My friend Ed Shaw is publishing an important book this week, addressing an issue which is a key issue in contemporary culture. The Intimacy Deficit is published by IVP on Thursday, and you can get a 20% discount using the code INTIMACY20 on the IVP website if you order today, before 19th June.
I interviewed Ed about the book—why he wrote it, and why he included some surprising elements with the book.
IP: It is fascinating that you start by noting how many people in our culture—quite outside the church—recognise that we are suffering from an ‘intimacy deficit’. How do you see this manifested—in the world around you, but also in your ministry as a pastor?
ES: There are the books: Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together on the harm done to relationships by technology or Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation chronicling the current mental health crisis and its roots in feelings of isolation and loneliness.
There is the harmful cultural insistence that intimacy equals sex – and the stats and stories that show that less and less people are enjoying sex. And the disturbing reality of more and more people (in our culture and churches) becoming enslaved by the false intimacy of pornography.
And there’s my twenty-five years of pastoral ministry that have demonstrated again and again that the main struggles people share with me (with their anxieties, addictions, relationships, loneliness) all have their roots in feelings of being disconnected from God, themselves, others and creation.
As a result, The Intimacy Deficit is a book written in response to our cultural moment and my church’s (and my own!) pastoral needs. I’m praying that it will help Christian and non-Christian alike – I’ve already used the material in an evangelistic context.
IP: It is not surprising that you focus on intimacy with God as Father as the beginning of your discussion. Do you see something distinctive about the language of ‘father’ in this context? How does this shape our reading of the way that Jesus talks about friendship with God, and friendship with his disciples?
ES: Yes! Talk of God as Father is such, if I can put it like this, emotionally intimate language. It carries so much freight in all our hearts and minds—due to our own experiences of fatherhood (both positive and negative). I think it’s so important that we don’t bypass the pain this language can bring to many people but instead allow the Gospel to slowly treat it. In my book I quote these moving words of James K.A. Smith (from his book on Saint Augustine):
At the heart of the madness of the gospel is an almost unbelievable mystery that speaks to a deep human hunger only intensified by a generation of broken homes: to be seen and known and loved by a father. Maybe navigating the tragedy and heartbreak of this fallen world is realizing this hunger might not be met by the ones we expect or hope will come looking for us, but then meeting a Father who adopts you, who chooses you, who sees you a long way off and comes running and says “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Many people have most felt an intimacy deficit in their relationship (or lack of one) with their fathers. The Gospel, so wonderfully summarised in the parable of the prodigal son, meets this deficit so beautifully in its picture of a dad losing his dignity in sprinting to welcome his errant child home. So many of us need to discover that Jesus’s parable is more than an emotionally powerful story but the spiritual reality of our lives today—a story we get to inhabit.
And then, for some of us, one of the lovely parts of growing older and independent of our earthly fathers, is the experience of developing a friendship with them too. The person who perhaps taught us to walk and talk becomes a person we now choose to walk and talk with (remember that friendships are relationships we get to choose). This development is one God is looking for too—for us to both behave like his children, and his friends: to be those that choose to spend time with him.
In the Old Testament two of the greats are referred to as friends of God (Abraham and Moses), in the New Testament Jesus applies the description to all of his disciples. Part of the depth of the intimacy of our relationship with God is how multi-faceted it is—it needs numerous different pictures, illustrations, descriptions, to help us begin to grasp how intimate he wants it to be.
IP: I was struck that, in each section, you explore the idea of intimacy (in different directions) before exploring the practical barriers to this and ways to engage with it. What made you approach each area in this way?
ES: A lot of ground clearance was needed to rescue talk of intimacy from just the bedroom. I also wanted readers (and myself) to be more gripped by the beauty of the intimacy, the connectedness, the feeling at home with, the sense of oneness, God wants us to have with himself, ourselves, others and creation before we explored what often stops us from enjoying them.
