I think the “ want” in the current culture is all being driven by immediate gratification without regard to self or others. Discernment of the benefit or harm has been slowly disabled till it is no longer present because the loss of understanding what God wanted for Man/woman. When we no longer hear, teach or read the true Word we only hear our sinful self’s and the devil’s desires. Even natural law which was once commonly understood faded.
I'm not sure that want/will is the right distinction. You use your will to get what you want, or you use what you want to direct your will.
I think the issue is that the culture is working to bend us to look inward at what we want, rather than outward to see how we can serve. No man serves two masters, so if we can be made slaves to our own desire (and call it "FREEDOM!!") then there is less risk of us becoming slaves to Christ.
A root cause of our cultures desire to justify our wants as being right is our lack of understanding of original sin. Since we no longer believe ourselves to be inherently evil or corrupted by sin why should we believe our desires could ever be evil either?
I think this nails it on the head. Our culture has no concept of original sin, and this is the root to me of this issue (and a host of other cultural issues, too).
Some language I've found helpful is the language of the heart, as mentioned in the video. Our culture (I'm in Canada, this goes for the US too, I think) loves to talk about "following your heart", and built into that idea is that the heart (and without knowing it, the culture uses the Biblical idea of the heart as the centre of one's being when they talk about this) is the only thing that can truly guide a person towards a better sense of one's own identity, purpose, etc. And of course, built into *that* is the unspoken assumption that our hearts are infallible in guiding us.
I like to call it "Roxette theology", from that long-ago hit "Listen to Your Heart".
One of my primary answers to that is Jer. 17:9 - "the heart is deceitful above all things..."
It's another one of those issues where Christians and the surrounding culture use the same word but mean completely different things. For us, we distinguish between the heart of stone and the heart of flesh, but our culture doesn't. The heart is simply "your deepest desire", with no qualification about whether those desires are good or not. While a repugnant idea to us Christians, it's perfectly understandable that this is how our culture operates, because the self/heart is the only arbiter of "good" for a person. It's almost a tautology: whatever the heart wants is good; those are the same thing. So, "evil" in our culture has come to mean "preventing someone from following the heart", because that's preventing that person's so-called "good" from being manifested.
This doctrine of original sin is actually so foundational to Christian Theology that I don't believe you can be a Christian without it. This is why modern Christianity is mostly just a self help program. We are basically good people we just need a little guidance. Jesus is just a role model. The failure of the church to teach the true status of the human condition has left us with no need for a true Savior. Essentially we are our own gods. I believe the failure of society finds it's roots in the failure of the church.
I am thinking that I was told that we are not basically good people. A little guidance is not enough. I think I understand what you trying to say, but depending on ourselves for guidance is the devil deceiving us. Knowing that we are saved through Christ is our only hope. We are sinners and we were born into sin. We are not good. But we can do good works according to God’s Will. I believe that doing good works according to His will gives us joy. Joy vs. happiness is a big difference. You can have joy without happiness. When we do things for happiness, that is when we fall astray.
Correction: After rereading your comment, I realize now that you do not feel that “we are basically good people, just need a little guidance”. You were really quoting what the ‘liberal’ churches are try to say. Sorry if I misunderstood you.
Yes I was quoting what liberal churches believe, not what I believe. Sorry if I was confusing. I believe we humans are inherently evil and can only be redeemed by the work of Christ, not our own efforts.
I wonder if the distinction between will and want is actually a useful one; my guess is no. Flesh and spirit is likely the more important difference: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16-17)
Paul uses "desire" and "want" as synonyms, but ascribes them to both the flesh and spirit (and those are opposed to each other). Paul uses similar language in Romans 7:14-20.
I think the secular world, especially the current culture, is not concerned about what God's Will is for their lives. They are fixated on emotion and selfish desires. As Christians we strive to base our decisions on what God would have us do, such as who would God have us marry? Our choices hopefully will be a lot different looking at the Christian perspective on marriage vs "love is love."
I got the following from the Mad Christian (Fisk) some time ago--it is only tangential to your posting but it does address wishes/will: Fatalism sees everything getting worse and cringes in anxious despair. But learning to see every challenge as an open door that you would have missed if things had gone the way you planned is the adventure God created you for. If all the dreams you ever had are never going to come true now, then that means it is time to start having better dreams. It is not deciding what you want to do that matters. It's learning what you can do, and then doing it. Everything else is just a fancy story to distract you from the prophecies that already came true.
