10 Gospel Promises for Later Life
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Sadly, I cannot recommend this book
I donâÂÂt usually begin book reviews this way, but I feel I must say at the outset that I cannot recommend 10 Gospel Promises For Later Life by Jane Marie Thibault.
The premise is a good one. Mrs. Thibault has been a clinical gerontologist and has worked with the elderly for nearly thirty years. After a consultation with a pastor whose housebound church members said they had trouble relating to the gospel any more for various reasons, Mrs. Thibault began discussing this with her patients and heard similar comments. So she compiled a list of ten major concerns elderly people face â among them, depending on others for help, fear of illness, pain, fragility, disability, loneliness, losing everything and ending up in a nursing home, life after death â and sought to apply gospel truth to them.
While there are some helpful parts to the book, unfortunately there are several major difficulties.
In a section speaking of Jesusâ suffering on the cross, the author says:
"Jesus realized that his suffering was necessary. The only way he could convince humanity of GodâÂÂs love for us was to die for his cause and his teaching. He put his money where his mouth was, dying for his message out of total and complete God-love for the entire worldâÂÂs well-being until the end of time" (p. 85).
Jesusâ death was much more than dying for his cause to convince us of his teaching! He died so that those who believe could beâÂÂjustified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:24-26.) If a judge told a convicted murderer that he could go free, everyone would cry that that was unjust. In the same way, God cannot just forgive sins without satisfying His justice. When Jesus took our sin on Himself and suffered our punishment, that act satisfied GodâÂÂs holiness and justice, so He could justify us and still be just Himself, and those who receive Christ as Savior receive as well âÂÂthe righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believeâ (Romans 3:22).
Another major problem I have with the book is Mrs. ThibaultâÂÂs belief that living people can ask the dead for help. Speaking of âÂÂinstitutionally acknowledged saints,â she writes:
âÂÂIf they continue to live in GodâÂÂs love and to participate in GodâÂÂs love of us, the saints might also help us in our daily lives, especially if we ask them to enable us to grow in our love of God and one anotherâ p. 121-122).
âÂÂI also believe that every single Christian in the church visible (thatâÂÂs us) can ask for help from anyone in the church triumphant (those who have been promoted into heaven before usâÂÂ) (p. 123).
She relates that in struggling with forgiving her mother because of feeling that her mother had been apathetic to her and emotionally abandoned her before her death when the author was a teenager, the author wrote a prayer to her mother asking that the two of them work on healing their relationship.
There is nothing in the Bible that encourages interaction with the dead: in fact, there are warnings against it. Deuteronomy 18:11 says, âÂÂThere shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.â The only time I can remember in the Bible that anyone tried to communicate with the dead was in I Samuel 28 when King Saul was desperate because the Philistines were about to attack him and God wasnâÂÂt answering his prayers any more because of his disobedience. He tried to contact the prophet Samuel through a medium, and Samuel did not say, âÂÂHi there, what can I do for you?â He said, âÂÂWhy hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?â He not only did not help him, but he prophesied that Saul and his sons would be die. There is nothing I am aware of in the New Testament that would negate these warnings. Mrs. Thibault is not advocating using mediums or having seances, but still, there is nothing in the Bible instructing us to seek help from the dead or to pray to anyone other than God. Why would we want to, anyway, when He has promised to meet every need exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think?
A third major problem is the idea that âÂÂBy interpreting our suffering as energy that can be useful to the human community and by offering this energy to God, we unite our sufferings with those of Christâ¦In effect, we turn the energy of our suffering into a gift for others to use for their well-beingâ (p. 86). She posits âÂÂAccording to the string theory of quantum physics, we are all inter-connected by subatomic âÂÂstringsâ along which energy flows from one created thing to another. We can use our will, our intention, to direct this energy wherever we want it to goâ (p. 88-89). According to my husband, who is a physicist, this is a faulty application, and the string theory is just a theory: according to Wikipedia, âÂÂThe theory has yet to make testable experimental predictions, which a theory must do in order to be considered a part of science.â Mrs. Thibault says âÂÂThis sounds like the scientific equivalent of Jesusâ image of the vine and the branchesâ (p. 89), but Jesus is speaking of the spiritual life and energy He gives to those who abide in Him (John 15), not of our directing energy wherever we want it. She writes, âÂÂJesus has promised us that we can use our suffering energy for the welfare of allâ (p.91). Not in any version of the Bible I have ever read. There are many Scriptural reasons for suffering, but nothing like this is mentioned: even the section of suffering for othersâ sake does not indicate this kind of thing. The author tells of âÂÂdedicated sufferingâ as a group for agreed upon persons and says that those who participated in this kind of thing decreased their doctor visits and personal complaints. I donâÂÂt doubt that they felt better, but I think it was more likely due to the thought that their pain could help others and the practice of each participant expressing his or her pain. It is helpful to discuss your pain with others who also experience pain who would uniquely understand you. The author says this practice of offering the energy created by our pain to others or to God for Him to use for others âÂÂhas its theological foundationâ in Colossians 1:24: âÂÂWho now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodyâÂÂs sake, which is the church.â But I do not believe this type of practice is what Paul is talking about (my views on what this verse is teaching align more with what is taught here.)
Even though there were parts of the book I found helpful and useful, I cannot endorse it overall for these reasons.
April 25, 2011
Inspirational and practical wisdom for anticipating, being in midst of or for those who love and care for geriatric segment of life.
February 2, 2008
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