The practical barriers to the intimacy we need can feel insurmountable. I wanted to provide the motivation to scale the barricades and enjoy the intimacies God wants us to experience every day of our lives. That inevitably involves both winning people over to the concept intellectually and then helping people emotionally desire intimacy in each of these areas.
IP: I can see why suffering and sin might be barriers to intimacy with God—but happiness? Why might this inhibit our relationship with God as father?
ES: One of the readers of an early draft of the book reminded me how easy it is for those of us who are rich westerners to never enjoy real intimacy with God because our prosperity deceives us into thinking we are happy enough without him. Our apparent ability to live life independent of him undermines the dependent intimacy we were designed to enjoy with him as our father in heaven. Too many of us (me included) can at times (sometimes all the time) behave like spoilt children—enjoying the gifts, ignoring the giver. We take the riches of his grace for granted and shut him out of our lives.
IP: I was rather surprised at your next area of discussion—’intimacy with yourself’. Why do you think this is such an important issue? Are not Christian supposed to forget ourselves…?!
ES: Talk of forgetting ourselves can be a classic case of taking one thing the Bible says, without balancing it with other parts of scripture. Psalm 139, for example, gives a moving example of a believer delighting in himself. There are times when I’ve needed to heed the biblical call to be self-forgetful in serving others, there are times I’ve needed to better remember the skills God has given me to best serve others. In church life you want people that are good at putting others first but also know in what contexts God has equipped them to best do that: too many churches are full of people ineffectually serving others in ways in which God has not gifted them to help others.
I want people to have a life-giving appreciation of the unique range of gifts and experiences God has given them, the one-off body part he has made them to be, and to delight in being themselves in serving others. I talk of both knowing whose we are (our shared identity as God’s dearly loved children) and who God has made us to be (our unique identity as one-off divine masterpieces).
IP: We have talked previously about the importance of friendship, particularly for men, so I was not surprised to read about ‘intimacy with others’. But you say some startling things here—including suggesting that people are not qualified for Christian ministry unless they have healthy friendships. Why is this so important?
ES: Those who are starved of healthy, good intimacy go looking for it in unhealthy, bad ways. I see this in where I find my own mind wandering when I have allowed myself to become isolated and lonely. I’ve seen it again and again in those I pastor.
I also see it in the reports on some of the pastors who have recently been exposed as abusers. Their abuse can be explained (not excused) by the intimacy deficit they experienced in their lives—especially a lack of any meaningful, honest connection with peers who were real friends. Lacking this healthy intimacy, they’ve sought unhealthy intimacy in inappropriate ways with younger people.
In the pastoral epistles Paul gives us things that we should be looking for in church leaders. I think we’ve focused too much on someone’s platform persona (their preaching, their up-front performances) and not enough on their private persona (their hospitality, their everyday interactions with people). I’ve just employed someone whose preaching skills are comparatively untested but whose referees spoke in glowing terms of his friendship – I am pleased it is that way round. At interviews I now want to talk about people’s friendships and as part of our appraisal process, I want my church’s staff to do an intimacy audit of their lives (I do one myself in the last chapter of the book).
IP: As a committed gardener, I was delighted to explore your chapters on ‘Intimacy with creation’. Earlier this year I read The Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith, demonstrating the links between engaging with nature and mental well-being. But why should this be a theological concern?
ES: Because enjoying God’s creation, and creating beauty alongside him, are essential to our spiritual as well as mental and physical health.
Psalm 19 teaches us that the world around us speaks of God. The heavens, the stars, the moon, the sun, are a call to worship their creator. God is always using his creation to communicate who he is and his care for us. The Psalmist calls God our rock, Jesus tells us to consider the lilies. A walk in a garden will give us numerous opportunities to enjoy beauty that are there to connect us to God’s ultimate beauty. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins rightly saw the beauty of Jesus in a bluebell—I enjoyed doing the same on a coastal walk last month. My best times enjoying intimacy with God are spent out in his creation.
