David Powlison on Desire
by Phil Gons on April 4th, 2007
Justin Taylor has posted 16 excerpts from a chapter entitled “I Am Motivated When I Feel Desire” in David Powlison’s book Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture. Here they are:
- How does the New Testament commonly talk about what’s wrong with people?
- Why do people do specific ungodly things?
- But what’s wrong with wanting things that seem good?
- Why don’t people see this as the problem?
- Is the phrase “lusts of the flesh” useful in practical life and counseling?
- Does each person have one “root sin”?
- How can you tell if a desire is inordinate rather than natural?
- Is it even right to talk about the heart, since the Bible teaches that the heart is unknowable to anyone but God? (1 Sam. 16:7; Jer. 17:9)
- Doesn’t the word lusts properly apply only to bodily appetites: the pleasures and comforts of sex, food, drink, rest, exercise, health?
- Can desires be habitual?
- What about fears? They seem as important in human motivation as cravings.
- Do people ever have conflicting motives?
- How does thinking about lusts relate to other ways of talking about sin, such as “sin nature,” “self,” “pride,” “autonomy,” “unbelief,” and “self-centeredness”?
- In counseling, do you just confront a person with his sinful cravings?
- Can you change what you want?
You can also download the first chapter, “Counsel Ephesians,” as a PDF from the Westminster Bookstore.
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