Help From Above/Помощь Cвыше

At one time I visited at the John Hopkins institution, and submitted myself for this series of experiments. It was not sufficient to know that God did things, I had to know HOW God accomplished these things. But I prayed in my heart, “Lord God, if you will only let the Spirit of God come like the lightnings of God upon my soul for two seconds, I know something is going to happen that these men never saw before.”

I want to explain the assimilating power of your nature, your capacity to assimilate God and take the life of God into your being, and keep it in your being. I am not talking to you about what I believe. I am talking about what I know.

By John G. Lake

 Chicago, 1920

“In Him was life, and life was the light of men.” (John 1:4)

There is a difference between Christianity and philosophy. (I presume some folks are inquiring why it is that there is always that keynote in my addresses.)

God gave me the privilege of living in the heart of philosophic South Africa, where we have one million five hundred thousand, who are ministered to by Buddhist, and Brahman priests. Every imaginable cult has its representatives there. I was amazed to discover that the whites were gradually assimilating the philosophy of the East, just as we Westerners are assimilating the philosophy of the East, and have been doing so for a long time.

When you take the philosophies, Christian Science, New Thought, and Unity today and examine them, you discover they are the same old philosophies of India, Egypt and China from time immemorial.

The difference between philosophy and religion, particularly the religion of Jesus Christ, is in the words I have quoted from the Scriptures, “In Him was Life, and the life was the light of men.” Philosophy is light. It is the best light the individual possessed who framed the philosophy. But it is not a LIFE GIVER.

But from the soul of Jesus there breathed holy, living life of God, that comes into the nature of man, quickens him by its power, and by the grace of God he has the life of Jesus in him, eternal life. Many of the ancient philosophies have a marvelous light. One of the Indian philosophies, Bhagavad, was written five hundred years before Isaiah. In it they predicted the coming of a Son of God, a Redeemer, who was to come and redeem mankind.

Buddha presented his philosophy five hundred years before Jesus. Pythagoras wrote four thousand years before Jesus Christ. In each one of them you will find many of the teachings of Jesus. The teachings of Jesus were not unique in that they were all new. They were new because they contained something that none of the rest possessed. It was the divine content in the word of Jesus Christ that gave His teachings their distinguishing feature from the other philosophies. That content (element) is the LIFE of God. “In Him was LIFE, and the LIFE was the light of men.”

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Tatyana Noel-Tsygulska, Ph.D.

We get used to the idea that positive changes in a person can happen only as minor modifications, with defects remaining anyway. There are many concepts of personality development (on becoming a person). Almost nobody strives with psychological measures to modify a human being toward perfection. However, the Bible suggests this as a valid possibility.

The Holy Scripture sees the process of development, of becoming a person as a restoration (reconstruction, recreation) of perfect human nature, which was lost after the Fall¹ or the process of sanctification. For simplicity let us illustrate this process with the means, which Jesus Christ used a lot, a story. This is a theological allegory, “Good and bad news”.

Tom was a terrible criminal. He was proud of not having any conscience, that he had committed every possible crime. Eventually he was caught. He was in prison and was worrying about what would happen next. He was thinking about escaping, even about suicide. But both were impossible. He was too well guarded. He was rehearsing different speeches denying his evil deeds, but none of them sounded persuasive enough. His future seemed absolutely dark. He was aware that he had gotten himself into a desperate situation.

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1. Yancey Ph. Disappointment with God. Three Questions No One Asks Aloud. Harper Collins Publishers, 1988, 319 p. [-]

Tatyana Noel-Tsygulska, PhD in Psychology

Mental health is dealt with both in Psychology and Bible based Christianity. Both viewpoints suggest ideas and concepts, which define and explain mental health phenomena. They also suggest practical methods of healing and help for people, who suffer emotional traumas, mental anguish and mental disturbance. There are lots of mutual prejudices against each other. For example, a number of Psychologists consider Christianity impotent to render real help. This is not true. Many believers resist Psychology and deem it to be something like Extra-Sensory Perception or other satanic practices¹. This is not true either, and you will be given a chance to be persuaded about it today.