But intimacy with creation is not just nature rambles with spiritual spectacles on. It’s also taking seriously our positions as God’s vice-regents and caring for God’s creation—responsibly, sustainably, improving life on this planet. Finding out how God most wants to use us to create beauty is part of intimacy with creation too. We are both creatures and creators: I want people to consciously be creating beauty every day of their lives in all the numerous different ways that can be done.
IP: What is the one thing you would like people to take away from your book?
ES: That fully enjoying God, yourself, others and creation—living life to the full—is not something that is sequential, but that each of these reinforce the others. Intimacy with God is encouraged by intimacy with creation. Intimacy with yourself is enabled by intimacy with others. Together they are a virtuous cycle with Jesus, by his Spirit, empowering and enabling them all.
IP: Thank you so much Ed for your time—and for this fascinating book. I do hope it is widely read.
Ed Shaw is Pastor of Emmanuel City Centre Church, Bristol, UK and Ministry Director at Living Out. He has written widely, authoring numerous blogs and articles as well as the bestselling books, The Plausibility Problem and Purposeful Sexuality and forthcoming The Intimacy Deficit. Ed loves family and friends, church and city, gin and tonic, music and books.
The Intimacy Deficit is published by IVP on Thursday, and you can get a 20% discount using the code INTIMACY20 on the IVP website if you order today, before 19th June.
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I think one reason for a failure to develop intimacy with others is an inability to develop trust – particularly if you have had a history of experiencing betrayal, false expectations and disappointment.
Is “ourself” a real word? Shouldn’t it be “ourselves”? Or ‘myself’.
So a rich western evangelical member of the establishment decides to write on intimacy. No psychological or sociological analysis of existential angst, nothing on economic disinpowerment and nothing on the inherent misogyny of the God as father meme. A sad listless theology. But that’s what we can accept from the Neo Conservative evangelical reformed brand. Nothing to see here move along.
Perhaps Richie, like me, you haven’t yet read the book in question; so your comment might be considered a tad hasty?
I personally loathe everything about the USA Neo Cons who now seem to have captured the minds of those who lead the collective West – to deadly effect as everyone with a brain must be observing right now. But don’t equate their bitter views and intentions with evangelical thought just because some evangelicals may have foolishly allowed their minds to be captured! Such failings among God’s people have been a sad but constant theme through history, and the Bible constantly gives examples and warns against his people allowing their minds to be led astray by false teaching: our own Church of England is self destructing for exactly that reason.
Having a right and true narrative in our minds about how things really are with God, his creation, the human race, and ourselves as individuals is something every one of us Christians should constantly be seeking. For that reason I think an essential and frequent prayer is to ask God for wisdom and the will to act accordingly.
Why do you have a problem with God the Father?
Because theologically it limits the unlimited. It’s a metaphor based around a patriarchal society that is two thousand years old. It’s archaic .
If you believe in a scientific based theological standpoint, and understand basic psychology, biology, sociology anthropology and economics from a 21 st century understanding linking a concept of God to a Father figure is beyond a twisted metaphor completely illogical to modern secular thought.
Many of us have an understanding of love and compassion as a first cause but in no way see this more open liberal viewpoint expressed through a concept such as Lord Father or God as him.
It’s just a sad shiftless philosophy held together by rigid thinking Neanderthal concepts.
The Gospels were written in a patriarchal agrarian society that had no way to define God beyond its own sociological constraints.
That you ask the closed ended question PC1 reflects more on your own thinking style than on my huge dissatisfaction with a evangelical definition of intimacy linked to a possibly outdated psychological viewpoint of a facile interpretation of nuclear familial dynamics with no understanding of the sociology of Roman occupied Judea.
Basically the writer is just infantile in his analysis of intimacy without a broader sociological anthropological or psychological understanding of contemporary academic research.
So what metaphor for God do you think we ought to use in our modern age Richie?
For example, how would you restate the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer for contemporary audiences?
