Foundational Scriptures for Psychology Page 2

Page 2: LOOK, BOOK, TOOK: God's Word Foundation to Psychology 

LOOK: TERMS

1. Psychology: Explanation of the meaning of life. 

John 1:1-4: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

2. Behaviour: The manner in which someone conducts oneself.

Proverbs 1:2-7:  for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight;

3. Empirical methods: the processes of collecting and organizing data and drawing conclusions about those data.

Zechariah 2:1-5: Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. ² I asked, “Where are you going?”

He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.”

³ While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him ⁴ and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. ⁵ And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’

4. Facts: are objective statements determined to be accurate through empirical study.

Acts 19: 32-39: The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. ³³ The Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander to the front, and they shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. ³⁴ But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵ The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Fellow Ephesians, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? ³⁶ Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to calm down and not do anything rash. ³⁷ You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. ³⁸ If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. ³⁹ If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. 

5. Levels of explanation: the perspectives that are used to understand behaviour. 

Colossians 1: 10-14: ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you^[f] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

6. Individual differences: the variations among people on physical or psychological dimensions. Genesis 1: 26-27

7. Behaviourism: a school of psychology that is based on the premise that it is not possible to objectively study the mind, and therefore that psychologists should limit their attention to the study of behaviour itself. 

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-14: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

8. Sensation: awareness resulting from the stimulation of a sense

organ.

Luke 2:9: 

⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

9. Perception — the organization and interpretation of sensations.

Proverbs 24: 12: If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

10. Social identity: the positive emotions that we experience as a result of group memberships. 

Hebrews 10: 24-26: ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

11. Affect: defined as the experience of feeling or emotion. 

John 11: 33-37: ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

12. Arousal: our experiences of the bodily responses created by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). 

Psalm 78: 58:  ⁵⁸ They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

13. Emotion: a mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our behaviour. 

Luke 8:25: “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”

14. Personality:  defined as an individual’s consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving (John, Robins, & Pervin, 2008). 

James 4: 7-10:  ⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

15. Learning: the relatively permanent change in knowledge or behaviour that is the result of experience.

Proverbs 1: 2-7: ² for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; ³ for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair;⁴ for giving prudence to those who are simple,^[a] knowledge and discretion to the young— ⁵ let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance—⁶ for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.^[b] 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools^[c] despise wisdom and instruction.

16. Conditioning: the ability to connect stimuli (the changes that occur in the environment) with responses (behaviours or other actions). 

Proverbs 3: 11-12: ¹¹ My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke,¹² because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.^[b]

17. Human Intelligence: the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve problems, and to adapt to new situations.

Proverbs 2: 6:  ⁶ For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

18. Emotion: a mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our behaviour. 

2 Corinthians 2: 5-7: ⁵ If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. ⁶ The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. ⁷ Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

19. Abnormal Psychology: the application of psychological science to understanding and treating mental disorders

Mark 5: 13-15: ¹³ He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. ¹⁴ Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind;

20. Psychological Disorder: an ongoing dysfunctional pattern of thought, emotion, and behaviour that causes significant distress, and that is considered deviant in that person’s culture or society (Butcher, Mineka, & Hooley, 2007). 

Matthew 8: 16-17:¹⁶ When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.”^[b]

21. Social Psychology: the scientific study of how we feel about, think about, and behave toward the other people around us, and how those people influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Luke 9: 18-20: ¹⁸ Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” ¹⁹ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” ²⁰ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.” ²¹ Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. ²² And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” ²³ Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

22. Psychodynamic Approach: an approach to understanding human behaviour that focuses on the role of unconscious thoughts, feelings, and memories.

I Corinthians 2: 10-13:

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c]

23. Social Situation: the people with whom we are interacting.

Acts 2:42

[ The Fellowship of the Believers ] They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

24. Social Cognition: the part of human thinking that helps us understand and predict the behaviour of ourselves and others.

Hebrews 10: 23-26

23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 

25. Social Norms, the accepted beliefs about what we do or what we should do in particular social situations. (Stangor and Walinga, 2014) 

Colossians 2; 7-9

⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces^[a] of this world rather than on Christ.

⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,