psychologist Dr. Robert Plutchik’s classification of general emotional responses, as illustrated by his emotions color wheel. Conveniently, these chosen emotions are also more colloquially caricatured in Disney Pixar’s 2015 film Inside Out as Anger, Disgust, Sadness, and Fear.

EXEGESIS OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES

Anger: Numbers 25
This passage finds Israel repulsed from Canaan and at the beginning of their 40 years of wandering as a result of their hardhearted rebellion against the Lord (Nu. 14). The immediate context of the passage is the narrative of Balaam’s prophetic interactions with Balak king of Moab concerning the blessing/cursing of Israel (Nu.22–24). While Balaam refused to curse Israel and instead blessed them, Nu. 31:16 and Rev. 2:14 indicates that Balaam subversively counselled Moab to seduce the Israelite men in order to bring about their ruin and descent into idolatry. This seduction (v. 1–2) was likely connected to the ubiquitous fertility cults of the region that mixed sexual immorality with idol worship (Smith 1992, 186). The result was that “Israel joined themselves to the Baal of Peor and the LORD was fiercely angry (literally ‘the LORD’s nose burned,’ cf. v. 4) against Israel” (v. 3). So much so, that God instructed the leaders of the people to execute in broad daylight all of their men that attached themselves to Baal in order to avert his wrath. God’s anger at the Israelite’s blatant perversion and dismissal of YHWH as their God then manifested itself in a plague against the people of Israel that destroyed 24,000 people. These people were the same generation of Israelites whom God redeemed out of Egypt and commanded to live as his holy and set apart people― a nation displaying to the world God’s character and active redemption of creation― but instead fornicated with women of pagan nations, copulating at the feet of the “lord of the opening” (i.e. Baal-Peor) and eating sacrifices made to the dead (Ps. 106:28 on Nu. 25). Clearly, worship was perverted and this aroused fierce anger.

The story then zooms in to a noteworthy instance of a human participating in God’s wrath. While the plague ravaged the camp, a son of a leader of a house of Simeon brazenly brought a Midianite princess, into a qubbāh― a small sacred tent where a tribe’s idols were worshipped ― to engage in the very act for which Israel was being punished. All this right “in the sight of Moses and of all the congregation of the sons of Israel while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting” (v. 6). This was too much for Phinehas, grandson of Aaron the priest, who arose from weeping, grabbed a spear, went into the qubbāh and pierced the couple through the body. When God saw this act of righteous anger, he stopped the plague and declared to Moses, “Phinehas has turned away my wrath…in that he was jealous with my jealousy” (v. 11). Furthermore, God gave Phinehas a covenant of peace and perpetual priesthood, in effect saying, “This act of violent killing so correctly expresses my character that I have selected Phinehas and his descendants to represent me as my priests forever.” Psalm 106:31 even says that this act was “reckoned for him as righteousness for all generations forever.” The narrative’s conclusion reinforces this violence as the proper and righteous response at this stage in redemptive history when God commands Moses to “be hostile to the Midianites and strike them; for they have been hostile to you with their tricks” (v. 17–18).

Now, it is important to understand that God’s mission to redeem the world at this stage of history was primarily through Israel acting as a display nation standing in contrast to the depravity and idolatrous ways of the rest of the world and demonstrating what it looked like to be a community with God in their midst. In a corrupt world where “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 8:21 NIV), where all creation is cursed and groans (Rom. 8:21–22), Israel was to be the primary example of shalom, “human life in creation as it was meant to be” (Michael Goheen, Light to the Nations, 2011). So, when this community rebelled against God’s mission in and through them, the natural and godly response was one of fierce anger, sorrowful weeping, and jealousy― namely, of unpleasant emotions. These unpleasant emotions, aroused by love offended, were the prime movers in the missional (albeit violent) acts in this passage. The initial manifestation of love in this broken scene was fierce anger that moved Phinehas to not merely weep in sorrow, but to arise and indignantly kill. It was this action, catalyzed by anger, which atoned for Israel (v. 13) and reinstated them in their role in God’s mission.