I assume you believe in God- yes?
Changing liturgy is always fraught and complex. How would those who want to keep an unchanged biblical view react to the below from Aotearoa NZ.
https://thevalueofsparrows.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/prayer-the-lords-prayer-from-new-zealand/
I’m not sure how we define belief ? I certainly have respect for an evangelical outlook that places a relationship with God as defined a loving compassionate centre of a well lived life.
But believing in the inerrancy and literal truth of a set of writing from a long past culture seems to me both unscientific and ethically dangerous if the reflections from those documents result in hatred bigotry and exclusivity where theological “truth” is definitive and fixed rather than free formed within a contemporary ethical and secular values.
Theocracy leads to terrible outcomes as we see played out over our media with war and division as rigid Theologies always leading to misery.
Surely it’s time to as John Lennon once sang Imagine …
Chris Bishop – Having read Richie’s posts, I think I share much of his concerns (although I’d probably find that his ‘solution’ or his own basic beliefs are poles apart from my own).
There has been a sinister change of language over the last 50 years. For example, approximately 50 years ago (when I was 7 or 8) I remember the grammar that we were taught in schools and use of ‘He’ (first person masculine). If (for example) you were a publishing house giving instructions to authors, you might write ‘He should write in 12 point type face. He should follow the house rules for presenting the bibliography’, etc … and this was correct grammar for a set of instructions intended for all authors, whether they were male or female. You also see this in translations of the works of Barth and Brunner, where the word ‘men’ is used to mean ‘all people’ and nobody thinks the authors are referring only to the male of the species.
So, 50 years ago, when one came across the concept of God as Father (as in the opening of the Lord’s prayer in Luke that you mention), I don’t really think that it would have occurred to anybody to attribute the specifically masculine points that are characteristic of an earthly male parent alone to God.
Hence, the ‘grievance culture’ feminists who weren’t content with language the way it was have a lot to answer for.
This feeds itself into an awful lot – and Richie is absolutely right in his general ‘misogyny’ complaint – but I’d say that this is not to do with ancient patriarchal society – and much more to do with what has arisen in the intrusive ‘nosey parker’ side of the ‘conservative evangelical’ side of pastoring over the last 50 years – where ‘God’ as ‘Father’ becomes more important, because they tell you how to get married, how to be intimate in marriage, how to bring up your family, specifically the role of the man and the role of the woman, how many male friends you need to have, etc ……
There is something very sick about all of this and Richie is absolutely right in this.
I think Richie’s comment is rather harsh, and I like a lot of what is said, but I also noted the exclusive use of “father” at the expense of “mother” or even “parent.”
Presumably in the book there is given a definition of ’intimacy”;
And what intimacy with God looks like or is experienced by God and man.
It seems from scripture that God is the prime mover/influencer of intimacy.
One cannot find God by searching how to be intimate with Him.
• Jesus says no man can come to him except the Father “draw” him. Cf. Hosea 11:4
• What does intimacy look like? Perhaps it starts with intimate knowledge as Adam knew Eve. I in Christ and Christ in me. John 15:6 Cf. Prov 9:10b
The prophets had an intimate knowledge of God, in particular His Holiness and it’s impact upon them and informing their ministry.
Robb Brunansky has a good study on this in “How the Holiness of God Changes Us”
@https://founders.org/articles/how-the-holiness-of-god-changes-us/
It is the 4th part of a four part series, well worth reading the whole series .It seems foundational to enjoying being intimate partakers of His Nature.
The style of the article is disturbing, because it is difficult to see that it has been written from a Christian point of view. I wonder who are the ‘we’ in the title – i.e. those struggling with ‘intimacy’ (are they Christians or not)? And I wonder what precisely is meant by ‘intimacy’ here – since (a) I don’t see the term in the Holy Writ and (b) in trash-culture (i.e. columns of newspapers such as Telegraph and Guardian) the word is used as a euphemism for exactly one thing (i.e. having-it-off) – and right at the beginning we’re told that this (modern use of the word ‘intimacy’) is not what the author means by it.