Once a student of mine from Practical Psychology college who works as a School Psychologist related how the mother of her pupil, being an active believing Christian, refused to allow her son to attend a counseling session. The mother’s argument was, “You are a psychic (ESP).”

The goal of this article is to examine concepts and methods of achieving mental health and healing, suggested by Psychology and Biblical Christianity; to discover objective facts about common areas and differences between them; to define the source of those ideas and methods, and by doing this to unveil popular misunderstandings.

Practical methods of mental healing are proposed by many trends of Psychology, in particular, Person-Centered Therapy², Psychodynamic Therapy³, Cognitive Psychology, T-groups, Encounter groups, Gestalt Therapy⁴, etc.

There is a technology of healing of mind in the teaching and activity of Jesus Christ⁵. They are described in the Bible. A psychiatrist once said, “With many of my patients I just take the Bible in hand and read to them Christ’s words. It is the best Psychotherapy”.

So let us compare Biblical teaching (Christianity based on the Bible) and Psychological approaches to mental healing, stated by the Bible and by the key Psychologists.

First of all, I would like to underline a fundamental idea: the Bible and science do not contradict each other. True science confirms the Scripture because it studies the realities of God’s creation and strives to discover the truth. It leans on reliable empirical evidence and facts, obtained by means of careful observation and experiment. God’s word reflects the truth and is truth (John 17:17). The Bible and science consider the same reality, but approach it by different methods from different standpoints⁶.

Let us start from shared concepts and practical methods, used by Psychology and Biblical Christianity.

1. Insight / repentance (change of thinking)

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1. Jones S. L., Butman R. E. (1991). Modern psychotherapies; a comprehensive Christian appraisal. Downers Grove, Illinois, Inter Varsity Press [-]
2. Rogers, C. (1961). On Becoming a Person. Boston, Houghton Mifflin. [-]
3. 3 Smith D. (1990) “Psychodynamic Therapy: the Freudian approach”. Individual Therapy. Open University Press, pp. 18-38. [-]
4. Polster, E. and Polster, M.(1973). Gestalt Therapy Integrated. New York: Brunner Mazel. [-]
5. Menj A. Christian teaching about Personality. Lecture at Moscow University. March, 1989 [-]
6. Clark, R. (1972). Science & Christianity - A Partnership. Pacific Press. [-]

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:32

Tatyana Noel-Tsygulska, PhD

A scholar strives to come closer to the truth. At least this is the way it was a couple of decades ago. I grew up in Soviet Union. In this country even common people, not scientists, believed in the existence of objective truth. Lately, more and more often voices are heard in favour of the non-existence of objective truth, saying everyone has their own truth, “This is right for you, but it is not necessarily right for me”. In response to an assignment to define truth, which I suggested to my students, the majority of them wrote that everybody has his or her own truth (i.e. that truth is subjective). Only one student considered truth to be objective. This split of ideas quite accurately represents the modern social situation.

The need is ripe to examine the existence of objective truth, or maybe truth is just subjective. Minds have being grappling with this issue for ages and I do not plan to provide an exhaustive answer. I will examine some psychological and Christian psychological aspects of this problem.

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Film About How Atheistic Scientific Establishment Suppresses The Truth

Answers in Genesis president (AiG), Ken Ham, reported on an important new film that a number of us in AiG saw in a private pre-view. The film is really well done and very revealing about how truth is being suppressed by an atheistic scientific establishment and prominent scientists are being persecuted for questioning Darwinism. The film powerfully shows that our culture (indeed the whole world) is being massively brainwashed, just as creationists have been saying for years.

The star and man behind of the movie is Jewish and not a Christian. He is making a bold move in doing this film. We strongly encourage you to get the word about this film and make plans to see it on the opening weekend (April 18), if you can. You can find out more about the film by going to http://www.expelledthemovie.com/playground.php It will only take you a few minutes to watch the short video clip there about this film.

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