The House That Wisdom Built Series

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The House That Wisdom Built Series :: 8/4/13 AM

The House that Wisdom Built

Prov. 24:3

Intro: There are two words that I want to focus on this morning as we begin this new series on the home.  These two words are “builded” and “established”.  These two words are actually synonymous.

Definition:

Builded – to build, to establish, to make permanent

Established – to be set up, be established, be fixed; be stable, be secure, be enduring

That’s where we want to begin in this series.

Wisdom builds a home that will endure.

In a time where there is very little commitment in the home, God wants to build homes that endure.

• Husbands committed to their wives.
• Wives committed to their husbands.
• Parents that are committed to their children.
• Children that are committed to their parents.
• Families that are committed to God.

One of the things I learned when I was building houses was the importance of building for endurance.

When building a house, you build a strong foundation.

When wisdom builds a house, it does it properly; permanently.

Wisdom doesn’t build shacks, and lean-to’s and shanties.

Wisdom builds something solid, something real, something of worth and substance.

Part I

It is Built to Endure

Turn to Psalm 112:1-10

A. An Enduring Fear – vs. 1 Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord

Definition of “feareth”: to fear, be afraid; to stand in awe of, be awed; to fear, reverence, honour, respect

• Psalms 111:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

A house that wisdom builds is build with a healthy fear of God.

A reverential fear that permeates every area of the home.

Verse 1 says that he delighteth greatly in his commandments.

This is an atmosphere where the precepts of God are not despised; but they are a delight.

This is a home where the family stands in awe of God’s person and His power.

It is a reverential fear that lasts all week. Not just on Sunday morning.

B. An Enduring Family – vs. 2 His seed shall be mighty upon the earth; the generation of the upright shall be blessed.

When wisdom builds a house, it produces a family that can stand the test of time.

Satan is the instigator of division, strife, splintered families, divorce, unfaithfulness.

That is not God’s plan. It never has been.

The Bible is clear. Marriage is a covenant between a man and his wife and God.

• Mark 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;  And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

God intended for man and wife to be married for life.

And God intended for families to stay together.

God never intended for children to run away from home and live with other people and on the streets.

Mark 10:7 says that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

The home is a sanctuary from the world, evil influences and temptation.

The house that wisdom builds is a haven from the world and its wickedness.

God promised in Psalm 112 that the God fearing man would produce a family that shall be mighty.

MIGHTY: champion, chief, excel, giant, men’s, mightiest, strongest

God said that the house that wisdom builds will produce a family of champions; excellence.

What an encouragement!  What a promise!

C. An Enduring Faith – vs. 6, 7

Vs. 6 – Surely he shall not be moved for ever.

MOVED: to totter, shake, slip, be moved, be overthrown, to dislodge, let fall, drop, to be greatly shaken

A house that is built on wisdom is one that is built on faith.

The house that wisdom builds is full of committed, dedicated, stable believers.

The foundation has been placed in Someone that is far greater than any problem.

The homes of the ungodly are built on emotion, fear, lust, greed, and selfish desires.

The home that is built by wise men is founded on something that never changes – God.

Notice verse 7, 8 – He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, until he see his desire upon his enemies.

NOTE: The Hebrew word for “he shall not be afraid” is the exact same word for “fear” in verse 1.

The house that wisdom builds will produce a reverential fear for God – not circumstances.

Bad tidings is everywhere.

• On the news
• In the paper
• On the radio
• On your voicemail
• In your Inbox
• In your bank statement
• In your mailbox
• In conversations with friends and family

A wise man that fears God is not moved by these things; his heart is fixed.

FIXED: to be established, be stable, be secure, be enduring

Conclusion:  This concept of endurance is used repeatedly in this chapter.

• Vs. 2 – his seed shall be mighty
• Vs. 3 – His righteousness endureth for ever
• Vs. 6 – surely he shall not be moved for ever; the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance
• Vs. 7 – his heart is fixed
• Vs. 8 – his heart is established
• Vs. 9 – his righteousness endureth for ever

If you’ve never been born again; never put your faith in trust in Christ, why not let him replace that temporary life for one that will last.  Why not let him give you the gift of eternal life?