Let’s go back to the basic problem, which is sin, refusal of people to acknowledge that they are sinners before a Holy God, refusal to accept that through their trespasses and sins they have become ‘worthless’ – and that the crucifixion was necessary. ‘Blessed is he who is not offended in Me’ (Matthew 11:6) – i.e. those who are under conviction of sin. The love of God has to be seen in this context – and when a person is convicted of his sins and, from this starting point comes to believe in Him – that in His crucifixion and His resurrection, the person’s own sins have been dealt with, were nailed to the cross and he bears them no more – it is at this point that he has an understanding of God’s love for him. At this point everything else falls into place, communion with God (‘intimacy’ I suppose if you like that word), communion with fellow Christians (basically what the Apostle’s Creed says about ‘communion of saints’ – both the horizontal aspect, communion with other believers) and the ‘vertical’ aspect – communion with God).
We don’t have ‘intimacy’ with unbelievers – not in any real sense – so it’s difficult to see how the book can ‘help Christian and non-Christian alike’ – unless the aim is to convict people of their sins, lead them to trust in His atoning work at Calvary – so that they are no longer ‘offended in Him’.
Jock, you say:
‘ it is at this point that he has an understanding of God’s love for him. At this point *everything else falls into place*, communion with God (‘intimacy’ I suppose if you like that word), communion with fellow Christians (basically what the Apostle’s Creed says about ‘communion of saints’ – both the horizontal aspect, communion with other believers) and the ‘vertical’ aspect – communion with God).’ (I have emphasised one statement).
Maybe it would be a good idea to get the book and read it, Jock. Your claim here (the one I emphasised) is just so obviously false.
Jock, maybe part of the problem is in your statement ‘I don’t see the term in the Holy Writ’. Sorry, ‘linguistics’ again! But this statement shows absolutely nothing.
Bruce – you took my statement out of context. I did point to the standard ‘trash-culture’ meaning of the word – and pointed to the fact that the author stated explicitly that he doesn’t mean that. If a word, which gets used as a technical term for something, appears in Scripture, then theologians have pored over it and discussed it – and we instantly have at our disposal one, or several, working definitions. If a word is used as a standard technical term for some aspect of the Christian faith, then even if it doesn’t appear in Scripture, theologians will have discussed what it means – and we’ll have some working definitions (and presumably some discussion and argument as to what it can mean). The word ‘intimacy’, as far as I can see, just drops from the sky; I have no reference point. Even if I were to look up a dictionary, I still do not know that the definition I find is what the author means – it somehow seems ‘off the wall’. He could have tried using terms like ‘communion’ (where many theologians have discussed what ‘communion of saints’ in the Apostolic Creed actually means) or ‘fellowship’, but he didn’t.
‘If a word, which gets used as a technical term for something, appears in Scripture, then theologians have pored over it and discussed it – and we instantly have at our disposal one, or several, working definitions.’
But, Jock, that’s exactly the problem — as James Barr pointed out all those years ago. We need to read what a writer says in whole statements. And there are enough clues in the article to understand what Ed and Ian ‘mean’ without going to a dictionary.
Bruce – well, I personally am of very little brain – and I confess that I didn’t (and still don’t) pick up these clues – and am still unsure of what exactly what Ian and Ed meant.
Bruce – at this point, I might accuse you of ‘lack of intimacy’ in some sense – because I know that you object to some very basic things about my own faith – but I confess that at this point I have no idea about your own faith – whether you believe, or whether or not theological discussions are, for you, a purely intellectual exercise.
Everything does fall into place. It may not fall into place immediately – because those who have come to believe and therefore have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come may not fully appreciate the power of the Spirit. Indeed, we understand from Romans 7:14-25 (written in the present tense, by a mature believer) that there is always the down-drag of the sinful flesh.
