The Bible is both deeply affirming of human emotions, and acutely aware of the danger of being controlled by them.11
To be human is to have emotions, and the Bible is full of them. Jesus, too, shared the emotions common to humanity, both negative and positive. He felt extreme grief at the prospect of his death (Matt ); he was consumed by Uniform Single-Dating-Seite jealousy on the Lord ‘s behalf (John 2:16–17); he exulted when the Spirit showed him what the Father is like (Luke ).
Not all emotions are desirable, of course, and the Bible uses language of being ‘overwhelmed’ for unwelcome emotions, emotions that come from outside and ‘prevail against’ us, such as terror, guilt, or grief (e.g., Pss 55:5; 65:3; 88:7–8). Not that there is anything wrong with feeling them – it’s part of living in a fallen world. However, ‘passions’ are another story. The word ‘passion’ is used to translate a wide range of Greek and Hebrew words whose meaning spans craving, strong desire, lust, jealousy, rage, or anguish. What these very different internal states have in common is that they tend to overwhelm us and control our behaviour. They pull at us so that we will give in to them. They long to direct our lives in place of the Holy Spirit.12
There’s no denying the depths of Jacob’s love for Rachel (Gen ); of the exiles’ grief at the loss of Jerusalem (Lam 1:2); of the Magi’s joy at seeing Jesus (Matt 2:10)
In short, emotions are a mixed bag. There is good fear and bad fear, good grief and bad grief, even good joy and bad joy (Jer –13). One key principle holds this mixed picture together: Right emotion flows from right knowledge of God. We learn to love what God loves and hate what he hates by encountering him in Scripture (Deut 6:5–6; Prov 2:6–10). To be in Christ means being shaped by the Word of God, which includes our emotions (Col 3:16). Joy, for example, is a fruit of the Spirit because it is evoked by coming to understand what God has done for us in Christ (Ps ; Luke 2:10; Rom ). The emotions of a believer do not grow stronger; instead, by the grace of God they become redirected. And this process of redirection also entails learning to govern emotions and not be ruled by them (Tit 2:11–12; Jas 4:1). Again, the word of God is key.
5.1.2. Emotions in The Passion Translation
Fatally for Simmons’s ‘passion’ programme, the emotions TPT seeks to evoke do not arise naturally from the word of God, but are artificially introduced. TPT generates emotions from the translator’s personal response to the text, and uses them to shape our reception of the text. It evidently does not trust in the power of Scripture to move the hearts of its readers without a good deal of outside assistance. After all, if Scripture were sufficient for the task, TPT would not have dialled the emotional volume up to eleven. And the problem is not simply that actual references to emotional states in the Hebrew Psalms are multiplied until they completely and wrongly dominate the whole book. It’s the nature of these insertions as well. The Bible’s emotions are modified. Feelings of awe are directed towards total ecstasy; feelings of ardour and intimacy are directed towards total surrender. In short, Simmons makes a false claim when he states that TPT will ‘re-introduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader.’ It’s the other way round – Simmons is trying to introduce the ‘passion and fire’ beloved of his own culture into the Bible. He is trying to make the Bible value something that we value – the feeling of being overwhelmed by a strong emotion – in spite of the strong stance the Bible consistently takes against this exact thing. As Ps 117 TPT says (but the Bible does not), ‘Let it all out! … go ahead, let it all out! … O Yah!’
