Much lies beneath the words we use each day. Consider the word feel. As an example, "I feel hurt. And I feel hurt because someone—maybe it's you, my husband, my wife, my boyfriend—has wronged me. I feel you've wronged me. And I don't feel like going to talk to you. Instead, I feel like avoiding you. I feel like leaving you because I feel that you won't listen to me anyway. And I feel justified in the anger that I feel, and I don't feel the Bible applies to our particular conflict. In fact, I don't feel like reading the Bible. I don't feel like sticking around with you because I don't feel our relationship will work because I've lost all feelings of affection for you." Now, maybe I've exaggerated a little, but have you ever heard a person talk like that?
I don't think it's only counselors that hear people talk like this all the time, week in and week out. "I feel. I feel. I feel." That word creates a fuzzy cloud of potent authority around a dozen dubious statements. It's tough to argue with it. We present ourselves—and people in our culture present themselves—in terms of feelings as though these things are beyond authoritative evaluation. They rule our lives. And yet the word of God pierces this word, slices it open, lays it bare. It reveals all thoughts, intentions, feelings, desires, and wants. Let's drag all of that into the light.
Four Uses of "Feel"
In the examples I gave, there are at least four discrete uses of the word feeling, each of them with its problems.
1. First, "I feel" is used to communicate sense impressions, sense perception, and experience. Now, at one level, this is some of the least ambiguous and problematic of all usage. If I'm cutting an apple, and I slice my finger, I feel pain. That's about the closest thing to a brute fact that you can find on the face of the earth. It's simple: I feel it. I experience it. It's unambiguous. And people can experience stuff that happens interpersonally.
That word creates a fuzzy cloud of potent authority around a dozen dubious statements.
If somebody spoke to me and uttered what the Bible calls words like sword-thrusts (Ps. 55:21; 64:3; Prov. 12:18) or words like rotten food (Eph. 4:29), I would feel some kind of pain and misery. That's a given. There's going to be some kind of sense experience of pain or misery. And so that shows up in conversation when we hear, "I feel hurt. I feel hurt because I feel you wronged me."
But notice that there are also some ambiguities or complexities that come in there. Ask questions. "Did you wrong me? Did you? Or did you simply run afoul of my expectations? In that case, I feel hurt because you didn't do what I wanted. You let me down in some way." Or was it some of both? That's probably the most typical thing that we run into. We may have been treated rotten, but we've also desired all kinds of things from others, and people have run afoul of our desires.
People present their experience—we present our experience—as though it's an authority, a given. And the word of God says, "No. It's ambiguous. It's not a brute experience. No experience is brute. Experience is something that's meant to be evaluated." That's the first use of the word and it's the simplest, the most straightforward. The other uses get progressively more complicated.
2. Second, "I feel" is used to present and express emotions. "I feel angry. I feel angry because of all these things that you did to me." In one sense, this use is again valid. It's true that anger is something passively sensed. It's like the first use, a kind of sense impression, but we experience it internally. And so we say, "I feel anger."
But then the plot thickens. Anger, like all emotions, is something that the whole person does. It's something I do. It has to do with things I think, things I want, attitudes I take. It has words; it has deeds. It's a lot more than simply a feeling. And people present anger, and other emotions, as though they were authoritative. If it's just a feeling that happens to me, it is an intrinsic given. It's legitimate. But if anger, if emotion in general, is not a given, if it's something that's evaluated by the word of God, then that word, that sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17), has to go in there and lay it open. Is the anger justified or unjustified? Is it wrongly expressed or rightly expressed? There are many ways that the Scriptures lay bare the truth that emotion is not blindly authoritative; it must be examined and possibly invalidated.
3. The third use is the language of "I feel" communicating thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and worldview. Consider the words, "I feel that you wronged me." That's a belief, isn't it? Or "I feel that you won't listen. I feel justified in my attitude. I don't feel the Bible applies." In all these cases, what the language communicates are things I think or believe. They are essentially thoughts, ideas, and beliefs represented by people. And they are represented as though they are intrinsically valid if they are deeply felt.
We live as though the expression "I feel that this is so" is an authoritative conviction, an authoritative opinion, an authoritative belief. And yet, again, the Scriptures come in and say, "Wait a minute. Feelings are meant to be examined. That word 'feel' needs to be rephrased." What opinions are there underneath that word? What beliefs are there? How do we evaluate it? How do we understand it in the light of the truth?
The Bible has devastating things to say about people who "lean on their own understanding" (Prov. 3:5). Scripture says the one who trusts his own mind is a fool (Prov. 28:26), and the fool delights in airing his opinion (Prov. 18:2), that is, his feelings. Notice the difference there from the first usage. Feeling the physical cut from a paring knife is authoritative, isn't it? But this idea of "I feel that something is X or Y" is highly debatable. We've got to examine it.
4. The fourth use is the language of "I feel" for communicating desires. This is one of the most ominous uses. "I don't feel like going to talk to you. I feel like leaving and avoiding you. I don't feel like reading the Bible." What's going on here when you take the language apart? The person is saying, "I want. I don't want. I will." It's as though I'm presenting authoritative impulses to the world. And if I live as though these things are true, they become the basis of action. They become the things that I will do or won't do.
And yet again, as we stick the sword of God's word into this language, we find that these are things to be examined, not givens to obey. The words "I feel like" typically obscure our responsibility for our desires. And as the Bible talks about those desires, it shows that our "feel likes" are the desires of the flesh. Almost inevitably, our felt needs are idolatrous desires. They're meant to be killed, not indulged.
And Scripture does these radical things in slicing open our language and revealing what's below the surface. We are looking at just one little word: feel. And yet in the culture in which we're called to live, counsel, preach, and talk to people, this word is used to communicate four very different things.
Thank goodness we have the promise of God's word. God tells us his word is alive; it's active (Heb. 4:12). It cuts into these exact sorts of things in our culture. It shows us how to think our way through the traps and deceptive language of culture, the words people use to present themselves and their life experience to you. We can't think through this on our own. We need God's word. We need it.
Apologetics on the Ground
Now, what must you do in response? Two things. First, you must do apologetics daily. With all this discussion of the word "feel," we're talking about apologetics. We're talking about a contrary authority source, aren't we? We have a God who authoritatively evaluates, and then we have people all through life authoritatively evaluating in rebellion against him. And they're using an alternative system, an alternative base. So, you've got to do apologetics daily wherever you go. You've got to take apart the authorities people present to you. You've got to catch what people are saying. Listen to it. And let the Bible cut through it. I've picked out one strand, one of the authorities of our age: I feel. But we've seen that the word of God judges the "feel likes" and "feel that's" of the human heart. It lays them bare and makes us look at them.
And second, once we've taken the language of culture apart, we've got to bring these presumed authorities to the Lord, who really is the judge and the savior. Hebrews 4:13 lays this out: "And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." All is naked before the eyes of God. He is judge. But in Christ, he is also the suffering High Priest. Christ had an authentic human experience. He lived through the trials, he lived through the difficulties, he was sinned against, he experienced pain, and he was tempted in every way, just as we are, and he was without sin. And he's the one that we may approach to receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. We take corrupted worldly authorities before the Lord so that he can judge them and we can find mercy.
That's apologetics on the street, apologetics that tackles our own hearts.