So I recommend that you try coming to faith – the starting point for which is to acknowledge your own sinfulness before a Holy God and, from this basis, appreciate the love that God has for you (John 3:16) – which is not based in any worth that you might have (Scripture tells us that we have all become ‘worthless’); Scripture never explains why He loves us – this is the great mystery of the gospel. When you come to believe in Him, he gives you the Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come – and when you have that, we can start talking.
If we all have the same Holy Spirit dwelling within us, then communion, fellowship, ‘intimacy’ if you like, both with each other and with God, should be a corollary to this. You are right that it may not be automatic, but if you haven’t come to faith then you know nothing about this. I decline to buy – and read – the book, because the author had a whole column to advertise it – and all the magic words to convince a believer that he was addressing people of faith – were missing. The column could have equally been written by a proponent of the ‘synthetic gospel’, where the inherent sinfulness of each and every one of us (in short – the need of a Redeemer) gets airbrushed out.
‘I know that you object to some very basic things about my own faith’. My apologies, Jock, if this is what you conclude from my questions. I do not intend this.
What I do often object to are silly statements about how language seems to work in communication. But also to statements that *seem* to suggest that living as a Christian person is somehow ‘automatic’ or based on ‘formulas’ which, you must admit, we evangelicals are good at doing. So Jock, is, ‘everything does fall into place’ one of those formulas?
Bruce – you basically confirm what I thought. By ‘everything’, I mean (of course) pertaining to this issue of ‘intimacy’ – and in particular the problems outline in this article which the author attributes to lack-of-intimacy and I’m stating something that I found true in my own life – which I attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Believers can actually relate to this – so that there is no necessity to expand the statement into a l-o-n-g essay to explain exactly what is meant. If you don’t relate to it – and if you consider it to be a ‘silly statement’ – then I conclude that your own life has not been touched by the Holy Spirit.
What do think God meant when he said it was ‘not good for man to be alone’ Jock?
I think he meant that it is not good for man to be alone. What do you think He meant?
I also think that man *is* alone (in the only sense that matters) when he is dead in his trespasses and sins (even if he does have lots of buddies) – and is no longer alone when he has fallen under the conviction of sin and – consequent to this – has come to believe in the Promised One. I also think that the authors of the Apostles Creed expressed it beautifully when the wrote ‘I believe in the communion of saints’ – where ‘saints’ mean those of us in the number of the Saviour’s family – we are not alone through communion (by the Spirit within us) with fellow Christians – and through communion with God – again through the Spirit within us as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.
I have always thought it a curious thing that after creating Adam (and before the fall), God stated that Adam needed someone like himself but different, in order to alleviate his aloneness. The animals and not even God Himself appeared sufficient. Thus came forth woman who met that need. Is this not telling us something about the need for intimacy?
Chris – yes – and I don’t think that any Christian would disagree with you – so I don’t really understand the point you are making (although, as others have pointed out here, it would be good to have a working definition of ‘intimacy’).
The whole point, though, is that the starting point for ‘communion of saints’ is actually getting into the number of the *saints*, i.e. belonging to the Saviour’s family. Belonging to the Saviour’s family requires not being offended in Him (i.e. not being offended by what the whole business of the crucifixion and resurrection implies about our fallen sinful state – in short that we are so worthless that Christ actually had to die for us).
I also believe that once people really have been brought to faith, then communion with others who are in the number of the Saviour’s family (‘intimacy’, if you like – to use the terminology of the article) is a straightforward corollary. The difficulty (which requires a miracle) is coming to faith.
The article isn’t primarily focused on boy-meet-girl – and in fact, I don’t see much of this at all in the article – so it’s not about that. It talks of ‘intimacy with God’ – which I would say is a corollary of conviction of sin coming to faith (properly understood). The article puts Psalm 139 under the heading of ‘intimacy with self’ – again, a corollary of conviction of sin and trust in Christ and his atoning work at Calvary as the remedy. Psalm 139 is a really important psalm – and you have to be ‘in Him’ to understand and appreciate it.
