BaptistWay: Self

• The BaptistWay lesson for June 14 focuses on 1 Samuel 16:1-7; Psalm 139.

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• The BaptistWay lesson for June 14 focuses on 1 Samuel 16:1-7; Psalm 139.

A tongue twister riddle seems a good way to begin a study of the relationship of the self.

Anti-Climacus, a pseudonym of Søren Kierkegaard, began The Sickness Unto Death with the following: “A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself.”

Go ahead, and read that again … slower this time. One more time, even slower.

For you grammarians, it seems the self is a gerund … without the –ing.

In educational theory, metacognition—the unique human ability to think about our thinking—serves as an example of such a relation. As humans, we are aware of our bodies, our minds and our souls/spirits and can think of these parts of ourselves independently. We also are able to consider independently the past, present and future. Such complex functioning confirms the notion that humans are created in the image of a triune God comprised of three inter-related selves (Genesis 1:26-28).

Despair, sin and the self

Anti-Climacus wrote: “Such a relation that relates itself to itself, a self, must either have established itself or have been established by another.” He goes on to explain humans are a relation established by another, this other understood by Kierkegaard as God, and that as long as the human self is in proper relation to the establishing other, all is well. However, when the human self is somehow out of sorts with itself and/or others, it enters into despair, and this despair is not bounded within the individual self but involves a “misrelation” with the establishing other from whom the relation is derived. Are you following me?

A great illustration of this mind-bending philosophy is the story of Samuel, Saul and David. Under the direction of the Spirit of God, Samuel, the great prophet of God, selected Saul to be king of Israel in response to the people’s rejection of (misrelation to) God (1 Samuel 10:17-25). The people rejected their relation to their God as King in favor of relating themselves to other earthly kingdoms via a human king.


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Later, Saul took upon himself (misrelated to himself) the responsibility (Samuel’s responsibility) of offering animal sacrifices on behalf of his military (1 Samuel 13:7b-14), thereby entering into a misrelation with both God and Samuel. For this, God chose another king “after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people” (1 Samuel 13:14). Indeed, it is the Lord, the establishing other, who sees and knows the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). God desired someone rightly related to himself and to God.

Saul is rejected as king

A short time later, Saul acted out his misrelation again by disobeying God’s command, delivered by Samuel, to completely destroy the Amalekites and everything belonging to them (1 Samuel 15). For this breach, God rejected Saul as king of Israel, setting the stage for the anointing of David.

Here we run headlong into irony. Samuel told Saul God would seek a man “after his own heart,” meaning God would seek someone whose internal relation to God was in proper order. Yet when Samuel met Jesse’s sons (God sent Samuel to Jesse’s house to find the next king), “Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord” (1 Samuel 16:6).

In other words, although God was interested in someone whose soul was in right relationship with God and despite the assumption Samuel, as God’s man, knew this, Samuel went only skin deep. He considered one part of the total person of Eliab—his body—as representation for his heart, his interior self. Samuel assumed the most immediate and physical part of Eliab was equal to the whole.

God corrected Samuel’s misunderstanding.

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

Consider the core

Yes, we look at the outward presentation without considering the core. Our taste in musicians, actors, politicians, athletes and other cultural heroes proves the point. God, however, is concerned with the whole self, knit together in the womb, the self who cannot escape or hide or be removed from its ever-present Maker (Psalm 139).

Let us then pray, as did the psalmist, for the overcoming of our misrelation, our despair, our sin:

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).

A final point from Anti-Climacus: “The formula that describes the state of the self when despair (sin) is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.”

May we also rest transparently in the Power who established and redeemed and sustains us, our Lord and our God. Amen.


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