uh it really is a joy to be with you yeah believe it or not uh 18 years ago I preached here in achibaya known at one of the local churches in fact my roommate in college uh played David and another biblical character on this very stage [Music] in fact he uh counseled at the Word of Life Camp One Summer and sadly he got kicked out of of that position but God saved him and he now is a missionary in Israel so it's pretty neat for me to be here with you besides the opportunity to share
God's grace I want to be looking at uh trauma and understanding of from a Biblical perspective in our time together uh it's going to complement what Dr Baker presented last night and I'm very thankful for the foundation that he laid for us this week I want to explain where we're going to start in my sessions and where I hope to end we're going to start with simply defining what trauma is and I'll start with a non-biblical or secular perspective and then I want to work our way towards the end of our time together at looking
at a Biblical perspective constraints now that doesn't mean we're not going to have uh scripture throughout our time together but just to understand that the really good stuff is coming and many times we have to put off false ways of thinking in order to accept right ways of thinking is I'm going to use a word with you this week that I hope you'll become accustomed to yeah and that is the word phenomenology I'm going to give you a couple quotes just to introduce this concept to you soon and we're going to look at specifically why
trauma is in fact phenomenological um that's not to say that it doesn't affect our bodies but there's a difference in saying that trauma is biological versus phenomenological um so let's look at this and explain it a little better first of all I want to look at one of the leading phenomenologists in America Dr David Woodruff Smith is it's probably a little difficult to see up here to his life but his quote is translated here in Portuguese for you Portuguese Jesus is now I don't expect you to get all of that right now but I want
you to note a couple key words that he uses first of all if you notice in the last sentence he says phenomenology studies conscious experience so we all have different experiences some we would count as a joyful or pleasant experience but some we would count as a bad or poor experience and as you're going to see what we typically refer to as trauma is a bad experience but in an extremely bad experience but you also notice the word conscious there is earlier in the quote he talks about consciousness foreign that is a Freudian term that
simply re-labels what we call the soul from scripture simply is so seculars prefer the word conscience versus the Biblical term soul is you also notice the word phenomena there thus phenomenology so it is a phenomena or phenomena phenomenon that occurs in our souls it's immaterial or inorganic so we're not talking about trauma as in a bodily trauma physiology and fact I'll go ahead and tell you even though we'll look at it just briefly um that the word trauma originated as a physical impact to the body that caused uh damage it was a medical term magical
and so they're now using that term to describe Damage Done To The Soul if you would but I want you to understand that Psychiatry is founded on not biology but phenomenology fundamentally is they are trying to explain the psych or the soul or they prefer Consciousness is and that's the difference between Psychiatry and valid neurology foreign you've really got a question and think through why those are different fields is because Psychiatry is attempting to look at the inorganic nature of man and explain it in a biological framework is one of the leading psychiatrists in America
his name is Kenneth Kindler Kenneth Kendall he is taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins and he attempts to study psychiatric genetics and what is fascinating and I don't have the quote here okay he admitted about two years ago that there they will likely never find a biological cause to any mental disorder Publications but look what he says about psychiatry in in the alleged psychiatric disorders is foreign how do you look into someone's soul well the Bible makes it clear how we peer into another soul that it's actually the word of God that
is able to pierce the heart and even judge the motives like Hebrews 4 says we as biblical counselors can't actually look into people's Souls is what Proverbs says that the wise draw out what is in the inorganic Hearts we can know what is what is allegedly in the immaterial nature by what is spoken now and foreign so we we have this uh uh different approach either a Biblical approach or a secular approaches as uh Dr Baker made clear last night we have different lenses to look at the exact same phenomena uh if if you would
we have different ways to approach and seek to remedy a specific experience or group of experiences and I don't know if you caught what Dr Baker did last night but he gave you different words or different phrases that that signify the exact same word trauma is like Calamity so the Bible talks about these experiences it doesn't talk about it using secular terminology it talks about these experiences using biblical descriptions and terms and I would argue graciously that the Bible is not just sufficient yeah it is superior it has far more descriptions in fact as you
read through scripture you can identify with the the most traumatic and sorrowful cases that anyone could go through Maestro manches as God Wills we'll look a little bit of at the life of Jesus later this week yes but he experienced the greatest distress that anyone can go through so we've mentioned that trauma originated as a medical term magical so I want to just take a moment and look at a medical perspective you say Daniel there's a problem we haven't even defined trauma yet so I want to look at this medical perspective and allow them first
to Define what trauma is I'm not saying I agree with this definition I simply want you to see that they too must start with a clear definition so I'm going to go to the diagnostic and statistical Manual of mental disorders and this week we'll refer to it as the DSM-5 is cm is single they just came out last year with the dsm5 text revised it is and they added a whole bunch of new alleged disorders they were not found in someone's body or create or or found in nature it is they were literally created by