I didn’t see ‘conviction of sin’, the process by which people come to faith – in fact any working definition of ‘faith’ described in the article and, in fact, quite the opposite; the book is intended to ‘help Christian and non-Christian alike’.
As Christians, we know that the *only* remedy for an ‘intimacy deficit’ (to use the terminology of the article, with what I think is the intended meaning) is conviction of sin and, based on this, believing in Him (John 3:16) that through His atoning work, our sins were nailed to the cross and we bear them no more – and that Jesus loves us; any ‘intimacy’ springs from this love.
God does not state that Adam needed someone like himself but different, He stated that he needed a helper suitable for him.
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, that is another being like the earthling.
But God declares it’s not good for man to be alone before the Fall. The problem can’t be attributed simply to sin.
AJ Bell – very true. The problem can’t be attributed simply to sin – but the *remedy* for the problem does require, as its starting point, a right relationship with God. As it says somewhere, ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God and then all these things shall be added unto you’. Getting a right relationship with God does require acknowledging our own sinfulness and trusting in The Promised One (those of us living post-crucifixion know that this is Christ Jesus).
God remedied the problem in the Garden of Eden *before* the fall, when (presumably) Adam was still in a right relationship with God.
Your point is an extremely good one – and touches on the whole business of why God created the creation and mankind in the first place. I don’t really want to get into things that I don’t understand and where I’m perhaps in danger of blaspheming if I get it wrong, but tentatively – not only was it not good for man to be alone – God’s glory was completed by the creation and being in relation with it. The communion that we (the saints) have with God and with each other through the Holy Spirit (which the author seems to describe as ‘intimacy’) is also to the glory of God.
Communion with God, a book by John Owen, (Banner of Truth?) is to be commended. ‘Knowing ourselves,’ is the title of the 10th chapter and it is set in the context of having fellowship with the Son of God with the Holy Spirit sent to ‘convince the world of sin, of righteousness and judgement’. That is the beginning, the core, essence, of knowing ourselves and fellowship with Jesus.
Fellowship is also considered.
Can’t recall whether it is in this book or in some Sinclair Ferguson talks where the answer to you question, why? is addressed.
But I recall that Matthew Henry in his whole Bible commentary, wrote, the best fellowship together, is fellowship together with God.
For anyone who has come close to that, it is to be treasured, affecting as it can be.
Owen’s chapter ends:
God’s purpose is to glorify himself and none can aim at this purpose except those who are in Christ Jesus.
So the whole wisdom of our walking with God is hidden in Christ and comes to us from him alone.”
On first reading of this conversation, I felt that it seemed
wrong on some levels.
Not wishing to quench the author who was addressing a felt need
for intimacy generally and with God specifically;
I felt however that his book seemed to be of a psychological self- help type of book.
There may indeed be a more nuanced content in the book.
Perhaps it was the nature of the Questions that was deficient.
Who was the book’s target readership? People in general, Christians in particular or both/and.
On can read the comments of those that have read the book
Google- Critique The Intimacy Deficit,” by Ed Shaw
Benefits and Deficiencies noted.
In the book of Acts, it said that believers came together and had ‘everything in common’. There must have been youngsters in that number of 3000+ who received intimate advice from other than their parents – on how to behave, how to speak, how to treat others. I would suggest that even in the most Jesus-like fellowships these days that there is not a like sense of community. As a population, we have become so individualistic that we resent interference in our ‘private’ lives.
When I was small, our family lived in a cul-de-sac but my mum, even though she could talk to her neighbours about Jesus, would caution us not to talk to them about ‘family business’.
It is often overlooked that the moral panic in mid-lateVictorian times which included the Oscar Wilde scandal made a considerable dent in what was considered acceptable male/male intimacy, and even now such matters are somewhat distorted.