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MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FEBRUARY 2020 • £2.00

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FEBRUARY

Cover: Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Published • The Record is produced by The Free Church of Scotland, Free Church Offices, 15 North Bank Street, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH1 2LS 0131 226 5286 offices@freechurch.org

CONTENTS

WELCOME TO THE FEBRUARY RECORD

his month, we are talking about mental health.

04 WHY ARE YOU CAST DOWN? The Editor

We all have mental health. All of us experience times when we feel down, stressed or worried. We all need to take steps to cope with these feelings — it might be rest, exercise or catching up with a friend which works best. Often the feelings pass, but sometimes they can turn into a more serious problem. Despite the fact that mental health is a part of everyone’s life, there is still stigma and discrimination attached to mental health problems. According to See Me Scotland, half of people think that someone in their workplace with a mental health problem would be unlikely to talk about it for fear of losing their job. In the church, we should be able to talk about the battles we are facing as we bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). In this month’s Record, some of our contributors share their own experiences of mental health. We hope this can be the beginning of a broader conversation in our churches. • Please send your comments on the magazine, letters, news from your congregation or suggestions for articles to: editor@freechurch.org or by post to the Free Church Offices.

SOME STATISTICS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH

WORLD NEWS UK, USA, Nigeria, Sudan, Israel, China

PRAYER DIARY

FREE CHURCH NEWS Induction in Lennoxtown, Free Church Youth Conference, Walk With Me Devotional, Pop Up Salon in St. Columba's, Giving Thanks

MY DEPRESSION JOURNAL Chris Stone

SPURGEON AND DEPRESSION: IN HIS OWN WORDS The Editor

MENTAL HEALTH AND STUDYING Thomas Davis

RENEWING YOUR MIND Roddy Rankin

ILLUMINED BY THE GIFT OF REVELATION William M Mackay

OBITUARIES: JOHN S. GRAHAM, KENNETH MURRAY

WHY DID GOD RAISE JESUS FROM DEATH? PART 3 Iain Gill

BOOK REVIEWS

KICKING FEAR INTO FREEFALL Dayspring MacLeod

MISSION MATTERS David Meredith

FEAR-TOGAIL MO CHINN Janet MacPhail

POETRY PAGE Dugald Buchanan

Yours in Christ John

If you think you might benefit from extra support with your mental health, get in touch with your GP. The mental health charity Mind (mind.org.uk) is a reliable source of information. If you want to know more about supporting other people with their mental health, start with Biblical Counselling UK (biblicalcounselling.org.uk)

40 POST TENEBRAS LUX Catriona Murray

That in all things he might have the pre-eminence Colossians 1:18 2020

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ETS NEWS

BY REV. THOMAS DAVIS

MENTAL HEALTH AND STUDYING

RISK NUMBER VIEWPOINTS

It’s an enormous privilege for anyone to have the opportunity to study a subject in detail; to learn, to grow and be trained. And to study theology and explore who God is and what he has done is probably the biggest studying privilege of all. Studying expands our intellects. It gives us knowledge. It provides insight that we didn’t have before. Studying is great for our minds. But at the same time, studying can be dangerous for our minds. There are risks and pitfalls that can hurt us, and that is true of every subject, not just theology. So this month, we are looking at some of these risks as we consider mental health and studying. tudying is brilliant.

FEAR

OTHER

Sometimes, embarking on study can leave us feeling vulnerable about what we believe. We can be nervous that studying other viewpoints might shake our foundations and leave us doubting. Will my faith be undermined? Will my background be challenged? And in wider study this is compounded by the fact that our culture tries to make out that our faith is irrational anyway, so the more you actually learn the less likely you are to believe. All that can leave us nervous. And to protect ourselves we can isolate ourselves or be defensive. We can view others as a threat and as a result we can keep ourselves to ourselves and end up isolated.

RISK NUMBER ONE: FEAR OF HUMILIATION When you start studying, one of the biggest difficulties is the feeling that everyone else knows far more than you. So you look around your class and you see people who seem to have read more than you, heard more than you, and know way more than you. People talk using fancy words, they mention famous authors and complicated books, all of which you’ve never even heard of, and you can be left thinking: I haven’t a clue what they are talking about. The result can quickly be a huge fear of humiliation. A fear that you will be shown up. A fear to show your weakness. A fear to ask questions. And the result is that you keep quiet, you struggle to grasp what is being taught and a flood of information that you don’t understand quickly overwhelms you.