The Word of God is my only source of reference in these dilemmas. The Holy Bible is God breathed to explain His nature and His will for His children. I see and hear the debates form Pastors and our brethren about issues like marriage. There is no debate only Godly instruction and wisdom. God created male and female in His own image. Then rest assured a three strand chord is not quickly broken. There are no legal loopholes.
The following thoughts may be helpful, taken from a piece I wrote on a related theme:
'Perhaps this is why John Calvin suggests, “The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy that it often deceives itself.”
Without eyes focused firmly on Christ, Christians are not exempt from this self-deceit.
Is it not true that even those who are being transformed to be more Christ-like, contrary to their ultimate longings to live in communion with God, still fall short of the perfection of Christ? Are they not at war with their own tendencies to manipulate God for their own purposes? Surely we all at times need to be dragged back into Job’s quivering boots to be confronted once again by the truth about our place before God as mere mortals?''
I think that when we feel or want something, this is thinking with our hearts. The heart is a fickled thing. And, I was told that our heart lies to us and not to trust the decisions made with your heart. Because when you do, you are making decisions on feelings. When we think with our minds instead of our hearts, we will make better decisions on what we know.
And, if you are not sure what you know, research it until you do. The Bible addresses all subjects in life and how we should live on earth. What we should be thinking. What we should be doing. Research the Bible for answers and make decisions on what you know or what you have learned. I think that people who go to those happy clappy liberal services live and think with their hearts and what they feel. They are not making decisions with their brains on what they know…. no matter how many times they are told the truth or what the Bible says. They live according to their hearts.
When the devil throws our sins in our face, it makes us feel bad and our hearts feel heavy. This turns us to Christ and what we know is the truth. When a person does not turn to Christ when they are feeling sad, they will make decisions on feelings and not the truth of what we are told or what we know. When a person lives according to their hearts, they are always going to be chasing happiness. We should be living in the joy we get with what we know….. Christ.
That is why I do not forget to pray on making my heart more clean. And I thank God for my heart He has created, as I‘ve noticed already I do not struggle much when I realise that what I want is actually different from what I need. I rationalize my strong wants, and if it is not what I can afford or if I understand it is not good for me, I just simply understand that is not what I need, and I forget or trying not to bother myself about it. It is very easy for me with everything what can be bought, and it is difficult with the rest. But with the rest I also try to rationalize if possible, and sometimes it does not make sense at the moment, it is difficult, does not bring any joy, sometimes I have to struggle a lot, but I stay committed to old decisions and not chasing my sudden want. I believe endurance and loyalty are very important (it‘s in the Bible). Constancy as well. Simplicity.
Sometimes, when we struggle, we need to find the deeper root of why we are struggling. It seems like there is always a deeper root to our motives. Finding and addressing the root can lead to joy.
I think the explanation to the 1st Commandment is helpful here.
We don't always fear, love, or trust God because we fear, desire, or trust in something or someone else (often ourselves, but not exclusively).
When we desire something (or fear losing what we desire), we make our will subservient (or even enslaved) to our desires.
When our conscience bothers us about fulfilling our desires (because the law is written on our hearts), we then need to re-define good and evil for ourselves in the hope this will appease our conscience. So we attempt to turn what God has given us as something good for us as something undesirable, and turn what God says isn't good for us into something desirable or even honourable. This is a form of self-justification.
When we're so curved in on ourselves, our desires become our prime goal and we only trust in ourselves to get it (or seek someone who will fight for us to get what we want). Unfortunately, the world will often give us permission to serve our own desires (or make our selfish desires as a 'noble' thing to fulfill) as it too rebels against submitting to fearing, loving or trusting God.
I don't think the Respect for Marriage Act is about letting people marry who they want; it's about forcing acceptance of the decision to marry who you want, regardless of who (and specifically gender) it is. It is a political act designed to forestall any fallout if/when the Supreme Court invalidates the Obergefell decision.
My apologies if someone has already said this but my first thought is: 10 Commandments in News. Not that this is a news story but this simple 'game' has been such a HUGE blessing in my mind & life for locating where a topic fits in the triune God's paradigm. From there being able to comprehend God's thoughts about what's happening which typically reveals when and where things go off course into sin. ANYWAY, my first thought in considering this is that this is a 1st Commandment issue, who is god? Who gets to decide? Who is in control? The Lord has graciously given us so many gifts and freedoms BUT He has also retained the things which are His (ie you can eat from every tree, except for one). Now, some of this also connects to culture and the sinful realm of the world (which we are separated from in so many ways) BUT I think the Christians understanding of these things is helpful in two ways. 1) It helps the Christian to truly cut directly to the correct issue and 2) it prepares the Christian to be ready to partner with the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the world(sinners) of their sin for the purpose of their salvation (Psalm 51 . . against You, and You only have I sinned).