Part 2

Proverbs 24:3-5

II. It is Built to Educate

Intro: Our text makes at least three references to the importance of the learning process.

• Verse 3 – by understanding it is established
• Verse 4 – by knowledge shall the chambers be filled
• Verse 5 – a  man of knowledge increaseth strength

When wisdom builds a house, it builds a house where education is a vital component of the home.

• Proverbs 1:5  A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

NOTICE our TEXT in PROVERBS 24:6 For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war; and in multitude of counselors there is safety.

QUOTE: “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.” Charles Spurgeon

The Bible is filled with many references to the importance of learning.

In Proverbs alone, we find these references to God’s thoughts on education.

• KNOWLEDGE – 41 TIMES
• LEARNING – 4 TIMES
• INSTRUCTION – 25 TIMES
• UNDERSTANDING – 53 TIMES
• FOOL – 41 TIMES
• FOOLISH – 13 TIMES
• WISDOM – 53 TIMES

Wisdom doesn’t build a house based on ignorance, foolishness, and confusion.

Wisdom builds a house that stresses the importance of learning, knowing, understanding and being teachable.

I’m not talking about being a genius or having a high IQ.

I’m talking about having a desire to know more and to understand the important things in life.

QUOTE: “It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.” ― Albert Einstein

If we are to have a home that honors God and reflects a godly, wisdom that is from above, we will have homes where there is an atmosphere of increased learning.

• Deut. 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might   And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:  And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

A. Educate on Morality

There is a lot of emphasis placed on a righteous life in the book of Proverbs.

Even in our text we find it referenced several time.

• Psalm 112:1 – that delighteth in his commandments.
• Psalm 112:2 – the generation of the upright shall be blessed
• Psalm 112:3 …his righteousness endureth for ever.
• Psalm 112:4 – Unto the upright there ariseth light…he is righteous
• Psalm 112:5 – A good man…
• Psalm 112:6 – the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance
• Psalm 112:9 – his righteousness endureth for ever

When wisdom builds a house, it stresses the importance of living according to the laws of God.

Parents and children alike need to be taught that there are is a right and a wrong.

Starting in chapter 1, Solomon begin teaching his children the importance of avoiding the sinful crowd.

• There is a right crowd, and a wrong crowd. – 1:10
• There are right activities, and wrong activities. – 11-14
• There are right paths, and wrong paths – 1:15

In chapter 5, he warns of the dangers of the strange woman and the sin of adultery.

• NOTE verse 1 – attend unto my wisdom
• NOTE verse 23 – he shall die without instruction

More teaching follows on the sin of adultery and sexual immorality from 6:20 – chapter 7.

NOTE: You must have a consistent standard of morality in the home to be effective in teaching.

You can’t teach morality in the home and send your children to a school that endorses immorality.

You can’t teach morality in the home, and let your children be influenced by the immorality on TV.

You can’t teach morality in the home, and then excuse immorality in your own life.

You can’t teach morality in the home and then go to a church where the pastor has been married two or three times.

You can’t teach morality in the home, and listen to music that promotes immorality.

B. Educate on Money

• Proverbs 24:4  And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
• Psalms 112:3  Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever.

Today’s children are taught the world’s perspective of money.

They are taught to play the lottery, to invest in stocks and bonds, and to lay up their treasures on earth.

• Matt. 6:19-21  Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
• I Tim. 6:8-10  And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The house that wisdom builds in Psalm 112 is a house that understands that the secret to having riches is to give.

• Vs. 4 – he is gracious and full of compassion.
• Vs. 5 – A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth
• Vs. 5b – he will guide his affairs with discretion
• Vs. 9 – he hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor

QUOTE: “Making money isn’t hard in itself… What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to.”

• Acts 20:35  I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Teaching our children what the Bible teaches about giving, and about wealth, and about money is a sign of a wise house.

