Many Parts, One Core Self
While I do spend a lot of time translating the Bible and writing about it and sharing life with my church community, none of that is my day job. I’m a mental health counselor, trained to help people battle their demons through emotional, relational, and neurological healing.
Actually, much less than battling their demons, I help people reconcile with them, which allows them to put them in their proper place. My training and experience as a counselor sometimes pays off in a big way as I read the Bible carefully and closely, and I recognize some of our modern healing techniques reflected in the ancient wisdom it contains.
Romans 7 has a section like that. I’ll be honest. I got really excited when I noticed this, and it really shifted how I understand what it’s saying.
What I want to practice is what I don’t practice, but what I hate is what I do instead. 16 If what I don’t want to do is what I do, I acknowledge to Torah that it is right. 17 But now, I am not the one who performs it anymore, but it is the deviation that resides within me instead. 18 I have learned that what is beneficial for others does not reside within me, that is, within my body. For the desire to do things that benefit others is present for me, but performing them is not. 19 I don’t do the beneficial thing that I want to do, but instead, the harmful thing that I don’t want to do is what I practice. 20 However, if what I don’t want to do is what I do, it’s no longer I but rather the deviation that resides within me who does it.
21 Therefore, I find the Torah when I want me to do the right thing because the harmful thing is present within me. 22 You see, I delight in the Torah of God in my core self, 23 but I see a different torah among my parts that wages war against the Torah of my mind and takes me prisoner with the torah of deviation, with the one that is among my parts. 24 I am a person in suffering! Who will rescue me from this deathly body!
This is a pretty well-known passage, but it had never occurred to me to look at it through the lens of what’s called externalization.
Externalization is a common therapeutic concept, used in approaches such as Narrative Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I’m trained in the latter two of those and use them regularly with my clients.
The basic concept is identifying recurring, problematic behavior patterns, emotions, or thought patterns as something that seems to have a mind of their own. In a way, they take over and are something we experience rather than part of who we are as a person. It can also be done with ‘parts’ of ourselves, like the part that wants to stay safe being in conflict with the part that wants to be authentic or connected with others.
An example would be Anxiety (with a capital ‘A’) and talking about how Anxiety shows up uninvited and hijacks our thoughts and makes us miserable until we give in to its demands (or even after we do). Therefore, as Michael White and David Epston say, “The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem.” If the person were the problem, the solution would be getting rid of the person. Since the problem is the problem, the solution is helping the person overcome something other than their core being.
That’s how Paul seems to be talking about deviation here (traditionally, ‘sin’). “But now, I am not the one who performs it anymore, but it is the deviation that resides within me instead.” And in contrast with that sentence, “You see, I delight in the Torah of God in my core self, but I see a different torah among my parts that wages war against the Torah of my mind and takes me prisoner with the torah of deviation, with the one that is among my parts.”
Separating my core self from the parts of me that follow a different set of values than the ones I consciously try to follow helps me to address the real issue. Even those parts of me enslaved to the ‘torah of deviation’ are not problems in themselves; their enslavement is. So, the solution is to help them get what they need in ways that don’t follow that ‘torah of deviation.’
So much of hate and aggression and greed and exploitation and theft and all the ways we can be destructive and harmful in how we live are really just attempts to meet very real and legitimate needs. The methods we use to meet the needs, on the other hand, are often big problems.
The solution isn’t to disregard the needs; it’s to allow the ‘torah of Christ’ to guide us toward ways that actually lead to life, i.e. meet our needs while also supporting others in meeting their needs.
Of course, all that is easier said than done, but changing how we’re thinking about it is a good start. Then, we can seek support in community to learn more about how to proceed in that direction, support others in doing the same, and do whatever we need to do to find healing so that those parts of us that are hurt or scared can relax enough to think creatively and find better solutions.
May you find the healing and support you need to let go of deviation and pursue love.