a group of men and women sitting around the tables for example prolonged grief disorder for example in other words they are identifying that these are real issues or phenomena that we as people go through and they're trying to explain them to approach them and to remedy them foreign so let's look at the dsm-5s definition foreign as you can see just with the first aspect of this definition the the existence or the reality that all of us are facing death at some point in our life means we all will face trauma is but you notice again
it's an event or events that they Define trauma by myself let's hold that in mind and look at a couple other secular sources on defining trauma is a common dictionary in the United States is Merriam-Webster's Dictionary Webster and the dictionary defines trauma as it is so by this definition trauma is defined by a person's response not just the experience you can have twins go through the exact same experience but have different responses and by the way that confounds secular theory is but nonetheless you can see that the response of a person is just as significant
as going through the experience definition essentially the theory is If you experience something difficult and you respond in a way that is troubling impairing or distressful events then you can say that you've been traumatized let's look at uh one of the leading psychiatrists Dr Stephen Joseph um Joseph this was published in Psychology today us again foreign notice that last phrase trauma is the stuff of everyday life now I don't know about in Brazil but in America there is a push to make trauma the Norms people are encouraged to Think Through how they personally have been
traumatized and it becomes a point of of emphasis and a basis of relationships many times but let me also point out some of the things he lists as traumatically divorce jivasu I have counseled adults that because of their parents divorced when they were children they are deeply struggling in life is now there certainly are other factors that we won't get into now besides just that divorce factors what about illness I have counsel people that have have eventually walked away from the faith uh in Christ because of being diagnosed with a terminal illness how could God
how could a good God give me a disease what about traffic accidents going into a car accident or what about losing a loved one I've had to go to houses of people whose father uh took a shotgun and blew his head off just hours before you can see that if we took a survey some of you would say I don't think divorce is traumatically is where I don't think I would classify being diagnosed with a terminal illness as traumatic is but I think all of us would agree that going to war or being tortured or
raped or genocide would qualify as trauma is so you're beginning to see that that this idea of trauma is actually subjective is now I'm not in any way saying that what you or I have gone through is not significant that that the actual struggle is not real I'm simply saying that one individual whose parents got divorced that has greatly affected them is different than another who says that wasn't a significant thing in my life is impact one of the most famous neurologists in the United States who who has passed away his name is Norman Sachs
says this foreign existence I want you to notice what he's now telling us about these experiences he's indirectly saying there's essentially three levels of of Life struggles or vexation or three different types of Calamity he says essentially that that there's normal suffering but if it becomes deep enough then we should call that trauma is and in the first sentence he says but there's an even deeper trauma that we call that they call post-traumatic stress disorder yeah in other words they're not looking at Deep impairing distress deep impairing suffering or Calamity as normal event is in
fact we won't have time to study this this week but if you go look at the DSM-5 myself you will see that the qualifier for saying that someone is normal or abnormal is severity is [Music] now I do want to correct one thing he says here and I know it's probably hard to see here but I've highlighted it in in a different colors he says all of these experiences or situations can produce immediate reactions I would argue that it doesn't produce reaction it demands that we react eogdoc where there's no producing hairstyles in other words
we're all reacting to life experiences if a young man drops to his knee and asks a young lady for her hand in marriage she needs to respond soon that experience did not cause her to say yes to him but yet we have this theory that when life is really bad especially deep impairing experiences that somehow we have no ability to choose that is in fact the secular theory is that your body determines how you react to these experiences let's look at another example Ultra Ultra example since we just went through 911 yesterday I think this
is uh a relevant quote for us and this was in the New York Times a couple of years ago is New York Times and before before we read this I just want you to note who Dr Robert Spitzer is going to cite him in this article in the 19 early 1970s Dr Robert Spitzer chaired the dsm-4 uh Bob Spitzer uh CME he is credited for creating more psychiatric disorders than any other person is in my series on mental illness I actually go through how significant his creation of these disorders is [Music] so this isn't just
any psychiatrist this is a very influential psychiatrist and let me correct it's the dsm3 Allen Francis was the chair of the dsm4 while in France is he says this is universities so you can see here one of the leading psychiatrists says that trauma is a controversial issue in just a second we'll we'll actually realize why but you notice there is no clear definition even within secularism of what trauma is but don't miss his actual definition that he gives here it's a way of saying something terrible has happened to me and I've been damaged in some