Teach your children to tithe and to give to people in need and to support their local church.

Teach your children to understand faithful, consistent giving to world missions.

A wise man understands that prosperity is a BYPRODUCT of wisdom; but not the world’s definition of wealth.

A wise house will be a prosperous house.

QUOTE: “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

C. Educate on Might

• Proverbs 24:5  A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.

The world’s definition of strength and might is carnal.

Their strength is displayed on a weight room, a ball field, a political arena, a courtroom or in a financial capacity.

In the house that wisdom builds, might is strength of character in the midst of negative influences.

Might is the ability to say NO to the wrong crowd.

Might is the ability to live for God in a wicked and perverse generation.

Might is the fortitude to be faithful to your wife, provide for your children and fear God in all you do.

Might is knowing your Bible and being able to produce Biblical proof for what God said.

• Acts 18:24  And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.

David was known as a mighty man when he was just a young boy that demonstrated responsibility when doing his job.

• 1 Samuel 16:18  Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him.

Might according to God is shown by having character, discernment, responsibility, maturity and spirituality.

Might is the ability to raise a generation of children up in the old paths.

Might is the skill to point your kids to God.

• Psalm 127:3  Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Might is the Divine assistance that enables you to live victoriously over sin.

• 2 Corinthians 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
• 2 Corinthians 13:3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.  For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

Might is the ability to lean upon the everlasting arm of Almighty God each and every day.

• Zechariah 4:6  Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.

Conclusion:  The HOUSE THAT WISDOM BUILDS is a house where God’s definition of money, morality and might is taught and obeyed.  In order to submit to God’s will on these issues, it is imperative that those within the home submit themselves to the gospel and allow the saving power of Christ to transform their heart and mind.  Accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior is the first step to having a wise and godly household.

Part 3

III. It is Built to Exemplify

Intro: The house that wisdom builds is a house that is a testimony.  It is a witness.  It makes a statement.  It has an impact on those that see it.  It will build a house that will have an effect on people that see it, and it will impact their life.

• Psalm 112:10 The wicked shall see it, and be grieved: he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

A. It will Exemplify the Fear of God – vs. 1

• Psalms 111:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
• Proverbs 1:7  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• Proverbs 9:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

B. It will Exemplify the Favor of God

• vs. 1 – blessed is the man
• vs. 4 – unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness
• vs. 9 – his horn shall be exalted with honour

C. It will Exemplify Fervency for God

• Proverbs 9:1  Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars:

The hewing out of seven pillars demonstrates a dedication, commitment and a strong desire.

Those pillars were no doubt made of stone, or granite.

Took time and effort.

Not something you would undertake half-heartedly or on a whim.

The number seven is a type of completion and perfection.

Wisdom doesn’t stop until the job is complete; until it’s right!!

Solomon is an excellent example of this type of wisdom.

Solomon’s fervency for God was exemplified in:

• II Chron. 1:10 in his prayer for wisdom and knowledge.
• II Chron. 2:1 when he determined to build a house for the name of the Lord.
• II Chron. 3 and 4 by the expense of the construction of the Temple.
• II Chron. 5 by the installation of the Ark of God.
• II Chron. 6:1-11 by the sermon that he preached.
• II Chron. 6:12-42 by the prayer that he prayed.
• II Chron. 7 by his dedication of the Temple.

BUT – when the Queen of Sheba showed up in chapter 9, his love for God was exemplified in several ways.

I. Exemplified by your Abode – vs. 3 …and the house that he had built.

Is your home a testimony – a witness – of your fear of God, your fervency for God?

Is there anything in your home that would detract from your impact on unbelievers or struggling Christians?

II. Exemplified by your Appetite – vs. 4 …and the meat of his table

What are you eating (spiritually)?

What does your diet consist of?

What are your children eating in the home?

I’m not talking about physical food, but spiritual (or carnal) food.

What kind of diet are you living on in your house?

What kind of TV programs do you watch?

What kind of movies to you look at?