Some of this also relates back to which Article of the Creed will we be martyred for? Probably not the Second or Third but most likely the First and not just for 6th commandment issues but ultimately for 1st commandment issues. Who is creator? Who gets to decide? Who is God the Father? . . . . Is it the government? Is it the individual? Is it our feelings? or is it God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and Earth, the Father of Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord . . . who has given us His Word to direct us in ALL life and godliness.
Lord have mercy! May the work of the Holy Spirit rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Thanks for the thought-provoking video. It put me in mind of a lecture/sermon called 'The Expulsive Power of a New Affection' by ol' Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847). He reflects on 1 John 2:15 and says 'the way of expelling from the heart the love which transgresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.' The whole sermon is just over 10 pages, and a great read. Might fuel some further thinking?
I find that American culture lacks clarity about want, desire, and will. In Romans 7 Paul talks about how his will is aligned with God's will but his desires are not, as evidenced by the breaking of the command not to covet (epithymeo). The NT Greek usage around desire is fairly consistent in terms of naming this kind of desire as problematic. I think English translations obscure the distinctive connotations of the this vocabulary, allowing readers to rationalize themselves out of the force of God's law rather than forcing us to reckon with the hopelessness of our condition apart from the full forgiveness of our errant desires. The reality is that we desire sinfully, as a reaction to what we see (cp. Matt 5), before the will ever gets a chance to weigh in, because that part of the brain operates faster than conscious thought, and will is conscious thought while epithymia is preconscious. At any rate, that's how I interpret Romans 7:19, "the good that I will (thelo) to do not, but the evil instead (namely, coveting epithymeo). So I see two challenges in translating these things into the context of people immersed in modern culture: one is the confusion about will and desire and the other is the changing cultural environment as it is influenced by modern philosophy and neuroscience. On the first point, I have concluded that "obsess" and "obsessions" might be reasonable translations for epithymeo: "Do not obsess over your neighbor's wife, or house, etc." Abstain from the obsessions of the flesh which war against your soul (1 Peter 2). In terms of managing how the will is seen in the emergent brain science, I appreciate the work of Jim Wilder in his most recent books, Renovated and Escaping Enemy Mode. Ian McGilchrist's book The Master and his Emissary is enlightening as well, on the differences between the right and left hemisphere's of the brain. Eventually, in order to disciple the nations among whom we live, the church will have to reckon with how to better translate the Scriptures into the present cultural context which is constantly shifting. Books like McGilchrist's are shifting our culture as we live and breathe. There is a lot to sort through, to carefully adhere to the meaning of the biblical text and make sense of it in experience. I think Wilder is on the right track, however, to shift the emphasis to relational attachments over willpower.
The will of natural/fallen man is in bondage to the wants/desires of the flesh. Man's will, as God created him, was willingly subservient to the Will of God and His Wants/Desires for us. We were created such that we naturally wanted to live in Agape Love toward God above all, and Agape toward the neighbor as the self. We were created to desire the neighbors welfare, to serve the needs of the neighbor. In the Fall, the will of man was turned in on itself and became self-serving. Morality has it's only absolute basis in the Law of God which describes the way God created us to live and was written on our hearts. In the Fall, this was corrupted. There is still a remnant of it reflected in "natural law", but evolutionary thinking has eroded this. If we were not created in God's Image, but evolved, then there is no absolute basis for morality, and the will of man is "free" to serve the wants/desires of the flesh.
1. Both our will AND our desires are corrupted by sin. Both our minds and our hearts are captive to Satan.
2. The Gospel does not change either our minds or our hearts. It brings into our lives the New Man, but it does not remove the Old Adam. Apart from the revelation of Scripture that tells us how a God-ordered life is lived (in the Commandments) and what it looks like (Christ Jesus), we have no safe guidance that would enable us to navigate the Way of Holiness, and in our flesh, we are incapable of perfectly obeying the Commandments or of walking in Jesus' steps.