way foreign I would say though it's not just a damaging it's a challenging myself in other words what we're defining as trauma as we'll see in scripture is a challenge to our faith or our worldview and there's a few another and we're going to see this very clearly biblically in other words any event that we go through that begins to challenge or make us question our faith or if you're not a believer that you're unable to answer or explain within your secular worldview is that is the word that we're choosing nowadays to say something is
challenging the way I perceive myself others in the world I live in yes uh let's just look at two more quotes before we move to the next point is and this is the chair of the dsm-4 Dr Alan Francis absolutely um foreign so notice the problem already we now have two leading psychiatrists who disagree with how to define what is and what is not trauma is and don't miss the phrase he uses in the very middle of this paragraph he says this is an experience that is beyond the expectable problems so what if trauma is
actually an error in our worldview of not understanding just how vexed the world is and the people that live in it is [Music] I'm going to tell you if you do biblical counseling for any significant time with any significant amount of people says you will quickly find out how traumatic real life is for the vast majority of people we'll say happy that means uh as as I have opportunity to speak I sometimes ask people how many have been through a traumatic experience and the vast majority of people raise their hands so if we're expecting life
to go well and Trouble Comes it challenges our faith is uh one more quote the center for anxiety disorders.com which focuses on anxiety of course foreign foreign involvement now I'm not ignorant that that seculars have different categories of alleged trauma because if you notice what they they base that on it's a person's reaction to trauma is in other words how a person responds determines how they get diagnosed within the psychiatric systems but you notice here he says or or this group says that everyone process a traumatic event differently because we all face them through the
lens of our prior experience my specifically Jesus is but it's not just our prior experience it's our faith that actually dictates how we interpret and responders and notice how he starts this quote because events are viewed subjectively uh so again please don't be offended by what I'm about to say I am not denying that there is struggle and suffering and just so you know I personally have been through experiences that I've counseled people that say I have been traumatized experiences and what I've observed both in studying secularist the scripture and in counseling um is that
each person gets to decide what is and what is not trauma is in other words there are things that I've counseled that people find traumatic that I I don't understand how they're seeing that as traumatic is it has become a major event or turning point in their life for the worst importance and so when we talk about the subjectivity of trauma we are simply expressing our own personal perspectives now I want to say this to you and I want us to chew on this as we go through this week and I'm going to go back
to that big fancy word phenomenology phenomenology foreign so phenomenology and Dr Baker introduced or expressed last night epistemology is I want to use these terms but I want to simplify them for us epistemology is what is true it is based on a an authority we are questioning how do we know what is true where does it come from and again who is the Authority or what is the authority is phenomenology is how I perceive the world I live in a phenomenology and listen carefully to this is it doesn't mean that how I feel is true
no significance so when I say this this is my reality I am I have been traumatized I'm expressing that this is my experience now here is where this gets vitally important for us we in our deceitful Hearts think that feeling better is the resolve of going through trauma nausea experience but the Bible says the solution is actually to have an anchor of the soul to base our perception and our understanding of our experience on truth is and we'll develop this as we go through it's an interesting study that's been going on for the last 10
years the leading secular psychiatrists and neuroscientists are saying psychiatric drugs are simply not working they're not effective they do give a what's called therapeutic effect they enable people to feel a little better it is and a lot of that has to do with sleeping better quite frankly immunity but the discussion now is on psychedelic drugs because they're seeing people have an experience that is euphoric and enlightening experience now I'm in no way endorsing that experience but the theory behind it is if you've had a bad experience that has altered your life then having a enlightened
or Tran transdental experience will benefit you is but if you've been through a traumatic experience you know that having a euphoric experience does not fix what is what the struggle is in the soul my suppose it is not based on our experience as is suggested so let's look objectively and understand the subjective construct of trauma is I want to give you four General types or categories of trauma category on your notes there are probably three there uh but I was I was talking to Dr Baker this morning I I think he's wise in his suggestion
and that is to separate a specific type of trauma into a fourth category is and that is satanic influence so we're going to look at four groups and I just mentioned the fourth satanic influence now these are my categories but you're going to find them in scripture is so I hope you can see don't hang on to the three or the four or maybe there's five or six okay that's not my point yes my point is to get us thinking biblically about our own problems and those that we counselves so the first group is being
sinned against by another group and I'm going to walk us through some biblical examples in just a second example and in fact the Bible is full of what we would call trauma today every single thing that we can think of from uh incest to uh an accident that kills a loved one system is found in the word of God so anything from rape abuse assault abandonment being deceived or defrauded those are traumatic events the word oppressed is most often used to express this concept of being defrauded in such a way that we would today call