What kind of music is playing in your home?

What is on the walls? In the closets? On the computers?

• Matthew 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
• Psalms 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

III. Exemplified by your Attendance – vs. 4 …and the attendance of his ministers

The word attendance here is the ministry; the duties, the labor that was going on within his house.

What is your ministry? What is your duty?

What are you and your household doing to demonstrate your fervency for God?

When the world looks at your family, does your home exemplify a fervency for  God?

IV. Exemplified by your Apparel – vs. 4

Does the apparel of those within your home exemplify a fear of God?

I’m not sure what they had on in this verse, but it was an overwhelming testament of Solomon’s wisdom!

Your clothes say it for you!

What you wear is saying something to those around you.

V. Exemplified by your Ascent to the House of God – vs. 4

Again, there was something special about the way that Solomon went to church that impressed the queen.

It was something to behold.

It was something special and very significant.

She was overwhelmed by the way and the manner that Solomon went to the Temple.

QUESTION: Would the way you attend church exemplify to the world a life of wisdom and fear of God?

Would it testify to them of a fervent spirit?

Conclusion:

In Psalm 112:10, it says that the wicked shall see it and be grieved.

In II Chron. 9:3, 4 it says that when she saw the house that wisdom had built, there was no more spirit in her.

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http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/god-is-the-answer/

The science is in: God is the answer

Eighteen years ago, Lisa Miller, now the director of clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College, had an epiphany on a New York subway car. She had been poring over the mountains of data generated by a three-generation study of depressed women and their children and grandchildren. The biological trend was clear: Women with severe—and particularly with recurrent—depression had daughters at equally high risk for the psychological disorder. At puberty, the risk was two to three times greater than for other girls. But the data seemed to show that the onset and, even more so, the incidence of recurring bouts with depression, varied widely.

Miller couldn’t discern why. Raised in a close-knit Midwestern Jewish community, she had already looked for what she says psychologists rarely bothered to seek—religious belief and practice—and found some mild benefit for both mothers and children, but nothing that stood out among the other variants, such as socio-economic status. Then came the subway ride.

“There I was, on a Sunday—quite invested in this question, wasn’t I, going up to the lab on a Sunday,” recalls Miller in an interview. She was in a subway car crowded at one end and almost empty at the other, because that end was occupied by a “dirty, dishevelled man” brandishing a piece of chicken at everyone who boarded while yelling, “Hey, do you want to sit with me? You want some of this chicken?” The awkward scene continued for a few stops until an older woman and a girl of about eight—grandmother and granddaughter, Miller guessed—got on. The man bellowed his questions, and the pair nodded at one another and said, “Thank you,” in unison, and sat beside him. It astonished everyone in the car, including Miller and the man with the chicken, who grew quieter and more relaxed.

The child’s evident character traits—compassion, acceptance, fearlessness—at so young an age prompted Miller’s eureka moment. What struck her was the nod and all it implied: “It was clear as day that the grandchild fully understood how one lives out spiritual values in her family.” Twenty minutes later, Miller was in her lab, running equations on the data that were, in effect, a search for “the statistical nod.” She was looking for mother-teen pairs who had reported a shared religion or non-religious spirituality. She calls the results “the most amazing science I had ever seen.” In the pairs Miller found in the data, shared spirituality (religious or otherwise)—if it reached back to the child’s formative years—was 80 per cent protective in families that were otherwise at very high risk for depression.

It was the start of a long and sometimes rocky road for both Miller and the place of spirituality—however defined—in mainstream psychological thinking. She remembers doors literally slammed in her face and “people walking out of talks I was giving.” But Miller and other researchers, including so-called “spiritual” neuroscientists like Montreal’s Mario Beauregard and the much-cited American psychologist Kenneth Kendler continued to explore the intersection of religiosity and mental health in studies published in major, peer-reviewed science journals. By the end of it, as Miller sets out in a provocative new book, The Spiritual Child, out later this spring, she was convinced not only of spirituality’s health benefits for people in general, but of its particular importance for young people during a stage of human development when we are most vulnerable to impulsive, risky or damaging behaviours.