Disgust: Ezekiel 23
The book of Ezekiel is a compilation of prophecies and signs intended for the Jewish exilic community located near Babylon. At the beginning of Ezekiel’s ministry, two waves of Judean exiles had already been carried off by the Babylonians, yet the temple in Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed, which occurred in 586 BC, towards the middle of Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry. Ezekiel’s commissioning was to prophesy to the exiled Israelites, whether they listened or not, as God repeatedly emphasized the stubborn and rebellious nature of those to whom Ezekiel would testify (e.g. Ez. 2:4–5; 7). A theme of many of Ezekiel’s prophesies was the inevitability of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, in contrast to the prevailing expectation among the exiles that, as God’s chosen people, he was obliged to rescue them and prevent his earthly temple from being defamed. Yet, Ezekiel’s clear message was that the Israelites were in the bitter middle of being judged for their hard-hearted rebellion and, while there would eventually be restoration and judgement of other nations, the current reality merited intense mourning for the impending and unavoidable judgment.

To communicate this message to the exiled Israelites, Ezekiel was given forceful visions and often personally acted out awful living signs (e.g. Ezekiel was told his wife would die to represent the fall of Jerusalem and that he must not mourn her death; ch. 24). These were to penetrate the hard and deceived hearts of the Israelites. Yet, even in a book by a prophet whose interactions with God are intentionally shocking, Ezekiel 23 is one of the most sexually sickening passages in Scripture (rivalled perhaps only by Ez. 16). To communicate the heinous nature of Israel’s deep-seated refusal to trust God and instead to seek protection and status through political alliances and idolatrous worship, God gave Ezekiel a revoltingly graphic allegory that depicted Samaria (the capital of the Northern Kingdom) and Jerusalem (the capital of the Southern Kingdom) as two ravenously licentious sisters. Fornication, in various forms, is mentioned 24 times in 48 verses. Unique words describing genitalia and sexual promiscuity that are only found in Ezekiel are found in this passage. As instances of this vulgarity, these sisters’ “virgin nipples were squeezed” (v. 4, 8, 21) and Oholibah lusted after her paramours, “whose horse-and-donkey-like genitals gush forth semen” (v. 20). The natural result of Israel’s sexually depicted political escapades was defilement, and the appropriate initial, emotional response to this defilement is disgust.

As Ezekiel listed the defiling acts of Oholah (v. 5–10), and then lists Oholibah’s even more defiling acts (v. 11–21), two parties see this defilement and become disgusted: Judah and God (v. 17–18). Significantly, after Judah was defiled by the Babylonians, she was disgusted by them, instead of herself. Yet, God was disgusted with Judah as he had been with the Northern Kingdom. Therefore, God promised to use the very nations with whom Judah was disgusted to execute harsh judgement on her. The nation of Israel would be given over to terror and plunder so horrific that not only would her idolatrous and political lewdness cease (v. 27, 48), but all nations would be able to take warning and avoid these disgusting sins of Israel (v. 48). Thus, Israel would bear the penalty of their sins and “know that I am the Lord GOD” (v. 49).

In missiological history, the exile was a unique phase in which God’s holy people were removed from being a display nation to being a scattered people on display. The message of the prophets was often that God’s holy people had gone so far wrong in living as God’s redeemed people that God’s fierce judgement upon them would serve as a warning to the nations (e.g. Ez. 5:5–8). This judgement and displacement caused Israel to have a “massive identity crisis” as they struggled to know what it meant to be a landless and dispersed holy nation (Michael Goheen, Light to the Nations, 2011). Ezekiel’s message to the exiles occurred precisely during the height of this identity crisis.

God’s message through Ezekiel was designed to be an abrupt wake-up call that Israel’s new situation was the result of their sins and so that they would “know that I am the LORD”― a phrase which is repeated some 65 times in Ezekiel alone. This knowledge could only come after Israel realized the extent to which they had rebelled against God and his redemptive plan through them, and this painful realization, if truly understood, would have aroused unpleasant emotions.

Yet, it is crucial to note that even as Ezekiel’s messages are directly crafted to expose sin and its subsequent unpleasant emotions and consequences, this alone did not necessarily lead to repentance and a return to right living and the advancement of God’s mission. As seen in Ezekiel 23, while Israel is naturally disgusted with how broken and sinful she became, yet she blamed this on other nations and did not even see a need to repent. But God’s disgust with Israel’s sin led him to missionally prop up Israel as a negative display nation, so that all would know that the LORD is God, and that those Israelites with “hearts of flesh” would repent and live, once again, as God’s redeemed people (Ez. 11:19–20). Thus, though God’s mission is always catalyzed by unpleasant emotions, significantly, unpleasant emotion do not always catalyze God’s mission. In fact, in a broken world, and in the annals of Scripture recording ancient events within this broken world, unpleasant emotions rarely catalyze God’s mission, but instead result in further degeneration and sinful behavior. And it is to the exploration of this crucial distinction that we now turn in this next passage.

