One of the most countercultural sentences comes from the Heidelberg Catechism: our only comfort in life and death is that "I am not my own, but but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ." The loudest voices in the contemporary West seem to tell us that we belong to ourselves, that we author our own destinies and create our own identities. This is not the way of Scripture.

It's also an exhausting, depressing, and disappointing way to live. Indeed, belonging to yourself is literally impossible. Counterculturally and even counterintiutively, we need to practice dying to ourselves and living for others, because we belong to God and to our communities.

Though the burden of belonging to others is difficult to bear, with practice and the Holy Spirit’s help it is possible. Dr. Alan Noble joins us to discuss his book You Are Not Your Own, and how to practice belonging to God in a world that is self-seeking.

Show Notes:

• 0:26 Comfort or solution?
• 3:42 Practice knowing that you are not your own
• 7:54 Counting the cost
• 10:07 Ways God belongs to us
• 13:55 Dirtlings
• 15:20 Being = belonging
• 17:34 Jacques Ellul
• 19:14 Weaving threads, and the middle-way between resignation and affirmation
• 27:01 What we’ve lost in renunciation
• 28:26 Dysfunctional legalism and the singular will
• 34:40 Stay-at-home parents
• 38:18 Non-techniques to solve the problem
• 40:20 Stumbling around, grace, and forgiveness

Other resources mentioned:

The Meaning of the City, by Jacques Ellul 

Show notes by Dominique LaCroix

Credits for the music used in TBM podcast: hebraicthought.org/credits.