3. Therefore, the life of constant repentance is the only God-pleasing response that we can have to this dilemma. As Paul wrote in Romans 7:22–25 (ESV)
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
I think the “ want” in the current culture is all being driven by immediate gratification without regard to self or others. Discernment of the benefit or harm has been slowly disabled till it is no longer present because the loss of understanding what God wanted for Man/woman. When we no longer hear, teach or read the true Word we only hear our sinful self’s and the devil’s desires. Even natural law which was once commonly understood faded.
I'm not sure that want/will is the right distinction. You use your will to get what you want, or you use what you want to direct your will.
I think the issue is that the culture is working to bend us to look inward at what we want, rather than outward to see how we can serve. No man serves two masters, so if we can be made slaves to our own desire (and call it "FREEDOM!!") then there is less risk of us becoming slaves to Christ.
A root cause of our cultures desire to justify our wants as being right is our lack of understanding of original sin. Since we no longer believe ourselves to be inherently evil or corrupted by sin why should we believe our desires could ever be evil either?
I think this nails it on the head. Our culture has no concept of original sin, and this is the root to me of this issue (and a host of other cultural issues, too).
Some language I've found helpful is the language of the heart, as mentioned in the video. Our culture (I'm in Canada, this goes for the US too, I think) loves to talk about "following your heart", and built into that idea is that the heart (and without knowing it, the culture uses the Biblical idea of the heart as the centre of one's being when they talk about this) is the only thing that can truly guide a person towards a better sense of one's own identity, purpose, etc. And of course, built into *that* is the unspoken assumption that our hearts are infallible in guiding us.
I like to call it "Roxette theology", from that long-ago hit "Listen to Your Heart".
One of my primary answers to that is Jer. 17:9 - "the heart is deceitful above all things..."
It's another one of those issues where Christians and the surrounding culture use the same word but mean completely different things. For us, we distinguish between the heart of stone and the heart of flesh, but our culture doesn't. The heart is simply "your deepest desire", with no qualification about whether those desires are good or not. While a repugnant idea to us Christians, it's perfectly understandable that this is how our culture operates, because the self/heart is the only arbiter of "good" for a person. It's almost a tautology: whatever the heart wants is good; those are the same thing. So, "evil" in our culture has come to mean "preventing someone from following the heart", because that's preventing that person's so-called "good" from being manifested.
So much more to say, but good pondering.
This doctrine of original sin is actually so foundational to Christian Theology that I don't believe you can be a Christian without it. This is why modern Christianity is mostly just a self help program. We are basically good people we just need a little guidance. Jesus is just a role model. The failure of the church to teach the true status of the human condition has left us with no need for a true Savior. Essentially we are our own gods. I believe the failure of society finds it's roots in the failure of the church.
I am thinking that I was told that we are not basically good people. A little guidance is not enough. I think I understand what you trying to say, but depending on ourselves for guidance is the devil deceiving us. Knowing that we are saved through Christ is our only hope. We are sinners and we were born into sin. We are not good. But we can do good works according to God’s Will. I believe that doing good works according to His will gives us joy. Joy vs. happiness is a big difference. You can have joy without happiness. When we do things for happiness, that is when we fall astray.
Correction: After rereading your comment, I realize now that you do not feel that “we are basically good people, just need a little guidance”. You were really quoting what the ‘liberal’ churches are try to say. Sorry if I misunderstood you.
Yes I was quoting what liberal churches believe, not what I believe. Sorry if I was confusing. I believe we humans are inherently evil and can only be redeemed by the work of Christ, not our own efforts.
I wonder if the distinction between will and want is actually a useful one; my guess is no. Flesh and spirit is likely the more important difference: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16-17)
Paul uses "desire" and "want" as synonyms, but ascribes them to both the flesh and spirit (and those are opposed to each other). Paul uses similar language in Romans 7:14-20.
Hope that's useful.
I think the secular world, especially the current culture, is not concerned about what God's Will is for their lives. They are fixated on emotion and selfish desires. As Christians we strive to base our decisions on what God would have us do, such as who would God have us marry? Our choices hopefully will be a lot different looking at the Christian perspective on marriage vs "love is love."
I got the following from the Mad Christian (Fisk) some time ago--it is only tangential to your posting but it does address wishes/will: Fatalism sees everything getting worse and cringes in anxious despair. But learning to see every challenge as an open door that you would have missed if things had gone the way you planned is the adventure God created you for. If all the dreams you ever had are never going to come true now, then that means it is time to start having better dreams. It is not deciding what you want to do that matters. It's learning what you can do, and then doing it. Everything else is just a fancy story to distract you from the prophecies that already came true.