Sadness: Romans 9:1–3
Paul likely wrote his letter to the Roman church during his third missionary journey while he was in Corinth. It seems he had two main purposes in writing this letter to a church with whom, as of that time, he had not yet connected. First, as Paul had already fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum, he desired to next preach the gospel in Spain, by way of Rome, which would serve as a better sending base to the far western reaches of the Roman Empire than Antioch (Rom. 15:19–20, 24). Second, Paul addressed the preeminent conflict of his time regarding the role Jewish Scripture, religious, and cultural practices played in the newly multi-cultural, global church. This conflict would have been especially pressing in the church at Rome as, while its first believers were probably Jewish Christians who had travelled to Jerusalem for a ritual feast and had converted to Christianity (ex. Acts 2:10), all of the Jews had been expelled from Rome during Claudius’ reign (Acts 18:2). Only shortly before Paul’s letter to the Roman church had Jew’s been allowed to re-enter Rome, which would have brought the Jew-Gentile conflict into sharp relief.

In the larger context of Romans, chapter 9 is a turning point in Paul’s letter where he moves from discussing the universal claims of the gospel (Rom. 1:18–8:39) to the problem of Israel, who although the recipient and keeper of the Law and Prophets (from which Paul bases the gospel message), and the object of God’s covenants and promises, refuses to believe in Jesus the Messiah. To start this discussion, Paul strongly expresses the state of his heart towards his fellow Jews, almost as a proof for the unbiased nature of the difficult claims he makes over the next three chapters. And in a manner reminiscent of Moses’ plea to God in Exodus 32:30–32, Paul states that he could even wish to be accursed and cut off from Christ if this would save his Jewish brethren (v. 3).

Now, what could motivate Paul to undergo the worst possible fate he could imagine for the sake of his fellow Jews― to be separated from his Beloved, from whom nothing created could separate him (cf. Rom. 8:38–39) Verse two states Paul’s motivation as being the “great sorrow and unceasing grief” in his heart.

It is not difficult to understand the source of Paul’s immense sadness. Paul explicitly states that his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for [Israel] is their salvation” (Rom. 10:1). But, Israel rejected God’s salvation in Jesus and instead sought to establish a righteousness of their own through the Law (Rom. 9:32; 10: 3). Once again, worship was misdirected, shalom was broken, and unpleasant emotions were aroused― and these emotions catalyzed a lifetime of mission by one of the most eminent missionaries known to the church.

By now, the fact that sin and brokenness causes feelings of dissonance (i.e. unpleasant emotions) should be clear. However, the question arises, how or why do some unpleasant emotions catalyze God’s mission and others merely lead to more sin? Paul, and particularly this passage, acts as an exemplar of the former, proper result of unpleasant emotions. When unpleasant emotions are God-oriented in perspective, the resultant actions will reflect God’s nature (i.e. be godly). However, when unpleasant emotion are human/self-oriented, the resultant actions will reflect humanity’s depraved nature (i.e. be sinful). In this passage, Paul’s sadness concerning the lostness of Israel was so God-oriented in perspective (cf. Rom. 11:26, 1 Tim. 2:4), that he desired to act according to the supreme reflection of God’s character by sacrificing himself for the sake of others― just as Christ actually did. And because Paul could not actually sacrifice his soul for the sake of his people, he instead spent his life participating in God’s mission by proclaiming Christ as the Messiah to all who would listen.

Here is where love enters the equation. We know that God is love (1 John 4:8) and thus, love is defined by his character and by his actions. Therefore, everything that God does and feels is loving by God’s very nature. When something goes against God’s good and perfect will, this causes God to feel unpleasant emotions. As this is God’s response to sin, and everything God does is loving, therefore, the initial manifestation of God’s love in a sinful situation is an unpleasant emotion. And similar to physical pain, God designed emotional pain to catalyze one to act in a healing and restorative fashion in order to alleviate the pain. Just as God’s mission in Paul’s life was catalyzed by his sadness over the fate of the lost, which was the initial, realistic manifestation of God’s love, so, in a world full of sin, the proper response to brokenness is always emotional pain, which when God-oriented, catalyzes love. In fact, not feeling unpleasant emotions in response to sin and brokenness is actually a lack of love and a lack of a God-oriented perspective on the situation.

