Interpretation Learning - Feb 2018

NO	ENGLISH	CHINESE
1	Romans 11: 36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.	羅 馬 書 11: 36 因 为 万 有 都 是 本 於 他 ， 倚 靠 他 ， 归 於 他 。 愿 荣 耀 归 给 他 ， 直 到 永 远 。 阿 们 ！
2	To practice faith	实践信仰
3	Court Hearing	法院听审/审理
4	Lent	大斋Zhāi期〔指复活节前的四十天〕
5	Ash Wednesday	大齋首日/聖灰星期三
6	Partisan	党派
7	Heed	注意
8	Impartial	公平
9	Untoward	不良
10	Candidate	候选人
11	Incumbents (the person who has or had a particular official position)	任职者
12	Boundary Delineation	界线划分
13	Propriety	适宜/以礼相待
14	Underhand	卑鄙的/手段
15	Malpractice	违法行为
16	Editorial	.编辑的
17	Media Coverage	媒体覆盖
18	Poll	投票/民意调查

Winning the Battle for your mind: Take captive every thought

Winning the Battle for your mind (Chapter 9)


“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭10:3-5‬ ‭NIV‬‬


Strongholds 

The main targets that must be destroyed are the "strongholds" in the mind. Strongholds are bad patterns of thought that are burned into our minds either through repetition over time or through one-time, deeply shocking experiences.



Threshold of a decision

The moment we are tempted to get a need met in the world instead of Christ, we are on the threshold of a decision. If we don't immediately choose to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ", we will begin to consider it as an option.



The Bible teaches us that God has provided a way escape for every temptation. But this escape is at the threshold. If you don't control the temptation when the thought first occurs, you run the risk of allowing the temptation to control you.



Expose the lie and you win the battle

Satan has no power over us except what we give him. When we fail to take every thought captive we can be deceived uni believing his lies. How?



1. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, by filling it with God's Word.



2. Prepare our minds for action. Follow through.



3. Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. What a thought pops into your kind that doesn't agree with God's Word, refuse it right away and choose instead to believe and act on the truth.



4. Turn to God in prayer.





Source: Stomping out the darkness by Neil T. Anderson & Dave Park (1993)

For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women

Key	Areas	Remark
1	Reassurance	It’s common for men to think that pursuing goes with dating, not with marriage. But women don’t see things that way. There is never that magic moment of closure, when they feel permanently, fully, deeply loved. They think that’s what the rest of married life is for! That’s why they need and deserve to be pursued every day.
2	Emotions	If she brings up old wounds, she may not be holding on to a grudge, but actually trying to process through it so she can resolve it, close the window and let it go. You can help by letting her – actually encouraging her – to process these things the way she probably needs to: by talking it through and having you listen.
3	Security	In fact, since what she wants is your time and attention (which creates emotional security), if you appear to give more time and attention to work, it appears that you are making work your priority. To her, that means that she is not your priority. That choice leaves her feeling distanced and unloved by you. Even if the main reason you’re busting your tail to show her your love.
4	Listening	For our wife, her negative feelings about a problem are the real issue. In other words, the feelings are what she is trying most to share and have understood, even more than the problem itself. Most men feel they have to fix areas of concern for the wife and family. But when he jumps in before I am finished, he proves he isn’t interested in listening to something that is important to me. This leaves me feeling devalued. 1. Acknowledge what her feeling is “You felt disappointed” 2. Affirm and sympathize with her feelings, even if you disagree with her thought “I am sorry you felt disappointed and it’s okay that you felt disappointed”
5	Sex
6	Beauty

For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women by Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn (2006)

Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

God’s Standard

Ephesians 5:3

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.

以弗所书 5:3

至于淫乱并一切污秽，或是贪婪，在你们中间连提都不可，方合圣徒的体统。

Page 92

Holiness is not some nebulous (模糊的) thing. It’s a series of right choices. You needn’t wait for some holy cloud to form around you. You’ll be holy when you choose not to sin. You’re already free from the power of sexual immorality; you are not yet free from the habit of sexual immorality, until you choose to be – until you say, “That’s enough! I’m choosing to live purely!”