The Word of God is my only source of reference in these dilemmas. The Holy Bible is God breathed to explain His nature and His will for His children. I see and hear the debates form Pastors and our brethren about issues like marriage. There is no debate only Godly instruction and wisdom. God created male and female in His own image. Then rest assured a three strand chord is not quickly broken. There are no legal loopholes.
The following thoughts may be helpful, taken from a piece I wrote on a related theme:
'Perhaps this is why John Calvin suggests, “The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy that it often deceives itself.”
Without eyes focused firmly on Christ, Christians are not exempt from this self-deceit.
Is it not true that even those who are being transformed to be more Christ-like, contrary to their ultimate longings to live in communion with God, still fall short of the perfection of Christ? Are they not at war with their own tendencies to manipulate God for their own purposes? Surely we all at times need to be dragged back into Job’s quivering boots to be confronted once again by the truth about our place before God as mere mortals?''
I think that when we feel or want something, this is thinking with our hearts. The heart is a fickled thing. And, I was told that our heart lies to us and not to trust the decisions made with your heart. Because when you do, you are making decisions on feelings. When we think with our minds instead of our hearts, we will make better decisions on what we know.
And, if you are not sure what you know, research it until you do. The Bible addresses all subjects in life and how we should live on earth. What we should be thinking. What we should be doing. Research the Bible for answers and make decisions on what you know or what you have learned. I think that people who go to those happy clappy liberal services live and think with their hearts and what they feel. They are not making decisions with their brains on what they know…. no matter how many times they are told the truth or what the Bible says. They live according to their hearts.
When the devil throws our sins in our face, it makes us feel bad and our hearts feel heavy. This turns us to Christ and what we know is the truth. When a person does not turn to Christ when they are feeling sad, they will make decisions on feelings and not the truth of what we are told or what we know. When a person lives according to their hearts, they are always going to be chasing happiness. We should be living in the joy we get with what we know….. Christ.
That is why I do not forget to pray on making my heart more clean. And I thank God for my heart He has created, as I‘ve noticed already I do not struggle much when I realise that what I want is actually different from what I need. I rationalize my strong wants, and if it is not what I can afford or if I understand it is not good for me, I just simply understand that is not what I need, and I forget or trying not to bother myself about it. It is very easy for me with everything what can be bought, and it is difficult with the rest. But with the rest I also try to rationalize if possible, and sometimes it does not make sense at the moment, it is difficult, does not bring any joy, sometimes I have to struggle a lot, but I stay committed to old decisions and not chasing my sudden want. I believe endurance and loyalty are very important (it‘s in the Bible). Constancy as well. Simplicity.
Sometimes, when we struggle, we need to find the deeper root of why we are struggling. It seems like there is always a deeper root to our motives. Finding and addressing the root can lead to joy.
I think the explanation to the 1st Commandment is helpful here.
We don't always fear, love, or trust God because we fear, desire, or trust in something or someone else (often ourselves, but not exclusively).
When we desire something (or fear losing what we desire), we make our will subservient (or even enslaved) to our desires.
When our conscience bothers us about fulfilling our desires (because the law is written on our hearts), we then need to re-define good and evil for ourselves in the hope this will appease our conscience. So we attempt to turn what God has given us as something good for us as something undesirable, and turn what God says isn't good for us into something desirable or even honourable. This is a form of self-justification.
When we're so curved in on ourselves, our desires become our prime goal and we only trust in ourselves to get it (or seek someone who will fight for us to get what we want). Unfortunately, the world will often give us permission to serve our own desires (or make our selfish desires as a 'noble' thing to fulfill) as it too rebels against submitting to fearing, loving or trusting God.
Shalom
I don't think the Respect for Marriage Act is about letting people marry who they want; it's about forcing acceptance of the decision to marry who you want, regardless of who (and specifically gender) it is. It is a political act designed to forestall any fallout if/when the Supreme Court invalidates the Obergefell decision.
My apologies if someone has already said this but my first thought is: 10 Commandments in News. Not that this is a news story but this simple 'game' has been such a HUGE blessing in my mind & life for locating where a topic fits in the triune God's paradigm. From there being able to comprehend God's thoughts about what's happening which typically reveals when and where things go off course into sin. ANYWAY, my first thought in considering this is that this is a 1st Commandment issue, who is god? Who gets to decide? Who is in control? The Lord has graciously given us so many gifts and freedoms BUT He has also retained the things which are His (ie you can eat from every tree, except for one). Now, some of this also connects to culture and the sinful realm of the world (which we are separated from in so many ways) BUT I think the Christians understanding of these things is helpful in two ways. 1) It helps the Christian to truly cut directly to the correct issue and 2) it prepares the Christian to be ready to partner with the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the world(sinners) of their sin for the purpose of their salvation (Psalm 51 . . against You, and You only have I sinned).
