Reading

Matthew 22:37 commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is a command to be a thinking Christian, to think as a Christian. Christianity is not a blind faith. Rather, God expects us to use our intellectual capacities to understand and practice what we believe. In this series we’ve considered:

• Why many Christians ignore this command and do not love God with their minds, and the consequences of this failure. 
• What it means to be a thinking Christian and the case for being one.
• Obstacles preventing us from being thinking Christians.

How to become a thinking Christian: Practical Ideas on how to Love God with All Your Mind

In this post, I will offer advice on how to love God with our minds.

All of us have some capacity to engage in serious study, learning, and thinking. Though not all of us have the same capacity. Only some are scholars. But all of us are expected, even commanded, to use our minds as fully as we can, as God has gifted us. According to James Sire, this is a process that involves both formation and reformation. He writes:

For any person or community of believers, it is never a finished product. On the one hand, it is being hewed from a Christian’s growing grasp of Scripture in a recalcitrant culture. It is being reformed through experience with God and his people and a growing understanding of what Scripture really teaches.^[1]

Formation & Reformation

If we want to become thinking Christians, we need to open ourselves to and pursue both paths, formation, and reformation.^[2]

When the Christian mind is being formed, it is learning to operate in the kingdom of God. To do so, the Christian must engage in diligent Bible study, not just devotional or Bible reading, but learning what Scripture has to say about the important questions of life.

The forming Christian mind wants to know what God is like, how we can know God, and how we should live as his children. A Christian mind in formation also needs to engage with other books written from a Christian perspective. But it is not enough to only read and gain knowledge from the Scriptures and great Christian literature.We must also practice what we learn in obedience to God.

Constantly Reforming

Formation, as Sire points out, is never complete. Yet we are also constantly reforming the Christian mind. In reformation, we learn to be self-critical of our past understanding. We are always open to new understanding from Scripture. We should approach the Bible expecting it will teach us something new or correct an old misunderstanding.

Our experience also informs our reforming mind. We act on what we believe to be true and find that sometimes we are mistaken. At other times, the truth we learned is confirmed. Both are learning and growing experiences. In the reformation stage, we must remember the Word of God does not change, but our ability to understand correctly and apply it does.

In both formation and reformation, we allow our minds to reach out beyond the confines of Scripture and Christian writing. That means that we learn to think in a way that is constantly seeking to understand the surrounding environment. This requires us to read widely in books from all major worldview perspectives and pay attention to what is happening in the surrounding culture.

Helpful Spiritual Disciplines

Two spiritual disciplines are helpful in enabling us to learn to think Christianly, solitude and silence.

Solitude

Solitude requires finding space and time to be alone. It might be the early morning hours at home or late in the evening. If you are at home during the day and the kids are in school, you have a perfect opportunity.

Ideally, it is to take time away from the routine, on a personal retreat, at a mountain cabin, or even in a hotel with the “do not disturb” sign hanging on the door.

Wherever we find our solitude, we tune out all the extraneous things that demand our attention. This means that for a time we ignore the telephone, the doorbell, the news bulletin, the latest Facebook post, the e-mail waiting to be read, and yes, even other people.

Silence

Silence is best practiced in solitude, though we can learn to be silent during odd moments of the day. We live in a noisy world. Even when we think we are being silent, we play music in the background. Think about what it is like to experience a few moments of silence in church. Doesn’t that make you feel uncomfortable? That we are uncomfortable with silence reflects the busy world we live in. But learning to be comfortable with silence, even turning off the classical background music, is a precondition for study and thinking.

Reading to Be a Thinking Christian

Reading is the most important activity in developing the Christian mind. Most of us, though, do not appreciate the value of reading. We are so entrenched in our practical culture we think reading is only worthwhile when it adds to our knowledge, teaches us how to do something, or helps us improve our lives.

Sire gives us a better perspective on why we should read: “We read not just to listen to what others say and to discern what others think; we read to learn the truth, to know and take part in the reality God has created, not the reality only imagined by others.”^[3]

Two Ways to Read

According to Sire, there are two ways to read. The primary way we read is for reading to direct our thinking. When we read this way, which is the norm, we will experience times “When the text of a great work fully engages the mind, when the reader is so completely occupied with what is being read, the world of the text becomes a world of the reader.”^[4]

However, when we study, our thinking, the movements of our Christian mind, directs our reading. “It is the mode of the scholar mining a text for its information, perspective, reflection, insight, but always alert for what it wants, what fits its own thoughts, what does not and why not.”^[5]

To fully engage our minds in reading, we need to create habits of scholarship. These include marking passages of significance, making notes in the margins, writing our own thoughts at the tops and bottoms of pages, interacting with ideas, outlining, questioning. Another good study habit is to keep a notebook in which to jot down our ideas as we read and think.

Great Literature

Before we leave reading, we need to touch on the value of good literature. As Christians, we should read the Christian classics and other good, intellectually challenging, Christian writing. But we should not limit ourselves. There is much value to reading widely of great literature. About this, Sire writes, “The best literature makes us feel what it would be like to hold other views of the world. It helps us get inside mindsets very different from our own.”^[6]

Becoming a Thinking Christian

We’ve considered what it takes to be forming and constantly reforming the Christian mind. We’ve looked at the importance and value of reading great literature. With this in mind, how do we embark on the path to being a thinking Christian?

• Begin by first committing to yourself and to God to use your mind for his glory.
• Then pray each day, asking the Lord to help and guide you as you pursue intellectual endeavors.
• Find someone at your church who is able and willing to guide you on your journey–Pastor, Elders, and others with a passion for learning.
• Join in the learning opportunities offered at your church and in other small groups. Search out other possibilities in your area.
• Change your reading habits. Make good reading choices and practice good reading habits.
• Learn to practice the disciplines of solitude and silence.
• Finally, begin a disciplined study program.

Concluding Thoughts–The Benefits of Being a Thinking Christian

We have seen that loving God with all of one’s mind requires diligent effort and hard work on our part. But it is not optional for those who want to follow Jesus. Scripture commands us to use the intellectual capacity God has given us as an act of obedience and worship.

We’ve seen this does not mean God expects all of us to be full-time scholars. However, continuing the intellectual life to the extent it is right for each of us is vital if we are to live a full and well-developed life. Because the life of the mind involves intrinsic good, all who engage in it to any degree will grow in their faith. Thinking Christianly, applying our minds to serious reading and study, allows us to live more fully.^[7]

In addition, thinking and learning will do much to revitalize and invigorate the believer’s life. The intellectual efforts we’ve been discussing provide many benefits to the person who will make the effort.

Here is some of what we can expect when we love God with all of our minds:

• We will find support for our faith and reasons for believing.
• It will equip us to better share our faith with others.
• Mistaken beliefs will be exposed and replaced with truth.
• Our pursuit of righteous and holy living will be strengthened.
• It provides us with tools to tame our fleshly egos.
• We will find support in establishing good habits and developing virtues, and in our studies, and encounter God and His grace in fresh and rich ways.

In closing, let me urge you to join with me and make a renewed commitment to loving God fully by learning how to be a thinking Christian.

Next in the series: How I practice being a thinking Christian. 

 Endnotes

[1] Sire, Discipleship of the Mind, 23.

[2] The following comments on formation and reformation of the Christian mind are based on: Sire, Discipleship of the Mind, 23-24

[3] Sire, Habits of the Mind, 163-64.

[4] Ibid. 148.

[5] Ibid.163.

Recommended Reading

Sire, James W. Discipleship of the Mind. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1990.

Sire, James W. Habits of the Mind. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2000.