Related: Inside your teenager’s scary brain

In fact, Miller declares, spirituality, if properly fostered in children’s formative years, will pay off in spades in adolescence. An intensely felt, transcendental sense of a relationship with God, the universe, nature or whatever the individual identifies as his or her “higher power,” she found, is more protective than any other factor against the big three adolescent dangers. Spiritually connected teens are, remarkably, 60 per cent less likely to suffer from depression than adolescents who are not spiritually oriented. tweet this They’re 40 per cent less likely to abuse alcohol or other substances, and 80 per cent less likely to engage in unprotected sex. Spiritually oriented children, raised to not shy from hard questions or difficult situations, Miller points out, also tend to excel academically.

And teenagers can use all the help they can get. Recent research has revealed their neurological development to be as rapid and overwhelming as their bodily change. The adolescent brain is simultaneously gaining in intellectual power and losing in emotional control; its neural connections—its basic wiring—is a work in progress, with connections between impulse and second (or even first) thought slower than in adults. There is a surge in unfamiliar hormones and, as it turns out, a surge in spiritual longing.

Related: Why teens are getting upset over One Direction—and why that’s a good thing

Humans have an innate tendency to ascribe random and natural events to conscious agents and a hunger to belong to something larger than ourselves—both militant atheists and fervent believers can agree on this. The urge is never sharper than in adolescence, when, in the fraught process of individuation, teens develop their own sense of the world and their place in it. “A teen looks out at what’s been handed to him or her, from family or community,” Miller says, “and asks, ‘What about these values, what about this way of life is me, and what is not me?’ And this ‘me/not-me’ work is the most important work a teen does.”

TAP TO TWEET

In Miller’s view, and that of many traditional cultures, individuation—the way children become their own individuals rather than unconscious copies of their parents—is an essentially spiritual process. When that process runs into difficulties, says Miller, the health effects can be severe, especially in terms of depression, to which adolescents are suddenly vulnerable. In fact, half of all adults who have suffered depression had their first experience in adolescence; teens are considered the demographic most at risk for it. Research shows that up to 20 per cent of adolescents have a major depression episode at some point, with an additional 40 per cent or more exhibiting what are known as “sub-threshold” levels that leave them distressed enough to seek treatment at the same rates as kids with major depression—and as much at risk for depression in their adult years.

And numbers approaching two-thirds in a single age bracket, Miller argues, are far too high to ascribe to illness alone. Her argument is that brushes with depression are intrinsic to developmental and spiritual awakening. Teens in this often excruciating situation sometimes will turn to substance use, risky sex, physical danger—all of which are shortcuts to transcendence that ultimately have their roots in the same universal drive. On the other hand, adolescents who have supported spiritual lives, especially dating back to childhood, and “practice in asking and living through hard questions, are more prepared to face them,” Miller says.

The evidence for a personal religious advantage is overwhelming, Miller claims, drawn from literally “hundreds” of epidemiological and longitudinal studies. In a 2002 article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, data taken from a 1995 survey of 3,300 teen girls in North Carolina showed that higher frequency of prayer or meditation correlated with decreased risk of depression. It’s worth noting that the advantage was conferred by individual devotion rather than the degree to which the girls believed sacred writings were the literal word of God—spirituality, then, rather than religion.

(Other studies have identified this distinction, which was first laid out in Kendler’s landmark twin study in 1997. Examining 1,900 female pairs, identical and fraternal, in the Virginia Twin Registry, he concluded people’s religious practices were broadly determined by environment, but that individual devotion was almost 50 per cent due to a twin’s “unique personal environment.”)

A 2005 study found that a teen with this sort of spiritual connection—as manifested by statements like “I turn to God for guidance in times of difficulty”—was at least 70 per cent less likely to move from substance dabbling to substance abuse. Again, the key was personal engagement; there was no protective factor at all from going to church or taking part in family prayer when those acts came from obligation rather than conviction.