RISK NUMBER FOUR: FEAR OF FAILURE When we start studying we want to do well, we want to honour God, and we want to reach the goal that we’ve set out to achieve. That’s a good thing. But it is all too easy to quickly set our expectations far too high. The result is that we can be disappointed with just a pass. We can be hard on ourselves for not getting a question right. We can be stressed because we haven’t read every page of a book that we thought we would. The result is huge pressure, most of which is self-inflicted. I have seldom come across a teacher who has been angry with students for not getting a certain grade, but I’ve come across many students who have been angry with themselves. The desire to do well is a good thing, but the fear of failure can be very harmful. All of these are pitfalls that we can so easily slip into. Fears, pressures, expectation and insecurities can plague us. And all of that can have a very damaging affect on our mental health. Consequently, instead of studying building up our minds, it can leave our minds badly bruised. Looking at my own life, I have fallen into all of these pitfalls, often more than once. And to be honest, I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t. So what is the answer? Well, this may sound a bit simplistic, but the answer is to look to Jesus. That’s because when it comes to studying, Jesus never humiliates. He never expects people to know it all.

RISK NUMBER TWO: FEAR OF THE COMPETITION Studying is geared towards results, usually in the form of grades. You write an essay, you sit an exam, and everyone is waiting eagerly for the results. They finally come, and other people have done better than you. For some, that doesn’t bother them. But for others, the urge to be competitive is a massive temptation. That’s where grades can be a blessing and a curse, an inspiration or an idol. As an inspiration, they motivate us to do better, to grow in knowledge and skill. As an idol, they motivate us to be the best, and to beat our rivals. The result can be a whole host of negative emotions, both towards others and towards ourselves.

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He won’t mock us for asking a question, nor will he judge us for not knowing an answer. Our lack of knowledge never ever makes us less important to him. Our value to him is shown by his grace, not by our grades. When it comes to studying, with Jesus there is no competition. As Christians, our rival is the kingdom of darkness, not each other. Our fellow Christians aren’t our opponents, they are our teammates. The fact that we are all united to Jesus by faith means that as well as there being no condemnation, there is also no competition for those who are in Christ Jesus. We study, hand in hand, side by side, as brothers and sisters in Jesus. When it comes to studying, we don’t need to be scared of other viewpoints. The truth of who Jesus is and what he has done is perfectly strong enough! The more we learn, the more we will discover how the Bible’s worldview is the only one that ultimately makes sense. And if in the light of Jesus’s truth we change our minds to become more scriptural, then that is only ever a good thing. Finally, when it comes to studying, the only expectations that really matter are those of Jesus. And his expectation is not straight ‘A’s, nor is it distinction, nor is beating your rivals. His expectation is to learn from him, to be faithful, to work hard in dependence on him, and to follow him wherever he may lead us. Studying can be hard. It can stretch our minds, and sometimes it can hurt our minds. But if we keep looking to Jesus, it will help us avoid these dangers. With our eyes on him, our growing minds will also be healthy minds. •

2020

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RODDIE RANKIN explores the marvellous complexity of the human mind.

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than being created by God and thereafter consciously waiting for our brains to develop. As connections in our infant brains multiply in response to the stimuli of our environment, our minds awaken, we become aware, and our personhood begins to assert itself. How this emergent mind can later exist without the brain which gave rise to it is a question whose answer requires more knowledge of the nature of the spiritual realm than we currently have.11 If we do attempt to delve deeper, we recognise the dependence of our brains on God’s mind. The particles that form the atoms and structures in our brains are not self-existent. They have properties, but particles do not determine their own properties. It takes a Mind to do that. That Mind is that of God, who speaks and the physical world comes into existence, and who upholds that world, along with our brains, by his word of power.12

o you remember the cartoon strip the numskulls?