Fear: Mark 14:32–42
There are numerous simple examples in the Bible of how fear catalyzed the mission of God (e.g. the story of Esther). Similarly, there are numerous clear examples in the Bible of the three previously discussed unpleasant emotions catalyzing God or Jesus to act for His mission (e.g. Jesus’ anger in cleansing the temple). However, to best defend the validity of this missiological motif, let us now turn to a difficult case that some would attempt to use as a defeater in opposition to this thesis. Surely, fear was never a motivating factor for Jesus, was it? For, does not “perfect love cast out fear” (1 Jn. 4:18) and is not absolute trust in God’s goodness the unqualified antidote to fear?

There is only one story recorded in Scriptures of Jesus experiencing something akin to fear― that of Jesus’ impassioned prayers in Gethsemane immediately prior to his betrayal. Three of the four Gospels record this event, and in keeping with the belief that Mark’s account is the oldest and most primitive tradition of this narrative, this text will be the primary lens through which the others provide additional perspectives.

The setting, both historical and contextual, is well-known enough to merit but the briefest overview. Jesus and his disciples had just eaten the Passover meal and, as was Jesus’ custom (Lk. 22:39), they went to the Mount of Olives to pray. Immediately after this passage, Jesus is betrayed by Judas and the Passion narrative is resumed by all four Gospels, though with slightly different emphases. Yet, there are two elements to this passage that are not as obvious to the non-original audience.

First, Jews would have clearly understood that the Passover celebration did not end upon finishing the Passover meal. Psalms 113–118 would have been sung (see Matt. 26:30) and, according to rabbinic teaching, the celebration would continue until members of the company fell into a deep sleep― which was distinguished from a light sleep by the members’ ability to answer if addressed. This helps the modern reader make sense of Jesus’ desire for his disciples to stay awake and Matthew and Mark’s emphasis on the disciple’s sleepiness.

Second, the emotionally nuanced language used in the original Greek is obscured from the modern reader. In Mark, Jesus is ekthambeisthai and adēmonein (v. 33) and his soul is perilupos. Matthew’s account substitutes lupeisthai for ekthambeisthai (Mat. 26:37) and Luke merely uses the word agonia to describe Jesus’ emotional state (Lk. 22:44). Based on Thayer and Smith’s Bible dictionary, these words have the following meanings (Bible Study Tools, 2014):
• Agonia- 1) a struggle for victory, 2) severe mental struggles and emotions, agony, anguish
• Perilupos- 1) very sad, exceedingly sorrowful, 2) overcome with sorrow so much as to cause one’s death
• Lupeisthai- 1) to be sorrowful, 2) to be affected with sadness, cause grief, to throw into sorrow, 3) to be grieved, offended, 4) to make one uneasy, cause one a [sic] scruple
• Adēmonein- to be troubled, in great distress or anguish, depressed; this is the strongest of the three Greek words in the NT for depression
• Ekthambeisthai- 1) to be thrown into terror or amazement, 2) to be alarmed thoroughly, to be terrified, 3) to be struck with amazement, 4) to be thoroughly amazed, astounded, 5) to be struck with terror

Two points are clear from this brief survey. First, Jesus was experiencing a range of deeply unpleasant emotions. Second, Mark’s emotional language is the strongest and rawest, and also probably the least filtered of the three accounts. So the question arises, what did Mark mean when he wrote that was Jesus deeply depressed and thoroughly terrified?

Some interpret this account as emphasizing Jesus’ humanity. From their perspective, as he drew near the climax of his earthly ministry, he knew the depth of physical and even emotional pain the crucifixion and the accompanying separation from his Father would cause, and this terrified him. If this were true, then this type of fear would have been self-protective, thus human-oriented in perspective, and more a temptation to be resisted than an unpleasant emotion that could catalyze mission. While this viewpoint is possible, how does this concur with Matthew and Luke’s description of Jesus being deeply grieved and sorrowful as to death? Does intense self-protective fear lead to sorrow and depression? Perhaps, if the pain is a foregone conclusion and thus, the grief is self-focused over the inevitability of one’s distressing fate. This is even more so human-oriented in focus. But, to move beyond speculation and come closer to answering these questions, we must turn to the basic rule of hermeneutics and let Scripture interpret Scripture.

Hebrews 5:7 offers this perspective on Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane: “In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his eulabeia.” Eulabeia can be translated 1) caution, circumspection, discretion, 2) avoidance, a reasonable shunning, 3) reverence, veneration, 4) reverence toward God, godly fear, piety, 5) fear, anxiety, dread. The only other time this word is used in Scripture is Hebrews 12:28–29, “let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with eulabeia (NASB: reverence and awe); for our God is a consuming fire.”

