Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life Paperback – April 1, 2009

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book; I just knew that I wanted to learn more about what the Bible says about emotions, and this sounded like it might help.This book not only helped, it's increased my TBR pile by about a dozen books.This book does exactly what the title suggests--it looks at the Bible and what it says about feelings and emotions. This isn't a book of interpretation, though. Borgman includes scripture after scripture after scripture to point out biblical truths and not just ideas and thoughts about what God might have meant. He also quotes tons of other people who've also studied and commented on the topics of each chapter.This book inspired and challenged me in many ways. Not only will I hold on to it to read again later, I'll also likely recommend it to others.

The author's target audience is the everyday Christian. Borgman penned, "I have tried to write so that a layman could absorb it with profit . . . God's people need to be grounded in his Word, so this book is for those who want to explore what God's Word has to say about the emotions and how those truths apply to our lives. This will require some work." (Page 14)This is a well-written and biblically substantive book on the subject matter of emotions and the role they play in a person's life. Throughout each chapter, the author presents questions for the reader to personally ponder and apply to his or her life. I really appreciated the fact that Borgman sought to lead the reader into the Scriptures with the aim of "practical theology" that "will require some work" on the reader's behalf (Page 14).One example where the author integrates a biblical truth and applies it to the reader's situation can be found in Chapter 8, "An Introduction to Mortifying Ungodly Emotions." Borgman states after the reader has done an "honest evaluation" (Pages 97 - 99), he needs to move toward "Confession and Repentance. . . The second basic step, after we have indentified the ungodly emotion such as bitterness, anger, or fear, is to be quick to own it and confess it to the Lord without excuse. Proverbs 28:13 teaches us, "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy." The mercy comes when we own our sin, stop concealing it or excusing it, and take full responsibility for it. When we do that, the mercy pipe is unobstructed, and we are in a place to receive not only forgiveness (1 John 1:9) but also the grace to change." (Page 99)I found this book to be very readable and challenging for the layperson. To the person wanting to make the most of this resource, it will require work and digging deeper into the passages used throughout the book. Borgman handles the Scriptures very well.

This book gives a biblical view on emotion and presents a sound theology that helps to encourage faith in God's unfailing Word. Since we live in an emotionally charged age, this is a breath of fresh air from heaven that renews a firm belief that, as believers, we are not controlled by our emotions but that the truth can be relied on to bring our emotions to His glory and honor. Well done!

The thesis of Jonathan Edwards' landmark work, Religious Affections is clear: "True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections." This reality was embraced by the Reformers and the English Puritans. Our forefathers not only stressed the importance of theology; they stressed the necessity of holy affections, to borrow Edwards phrase.Tragically, however a shift has taken place in the evangelical world. Emotionalism is sweeping through the church and in some circles a mystical approach to the Christian life is becoming readily accepted. This preoccupation with the mystical at best minimizes theology and at worst, mocks the very notion of theological truth.And some at the other end of the spectrum have embraced a dry form of rationalism - one where intellectual pursuit marginalizes any thing that resembles true God-centered emotion.Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life by Brian Borgman bridges the gap between both kinds of erroneous thinking described above. The book contains four parts:Part One - A Biblical Theological Foundation for Understanding Our EmotionsPart Two - Biblical Sanctification and Our EmotionsPart Three - Mortifying Ungodly EmotionsPart Four - Cultivating Godly EmotionsBorgman's work is Bible saturated and in touch with daily life. He promotes a Christ-saturated theological framework that results in holy affections to the glory of God. He writes like a Puritan with contemporary illustrations that draw readers in. Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, and John Bunyan would be proud of their student that they tutored from afar!Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life should be read and re-read by Christians who are serious about cultivating a doctrinally rich framework that leads to communion with God.

Borgman does an excellent job in putting our feelings in their proper place. Many people say we need to “balance” feelings and logic and I think Borgman gets it right when he argues that our feelings are important and should be cultivated, not “balanced” or forced into submission in a Buddhist-like mentality.This topic has always been of interest to me as a male who seems to have more emotions than my buddies and who often struggles with being ruled by bad emotions.Notable citations from Martin Lloyd Jones and BB Warfield, amongst many others who have written or spoke on the subject will give you confidence Borgman didn’t leave anything out or concoct a strange new teaching. This is a rich historical and theological look at the importance of the emotional life of God’s people and will likely set you on a path for more reading of his many excellent sources.

A brilliant book that gets to the theology of emotion and also engages with the practical application of that theology in our lives. I wish I'd have had this book in my teens and that this content was taught more often - what help it would have been to me! Well here's a book that does it - reading highly recommended!

This book was used in our ladies bible study. I highly recommend iit as a study book.