Still running, it concerns the antics of several little men who are supposed to manage the various departments inside a human’s skull. The 2015 film Inside Out followed a similar formula, with a young girl’s head populated by tiny people who determine her emotional state. It’s all good fun, but it begs a question: do these little people have still smaller people in their heads running their lives? And so on. And when we think about what is inside our heads, do we also have a model where, for example, our eyes relay the outside world to a screen in our brain where a virtual numskull watches and guides us by what he sees? The true explanation is no less extraordinary, and is far from prosaic anatomy. You have no numskulls. You have a mind. Or, putting it more directly, you are a mind with a body. As this month’s Record explains, a healthy mind is a precious gift. It is also a marvel of God’s creative glory; a privilege of bearing God’s image.01 Our minds enable us to participate in the purposes of God’s creation as his fellow-workers,02 with a dignity granted us by the Lord himself. In this article let us behold the wonder of mind. To do so we shall exercise a talent unique to us among the creatures on earth: introspection. We will turn our minds in on themselves and describe what we see.

COMPLEXITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS As we would expect of something that gives rise to the phenomenon of the mind, the brain is complex. Its basic component is the neuron. Neurons are specialised brain cells. There are some 86 billion between your ears. They are relational cells which like to link up with their fellows in ways which represent and process the information reaching them from the outside world. Each neuron can connect with tens of thousands of others and hold highspeed ‘conversations’ with them. The most frequently used ‘telephone lines’ become hard-wired and determine memory, reflex and habit. The scale of the labyrinthine wiring of your brain far exceeds that of the World Wide Web! If this explanation tempts you to imagine the brain as an amazing machine, think again! Machines have outputs which can, at least in theory, be predicted by their inputs. The brain seems to defy this by generating consciousness. You probably take your self-awareness for granted, but it is the most surprising and unlikely phenomenon of the physical universe. Unlike a machine or computer, you know that you exist and your perspective is that you preside over your physical body. Machines react. You are proactive and intentional. They deliver results. You have experiences. Consciousness is a gift from God: the ‘I’ which corresponds to his ‘thou’. It makes meaningful fellowship with him possible. Consciousness is in every sense a revelation. How it kindles in the brain is an enduring mystery. It is a transcendent pattern, emerging like a Mexican wave, when millions of neurons coordinate in unison. It is the symphony heard when the whole orchestra plays; the opening of the peacock’s tail; a sunrise over a dark land.

MINDS AND BRAINS We begin with God. ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord?’03 We will never know the majesty of his thoughts,04 but we can be sure of one thing: he does not require a brain to think them. ‘God is spirit’05 and preexists the material world of brains and bodies. Also, angels are ‘ministering spirits’06 and they have minds. From this we draw a striking conclusion: minds don’t always need bodies! The apostles corroborate this. Paul says visions can take place ‘out of the body’;07 Peter that when he dies he will ‘put aside his body’ and continue his journey.08 So brains and minds are not the same thing. So long as our minds are embodied, however, they are interdependent. My mind will be altered if I use psychoactive drugs, or if I have a significant brain injury. Conversely, my brain will measurably change its structure if I repetitively practice mental skills like Sudoku or meditation. Today changes in blood flow to different areas of the brain can be imaged using fMRI scanners. These can be related to what the subjects’ minds are thinking, so that minds can be ‘read’ (in a very limited way) by looking at brains.

ORIGIN Where do our minds come from? This is a difficult question, and what follows is only one view. We are on safe ground if we simply answer: from God. If minds can continue without bodies, they appear to have a spiritual nature. And God is the ‘Father of spirits’ who ‘forms the spirit of man within him’.09 However, God often uses natural cause and effect to achieve his ends. Think of how David says God created him within his mother’s womb,10 where, in fact, biological processes were involved. Our experience of the genesis of our minds also suggests a biological origin. Our minds appear to develop in parallel with our brains, rather

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INPUTS AND OUTPUTS The way you experience consciousness depends on what perspectives on the world are available to you. These are supplied by the senses. The brain has sensors for balance, position, touch, pain and temperature. It can also detect certain chemicals through taste and smell, a particular range of sounds, and a very narrow band of electromagnetic waves through our eyes. Among other things it cannot ‘see’ are ultrasound,