abuse I will tell you from personal experience but I will tell you from scripture as well as those I've counseled is that this category causes the most distress in our souls this is especially true when it's someone who should be leading us protecting us providing for us is when it's a parent or a pastor Pastor or a friend or a loved one and when they sin against us in a way the way that we would not expect or our epistemology does not allowed it's very troubling and difficult for us is this is the most uh
difficult and the most struggle that you're going to see in counseling and I'm going to tell you something very important I don't want you to miss many times it's not what you say to them that is the most important thing you can do is simply walking with them asleep in Weeping with those that weep as simple as mean as Romans 12 says don't think you you need to know everything to say in every situation remember it is the truth that restores our soul the truth that sets us free uh and us living that out being
the hands and feet and the mouth of Jesus are Essentials the second character category is enduring a natural disaster a disease or an experience that threatens one's life or invokes distress or fear is so if you go through a hurricane I would say the experience of covet for many people was traumatic experience it was completely outside their expectation of what life would look like foreign as Proverbs says when hope is deferred it makes the spiritual heart sick the third category is one's own moral failures or sin which produces overwhelming guilt category is now this one
is typically not thought of as trauma is but I have Council people that have gotten so deep into sin that they are so traumatized by their own experience I'm thinking of one young man who who now is in Christ and serves the Lord who engaged in homosexual acts is and he was so traumatized by what what he did and what was done to him that he he didn't want to live anymore and we're going to look at David in just a second as an example of this and you will note that this directly affects even
our bodies not just our souls the fact that the body responds to how we think and the the reactions to our experiences is is not something insignificant um but as secular so often do they take the effects and make those into the etiology or ideology the cause they look at how the body responds and say that has got to be causing the distress in the mind instead of the biblical opposite Elizabeth in the fourth category is satanic influence and you can see that represented in the Book of Job where Satan went before God and asked
to be to be able to sift job now let me give you a warning here all of these occur within the sovereignty of God if we move from our epistemology and we focus on on the actual uh for example satanic influence see then we're going to miss what God is doing in our life just as he was doing in job's life you see foreign really probably the first three especially but even the Demonic influences he played the harp for Saul we see that the demons were there they were constantly pressing in jail but I just
want to remind us again that that first category is the most intense and difficult type of of trauma we find in scripture and in real life is Cynthia Gephart whose okay yep doesn't have that part um they are argue in a Ministry magazine uh Ministry and by the way I should note that Ronald PS is the editor-in-chief of the psychiatric times the psychiatric times another season incredibly influential um and I'll know one other thing the psychiatric times is the trade Journal owned by the American Psychiatric association psychiatric times uh listen to what they say and
again this is to ministers to pastors visual kid is Jesus is so I don't agree with everything that that they're saying here but I want you to know that he's saying that moral integrity I would say that epistemology again what is true is at the core of every single person whether a Believer or a non-believer episode if a person believes in scientism that science has all the answers and denies God they have established an epistemology is and by the way the the concept in the secular realm is not scientific it's actually scientism as God Wills
tonight we'll talk about some of the physical effects and explain them both biblically but also validly scientifically physics so our sense of meaning as he points out here is in our epistemology is so even a moral person who is not a Christian can find trauma in sinful experiences uh and and I I do like what he says here that they lose touch with their identity and this is another concept that we will develop this week essentially trauma has to do with your identity is and one of the most detrimental things I see in counseling is
people who identify with their experience rather than with Christ is they actually get to the point where they believe that the person who sinned against them can relieve them of the trauma is where the people that sinned against them rather than finding their identity in Christ and that's the pattern we see all throughout scriptures in the remainder of time let's just look quickly at David um David uh was was in such distress and sorrow and hopelessness because of his sin in the Book of Psalms that he even expresses that it affected him physically to the
point that many psychiatrists like Ronald Pierce and Cynthia Gephart we just quoted the uh have labeled David in hindsight as mentally ill or as suffering with post-traumatic stress is listen to what they say in that Ministry magazine article they say the distinction between clinical depression and ordinary grief seems as old as recorded history um [Music] foreign intact so you can see here you can see here that David was directly affected in his physical nature from his spiritual nature foreign this evening we'll pick up discussing David and look at many of the traumas that he went
through not just because of sinus is and I'm excited to continue to walk us through this with Dr Baker and provide hope in Christ is foreign
