Boundaries, A Biblical View

First, I need to say that this is not an easy topic for me. It’s not easy to explain. It’s not easy to practice. I’ll be taking my material from some of the documents we were given at TK, from my notes on reading the book called Boundaries (by Henry Cloud and John Townsend), and from ACCFS materials on their website.

Boundaries were established by God.
In the beginning, he distinguishes…

Night from day,
Water from land,
Plants from animals
Animals from humans
The tree of the knowledge of
good and evil from all other trees.

He is defining where one object, idea, or group ends and another begins. So likewise, whenever there are two people, boundaries are necessary to define where one ends and the other begins. We have skin which defines our physical boundaries. It’s up to us to figure out what our boundaries are going to be emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.

Now we can start with the Bible, which gives us boundaries on what is sin and what isn’t; it also lays out values that God would want us to use as a guide. This is a great place to start. We can take biblical values and apply them to our lives, living within the boundaries they create. These values were designed to keep the good in and the bad out. I’ll write more on that next time. Just as there are physical laws in life like gravity, so boundaries have natural laws too. These have been proven over and over to be true. Here are a couple of charts that describe these laws in a beautiful way…