And a massive 2012 study from the department of child and family services at the University of Tennessee looked at 9,300 teens from half a dozen countries and regions, from China and India to Palestine and the United States. Its authors cited an earlier American study that showed that religion had an inverse correlation with anti-social behaviour, including substance abuse, carrying weapons and drinking and driving, and a positive correlation with what the researchers called “pro-social behaviour,” which included everything from volunteerism to school engagement. Across the world, the Tennessee study found, adolescents who were more religious than their peer groups had lower rates of depression and higher self-esteem. Those teens who reported experiencing such internal states as “relational spirituality” and “meaningfulness of religion” also reported lower levels of depression. “Overall, there is much support for the relationship between religiosity and youth psychological well-being,” the authors wrote.

Similar correlations have been seen by neuroscientists who work primarily with adults. Researchers who have used neuroscans to examine people at high familial risk for depression have noted brain abnormalities. One 2004 study pinpointed cortical thinning across the lateral surface of the right cerebral hemisphere, which the authors suspected would produce disturbances in sensory arousal, attention and memory for social cues, a situation they suggested might explain the increased chances of developing depression.

“In our lab, we looked at the brains, through MRIs, of people who had a strong sense of relationship in a transcendental dialogue with their higher power,” recalls Miller. That two-way sacred relationship is central to Judeo-Christian spirituality—hence the importance of the subway nod—and those people showed a thickening of the cortex in the same region. “They essentially had stronger wiring, through a sustained personal spirituality,” Millar explains. The exact implications of the neurological findings remain tentative, but stronger, thicker wiring is considered beneficial.

In his now iconic brain-scan studies of Franciscan nuns praying and Buddhist monks meditating, Andrew Newberg—perhaps the leading American expert on the neurological aspects of religion—saw the same neural pathways being used (and strengthened) whether his subject was seeking God or attempting to become one with the cosmos. So Miller was delighted to learn that her lab’s work with devout Christians was, “in an entirely different lab, in an entirely different sample,” replicated with subjects who were meditating. “This is no longer prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is experienced meditators,” says Miller. “And they too showed cortical thickening in the same regions.”

Patrick McNamara, whose neurological lab at Boston University studies what happens to the brain in religious practice, says, “There are studies that show that religiosity is associated with better executive function and self-control. Those things are moderating factors on a whole host of health-related behaviours.” Although he is more cautious than Miller and thinks religion’s protective features need more study, McNamara agrees that “in the long run we think that religiosity will confer a protective effect against all kinds of disorders.” McNamara has studied the role of the frontal lobes—the part of the brain that exerts executive control over other regions and which teens, incidentally, find hard to access—in religious experience. “The right prefrontal region is especially important for supporting maintenance of the self,” he says. “People who’ve had strokes in that region have problems with self-concept, and people who have dysfunction in that region show lower scores on religiosity tests—that’s what we found.” A strong self-concept, which tends to be enhanced by religion, he notes, is associated with better health outcomes.

In the two decades since she began her career, Miller’s field has moved from the fringe to respectability. Universities such as Duke and Baylor have research centres that focus on the intersection of religion and health and publish studies looking at everything from integrating spirituality into nursing care, to private religious activities and cardiovascular risk, to the interconnections of religious involvement, inflammatory markers and stress hormones in chronic illness. In 2012, Columbia’s teachers college, the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States, began to offer the Ivy League’s first master’s concentration in spiritual psychology.

Miller’s ideas may also resonate more with many Canadians than the conventional wisdom about religion’s decline would suggest. University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby pioneered the study of religious trends in Canada. His newest data, gathered in partnership with the not-for-profit Angus Reid Institute, sees more than a quarter of Canadians reject religion, compared with the 30 per cent who embrace it. But there is a vast middle ground, 44 per cent, who file themselves between those two poles. Most of them presumably overlap with the 40 per cent of Canadians who call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Some of the antagonism to, and hesitation about, religion comes from a reaction to organized religion’s institutional hypocrisies—shunting pedophile priests from one diocese to another, for example—and from what modern Westerners increasingly see as intolerable restrictions on their personal autonomy. But Miller says she frequently encounters mothers who worry the spirituality baby has been tossed out with the religious bathwater. The dogma-free spirituality she recommends (and practises herself), which can be “cultivated in nature, in service, in human relationships,” has appeal for adults, and not just for the benefits it promises their children.