Page 104-105

Your goal is sexual purity. Here’s a good working definition of it – good because of its simplify: You are sexually pure when no sexual gratification comes from anyone or anything but your wife.

Three parameters of Defence

1.       With your eyes.

Think of the first parameter (your eyes) as your outermost defense, a wall with “Keep Out” signs around it. It defends your eyes by covenant (as Job did: “I made a covenant with my eyes to bounce from objects of lust. Your eyes must bounce from the sensual, something they aren’t currently doing.

2.       In your mind.

With the second perimeter (your mind), you don’t so much block out the objects of lust, but you evaluate and capture them. A key verse to support you here is 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” You must train your mind to take thoughts captive, something it doesn’t currently do.

3.       In your heart.

Your third objective is to build your innermost defense perimeter – in your heart. This perimeter is build by strengthening your affections for your wife and your commitment to the promises and debts you owe her. Your marriage can die from within if you neglect your promise to love, honor, and cherish your wife. Honoring and cherishing are your key actions in establishing this defense perimeter. (And this applies even if you’re single: You want to honor and cherish every date, just as you hope every guy is honoring and cherishing your future wife when he goes out with her.)

So there’s your battle plan. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Setting up defense perimeters and choosing not to sin. You’ll have freedom from sexual impurity as soon as those defense perimeters are in place. Sexually, your outer life will finally match the inner life God created in you.

Page 108

Impurity of the eyes and mind lives like a habit but fights like an addiction.

Page 127 – 153

VICTORY IN YOUR EYES

To set up your first defence perimeter with your eyes, you want to employ the strategies of bouncing your eyes and starving your eyes as well as the tactic of taking up a “sword” and a “shield”.

Bouncing

Train your eyes to bounce away from sights of pretty women and sensual image immediately.

Starving

Adjusting/limiting/fasting the required volume of sexual gratification to some extent. By controlling the sexual images entering your eyes and min, your system may become used to living on less, but in the end, you still have a certain volume of sexual gratification you need to fill. The bowls of gratification should be filled from your single legitimate vessel, the wife whom God provided for you.

Sword

A single attack verse.

約 伯 記 31: 我 与 眼 睛 立 约

Job 31: I made a covenant with my eyes…

Shield

A protective verse that you can reflect on and draw strength even when you aren’t in the direct heat of battle, may be even more important than your sword, because it places temptation out of earshot.

歌 林 多 前 書 6

18 你 们 要 逃 避 淫 行 。 人 所 犯 的 ， 无 论 甚 麽 罪 ， 都 在 身 子 以 外 ， 惟 有 行 淫 的 ， 是 得 罪 自 己 的 身 子 。

19 岂 不 知 你 们 的 身 子 就 是 圣 灵 的 殿 麽 ？ 这 圣 灵 是 从 神 而 来 ， 住 在 你 们 里 头 的 ； 并 且 你 们 不 是 自 己 的 人 ；

20 因 为 你 们 是 重 价 买 来 的 。 所 以 ， 要 在 你 们 的 身 子 上 荣 耀 神 。

1 Corinthians 6

18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Page 158 - 188

VICTORY IN YOUR MIND

Properly processing the attractions, we can capture and eliminate impure thoughts.

歌 林 多 後 書 10

5 将 各 样 的 计 谋 ， 各 样 拦 阻 人 认 识 神 的 那 些 自 高 之 事 ， 一 概 攻 破 了 ， 又 将 人 所 有 的 心 意 夺 回 ， 使 他 都 顺 服 基 督 。

2 Corinthians 10

5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Starving the Attractions

We can shield ourselves from the early attraction phase until they become “only friends”. This proper processing is called starving the attractions.