Clearly, according to Hebrews, Jesus’ fear was not human-oriented in perspective, but was God-oriented. The terror Jesus experienced in the Garden was not from fear of personal pain, but of reverential awe and fear of God. This aligns with the two other usages of ekthambeisthai in Mark; the crowd’s reaction to Jesus when he descended from the mountain where he was transfigured (9:15) and the women’s response to the angel occupying Jesus’ vacant tomb (16:6). This terror of God was not the self-oriented terror the ungodly feel when they recognize their sinfulness in the presence of the Holy God, but was the God-oriented terror that leads to reverential submission and obedience.

Thus, armed with this insight, it is reasonable that Jesus’ immense anguish was the result of two interrelated emotions. As Jesus approached his death and the fulfillment of the purpose for his coming to earth, he was so gripped by the fear of God that despite the deep depression the prospect of being separated from and bearing the full wrath of God naturally caused him, he piously submitted to his Abba Father, “yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk. 14:36). And because of his fear, God heard (He. 5:7) and strengthened him (Lk. 22:43) in his missional resolve to be the Passover Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). Once again, a key distinction is noted between God’s mission being catalyzed by God-oriented unpleasant emotions, as opposed to human-oriented unpleasant emotions. And, in this climactic moment of Jesus’ life, that which catalyzed him to endure the cross― and to even consider the cross as a “joy set before him” (He. 12:1)― was the utter fear of the Lord.

NEXT STEPS

Paul Hiebert noted, “Comparatively little theological reflection has been accorded to the affective dimension [as opposed to the cognitive dimension]. Much more is needed” (Transforming Worldview, 2008). This is undoubtedly due to the decidedly larger quantity of culturally Western― and thus heady, logically oriented―theological material in existence, than there is from more emotionally oriented cultures. Yet, all humans are both emotional and analytical beings, and this dearth of reflection on the role of all types of emotions hinders the health and vitality of the church extant and the church on mission.

It should be noted that the global church does reflect and teach on emotions, however, the general teaching of the Western church, has been on the cultivation of “virtuous” emotions (e.g. the fruits of the Spirit) and the avoidance of “negative” emotions (e.g. Seven Deadly Vices). Little to no distinction is made between unpleasant emotions that arise from a human-oriented perspective (such as envy and wrath from the Seven Deadly Vices) and are thus, negative, and those very same emotions aroused from a God-oriented perspective, and are thus, godly. Yet, this distinction can have momentous consequences for the mission of God.

Take for example the typical cross-cultural missionary who is experiencing the trials, struggles, and pain of living in a different culture, in a spiritually hostile situation, far from the many support structures with which this missionary was accustomed. Cognitively, this missionary understands, believes, and even steadily desires that God be known and glorified among the people whom this missionary serves. Yet, on an average week, this missionary will experience every type and level of emotion. And often, because of the hostile territory and spiritual nature of missions, it is likely the number and intensity of unpleasant emotions will significantly outnumber the missionary’s experience of positive emotions. From my admittedly limited personal and anecdotal experiences, it is likely this missionary will be effectively told to push through these “negative” emotions and strive to feel more “positive” emotions. Oftentimes cliché verses and Christianese motivational quotes will be passed down from well-meaning mentors (e.g. “Count it all joy” and “Let go and let God”). Or, if the mentor is more emotionally aware and has kept up with the recent inclusion of emotional health as a part of healthy spirituality (e.g. Peter Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Spirituality), the missionary will be advised not to avoid the unpleasant emotions, but to let those emotions cause them to live in deeper dependence on God and desperation for God’s strength and grace to live in this broken world. Yet, what would it look like if that missionary were also taught the difference between unpleasant emotions arising from a human-oriented perspective and those arising from a God-oriented perspective? What if that missionary were encouraged to cultivate and harness the latter as the realistic manifestation of love in their context, and to allow those emotions to catalyze further missional deeds, thoughts, and attitudes to the glory of God among the nations?

This picture of how a better understanding of the role of unpleasant emotions in the mission of God could impact an average missionary makes this topic feel like one of weighty importance― at least from this missionary’s perspective. Yet, a crucial step is needed before this missiological concept can be widely understood and accepted. It must be made more accessible. The concept that the mission of God is always catalyzed by unpleasant emotions is likely not a new idea. But, until it can be expressed in language that is immediately understood and easily repeated, it will remain in the realm of academia and theologizing. Just as Piper’s statement “Missions exits because worship doesn’t” has become the global catchphrase for expressing the supremacy of God and goal of worship in missions, so the thesis and concepts in this article must be made more accessible. This is understood as a vital first step before this concept can be largely applied, and a primary aim in the publishing of this blog article.

Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. JCL.