The changing of this page has become somewhat irregular over the past couple of months as we go through a transitional period here, where not only did I step down from direct involvement with enLighten … we’ve also lost our webmaster, Brenda. She designed and built this website in 2006 and has faithfully maintained it for me through the end of the year. Now that she’s headed off in a new direction that’s totally consumed her, I am on my own.
With that said, let us post another thoughtful – and very timely – message by our pastor, Reverend Mark Adams, the Senior Pastor of Redland Baptist Church in Rockville, Maryland:
When we experience relational hurts (whether through actions, words, or lack of encouragement), we often use phrases such as “She broke my heart,” or “He hurt my feelings,”or it was like getting “punched in the ” In an article in Atlantic magazine last year, Emily Smith shared the findings of researcher and neuroscientist Matthew D. Lieberman, who thought such phrases were just too coincidental. This led Liebermann to a formal study of the pain of social rejection. One of his studies involved putting people in a brain scanner while they played an Internet video game called Cyberball where three “people” (a subject and two computerized “players”) toss a ball around to each other. The point of Cyberball is to make the research subject feel rejected. At first, all three players toss the ball to each other in turn. But at a certain point, the other two players cut the poor research participant out of the game. They toss the ball just to each other. Even though this is a silly game in a research study and has no bearing on real life, the research subjects were really hurt. They started feeling distress. They felt rejected. When they came out of the scanner, they kept talking to the researchers about how upset they were.
The most interesting part of the study is how their brains processed the social rejection. To the brain, social pain feels a much like physical pain: a broken heart can feel like a broken leg, as Lieberman puts it. In his book Social, Lieberman writes, “Looking at the [brain scans], side by side, without knowing which was an analysis of physical pain and which was an analysis of social pain, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.” In other words, “When human beings experience threats or damage to their social bonds, the brain responds in much the same way it responds to physical pain.”
Whether he knows it or not, Lieberman’s findings are supported by Scripture. Numerous Proverbs speak of the power of our words to either hurt or heal. Proverbs 12:18 says, “The words of the reckless pierce like swords.” Proverbs 16;24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
No wonder Ephesians 4:29 warns, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” or as a popular paraphrase puts it: “Build up or shut up.”
James 1:26 – “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.”
(c) 2014 Mark Adams