In summary, you have a mind that runs where it wills. It must be tamed. Our best tactic is to starve the attractions, limiting the generation of impure thoughts and the damage they bring to our marriage relationship.

Defense

1^st line of defense -> Proper mindset: This attraction threatens everything I hold dear.

2^nd line of defense -> To declare: I have no right to think these things.

3^rd line of defense -> To heighten your alert (1. Bounce your eye, 2. Avoid her, 3. When you are in her company, play the dweeb呆子,笨蛋)

Some examples

         i.            Red alert! Red alert!

       ii.            Shields up! Shields up!

      iii.            I have no right to think these thoughts, and I have no right to return these signals!

     iv.            Spend absolutely no time alone with this woman, even in public spaces.

       v.            Flee from her.

     vi.            Prepare with “war game” simulations.

    vii.            Send absolutely no return attraction signals.

  viii.            Let them eat static!

     ix.            Play the dweeb.

To summarize: If you are attracted to a woman, it doesn’t mean you may never again have any sort of relationship or friendship with her. It only means you must enact your defense perimeter. Once you have starved the attractions and she’s safe distance away, you can have a proper relationship, one that is honoring to your wife and to the Lord.

Page 191 - 219

VICTORY IN YOUR HEART

Honoring and cherishing are your key actions in establishing this defence perimeter.

We’ve known very few men consumed by their marriages, and fewer still consumed by purity, but both are God’s desire for you. God’s purpose for your marriage is that it parallels Christ’s relationship to His church, that you be one with your wife.

To cherish

Means to treat with tenderness and to hold dear, and you want to feel the romantic urge to do those things, despite our feelings

I must protect her beauty and grace and spotlessness.

Touching Example

1. I began to treat her with tenderness, holding her dear in spite of my feelings. I decided to get up with my son every time he awoke at night even though Brenda didn’t work outside the home after Jasen was born. Logically, since she didn’t work and could rest at different times during the day, she could have been the one to get up. But she was married to me, and she was my little ewe lamb. I cherished her, helping her out when she needed it most. How could I do that? She was no longer the person I thought I married, and I didn’t always feel tender toward her, but I did it because it was right. The tender feelings followed later.

2. I made a promise to my wife that I would never go to bed with the kitchen dirty. I knew what that promise would cost me. Because of her exhaustion, it meant she would often head off to bed and leave me alone to do all the dishes and scrub all the pans. It meant that often she would be asleep when I got to bed, and I would miss out on sex. It meant that I would miss out on precious sleep, but I also knew that I could cherish my ewe lamp in ways she never thought possible. I never broke my promise.

撒 母 耳 記 下 12

1 耶 和 华 差 遣 拿 单 去 见 大 卫 。 拿 单 到 了 大 卫 那 里 ， 对 他 说 ： 在 一 座 城 里 有 两 个 人 ： 一 个 是 富 户 ， 一 个 是 穷 人 。

2 富 户 有 许 多 牛 群 羊 群 ；

3 穷 人 除 了 所 买 来 养 活 的 一 只 小 母 羊 羔 之 外 ， 别 无 所 有 。 羊 羔 在 他 家 里 和 他 儿 女 一 同 长 大 ， 吃 他 所 吃 的 ， 喝 他 所 喝 的 ， 睡 在 他 怀 中 ， 在 他 看 来 如 同 女 儿 一 样 。

4 有 一 客 人 来 到 这 富 户 家 里 ； 富 户 舍 不 得 从 自 己 的 牛 群 羊 群 中 取 一 只 预 备 给 客 人 吃 ， 却 取 了 那 穷 人 的 羊 羔 ， 预 备 给 客 人 吃 。

2 Samuel 12

1 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.

2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

Page 226

Worth? Possible?

When Jasen, my son, was twenty-three, I watched him take his newly minted wife in to his arms at his wedding and kiss a girl for the very first time, ever!

Source: Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

 by Stephen Arterburn & Fred Stoeker (2000)