Some of this also relates back to which Article of the Creed will we be martyred for? Probably not the Second or Third but most likely the First and not just for 6th commandment issues but ultimately for 1st commandment issues. Who is creator? Who gets to decide? Who is God the Father? . . . . Is it the government? Is it the individual? Is it our feelings? or is it God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and Earth, the Father of Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord . . . who has given us His Word to direct us in ALL life and godliness.
Lord have mercy! May the work of the Holy Spirit rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Amen!
Thanks for the thought-provoking video. It put me in mind of a lecture/sermon called 'The Expulsive Power of a New Affection' by ol' Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847). He reflects on 1 John 2:15 and says 'the way of expelling from the heart the love which transgresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.' The whole sermon is just over 10 pages, and a great read. Might fuel some further thinking?
I find that American culture lacks clarity about want, desire, and will. In Romans 7 Paul talks about how his will is aligned with God's will but his desires are not, as evidenced by the breaking of the command not to covet (epithymeo). The NT Greek usage around desire is fairly consistent in terms of naming this kind of desire as problematic. I think English translations obscure the distinctive connotations of the this vocabulary, allowing readers to rationalize themselves out of the force of God's law rather than forcing us to reckon with the hopelessness of our condition apart from the full forgiveness of our errant desires. The reality is that we desire sinfully, as a reaction to what we see (cp. Matt 5), before the will ever gets a chance to weigh in, because that part of the brain operates faster than conscious thought, and will is conscious thought while epithymia is preconscious. At any rate, that's how I interpret Romans 7:19, "the good that I will (thelo) to do not, but the evil instead (namely, coveting epithymeo). So I see two challenges in translating these things into the context of people immersed in modern culture: one is the confusion about will and desire and the other is the changing cultural environment as it is influenced by modern philosophy and neuroscience. On the first point, I have concluded that "obsess" and "obsessions" might be reasonable translations for epithymeo: "Do not obsess over your neighbor's wife, or house, etc." Abstain from the obsessions of the flesh which war against your soul (1 Peter 2). In terms of managing how the will is seen in the emergent brain science, I appreciate the work of Jim Wilder in his most recent books, Renovated and Escaping Enemy Mode. Ian McGilchrist's book The Master and his Emissary is enlightening as well, on the differences between the right and left hemisphere's of the brain. Eventually, in order to disciple the nations among whom we live, the church will have to reckon with how to better translate the Scriptures into the present cultural context which is constantly shifting. Books like McGilchrist's are shifting our culture as we live and breathe. There is a lot to sort through, to carefully adhere to the meaning of the biblical text and make sense of it in experience. I think Wilder is on the right track, however, to shift the emphasis to relational attachments over willpower.
The will of natural/fallen man is in bondage to the wants/desires of the flesh. Man's will, as God created him, was willingly subservient to the Will of God and His Wants/Desires for us. We were created such that we naturally wanted to live in Agape Love toward God above all, and Agape toward the neighbor as the self. We were created to desire the neighbors welfare, to serve the needs of the neighbor. In the Fall, the will of man was turned in on itself and became self-serving. Morality has it's only absolute basis in the Law of God which describes the way God created us to live and was written on our hearts. In the Fall, this was corrupted. There is still a remnant of it reflected in "natural law", but evolutionary thinking has eroded this. If we were not created in God's Image, but evolved, then there is no absolute basis for morality, and the will of man is "free" to serve the wants/desires of the flesh.
1. Both our will AND our desires are corrupted by sin. Both our minds and our hearts are captive to Satan.
2. The Gospel does not change either our minds or our hearts. It brings into our lives the New Man, but it does not remove the Old Adam. Apart from the revelation of Scripture that tells us how a God-ordered life is lived (in the Commandments) and what it looks like (Christ Jesus), we have no safe guidance that would enable us to navigate the Way of Holiness, and in our flesh, we are incapable of perfectly obeying the Commandments or of walking in Jesus' steps.
3. Therefore, the life of constant repentance is the only God-pleasing response that we can have to this dilemma. As Paul wrote in Romans 7:22–25 (ESV)
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.