But while the public may be open to Miller’s ideas and her fellow academics may no longer slam their doors on her, not everyone is sold on her conclusions. Many materially minded social scientists are skeptical of the neurological view and argue that the health benefits conveyed by religion result from the community support it offers. In her 2014 book The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier and Happier, Montreal-based developmental psychologist Susan Pinker cites a seven-year study of 90,000 women from across the U.S. that found that those who attended religious services at least once a week were 20 per cent more likely to have longer lifespans than those who did not. As much as the attendance itself, Pinker points to the ritualistic physical synchrony of religious services, the way “praying, chanting, singing, swaying and rocking all together” is “brain-soothing.”

The social benefit of community is behind the sporadic attempts, mostly in the U.S. and Britain, to establish “atheist churches,” though this “if you can’t beat ’em” thinking—epitomized by skeptical philosopher Alain de Botton’s comment, “Religion is too important to be left to believers”—is repellent to more militant atheists. The human tendency toward religious belief should be resisted in the cause of evidence-based science, not accommodated, even in health care.

Related: Religion isn’t dying. In fact, it may be rising from the grave.

Their cause is bolstered by religion’s dark side.​ Tight-knit religious communities can also be over-controlling and outright abusive. “Look at Bountiful,” says Pinker, in reference to the polygamy and child-trafficking charges laid against members of a fundamentalist Mormon community in the small B.C. town. And fundamentalist teens often exhibit high levels of risk-taking because, Pinker says, they have no space for mild rebellion. “They are from families where it is easier to get pregnant at 15 than confess to your parents you don’t believe in God.”

In fact, depression can strike those adolescents harder than teens outside organized religion. A paper by Rachel Dew, a prominent religion and health researcher at Duke University, examined 117 teen psychiatric patients, most from religious families, and found depression in them linked strongly to feeling abandoned by God or unsupported by their faith communities.

Dew, one of the most cited researchers in her field, agrees in an interview that there is “overwhelming evidence that teens involved in religion are less likely to fall into drug or alcohol abuse,” particularly teens who “self-identified” with their faith. Still, Dew continues, studying depression rates so far provides less certain evidence of the health benefits of spirituality or religion. Part of the reason for caution, she says, is that researchers are still uncertain how to define religion and are wrestling with questions of correlation and causation. “We know from twin studies that there is a genetic predilection for religion,” she says. When that’s accompanied by a lower risk of depression, is the cause “in the religion or in the same genetic predisposition?” Moreover, many survey tools remain unsophisticated, seeking religious internalization through religious affiliation questions like “Do you go to church?” “Here in the South,” says Dew, “people see no difference between spirituality and religion.”

Miller thinks it all actually proves her case. In a very real sense, she says, debates over social versus natural, or about neural correlates, miss the point. When she talks about spirituality, she says, it’s with the pragmatism derived from clinical experiences, itself born from patients’ experiences. “No one’s laying any theology or implicit theology on the child; it’s his or her emerging natural spirituality,” she says. Look at the narratives of those who come out of addiction, Miller urges. “They say, ‘It was a hunger to feel a sense of connection that got me in, and it was when I found my relationship with my higher power that I came out.’”

Parents don’t need “big answers” for adolescents working through this, Miller says, and certainly not dogmatic answers. “We just need to show up and take an interest, and let them know the work is real, that this is the set-up, the foundation on which they’ll build their house in life.” However defined—and Miller’s own includes “Shabbat and Seder and a lot of nature”—an inclusive spirituality plainly works for human health and well-being, “and that’s why we do this work, to help kids not suffer.”

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