How to Be a Thinking Christian, Putting the Christian Mind to Work
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.” In effect, this is a command to be a thinking Christian. In the first post of this series, I focused on how many Christians fail to love God with their minds. And how, regarding their faith, they are wasting their minds. In this essay, we will consider what it means to be a thinking Christian and make the case for being a thinking Christian.
What Does It Mean to Be a Thinking Christian?
While not all Christians are scholars, God expects all of us to think Christianly. Using our minds is an important part of our faith and not to be neglected. In explaining what this means, Christian thinker James Sire writes:
… all Christians are called to be as intellectual as befits their abilities and the work they have been called to do. No one is called to be a sloppy thinker. [1]
Os Guinness puts it this way: “To the extent God has given us minds, we must love God with all our minds and in all our lives in a way that is shaped decisively by him.” [2]
God desires every one of us to think as well as we can because it is an integral part of who he made us to be. Thus, we should endeavor to think as well as we can with the intellectual capacity gifted to us. Another way of putting this is that God expects us to think Christianly. This is what it means to love God with all your mind.
Think Christianly
What does it mean to think Christianly? First, it is not only thinking about Christian subjects like prayer, ministry, and Bible study. It is also not about adopting a distinctly Christian viewpoint on every issue, because sometimes this may not be reasonable or possible. Finally, it is not about thinking about only Christian things.
“Expressed positively, thinking Christianly is thinking by Christians about anything and everything in a consistently Christian way — in a manner that is shaped, directed, and restrained by the truth of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.” [3]
Thinking Christianly is to apply all the tools of the intellectual life to the topic for the glory of God.
For example, Christians in the business world should develop an understanding of economics, business ethics, employer-employee relationships, sales practices, and other related topics that are informed by Scripture and the work by Christian scholars in these areas. Or our church could consider having Sunday school classes that specifically address what it means to be a Christian in various vocations, including educators, attorneys, businesspeople, health care professionals, and others. These are examples of what it means to think Christianly.
As disciples, we are to live holy lives, becoming more like Jesus every day. Sire writes, “To have a passion for holiness is to have a passion to be like Christ.” [4] While we have a desire to be holy, we cannot understand what this means unless we know what truth is. We find truth by using our minds guided by the Holy Spirit. In this way, we can’t separate the intellectual life of a Christian from discipleship. Knowing this, it is difficult to understand how one can pursue the holiness required of discipleship without intellectual discipline.
The Case for Being a Thinking Christian
To think Christianly must finally result in obedience to God. The knowledge we gain will lead us to action. This being the case, we understand that thinking as a Christian has a spiritual foundation because God is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. [5] Let’s look at some key Scriptures which make the case for loving God with our minds. To do this, we will briefly consider four passages; Romans 12:2; Matthew 22:37-38; 1 Peter 3:15-16; and Philippians 4:8.
Romans 12:1-2 6
In Romans 12: 1-2, Paul is exhorting us to commit fully to God and to do so we must know His will:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
But there is a catch; unless we have renewed minds, we cannot know God’s will and thus we cannot please God. In commenting on this passage Moreland provides this insight: “… by ‘presenting our bodies,’ Paul means we must be available to do the hard work of understanding what God has said in his Word and take the time to study it in order to have our minds transformed!” [6]
We can’t know God’s will and be obedient to Him without exercising our minds. Also, unless we engage in the work necessary to bring about transformed minds, we are in jeopardy of thinking no differently than the non-Christian world around us. We may call ourselves Christian, but our thoughts and behaviors will be indistinguishable from those who do not confess Christ as Lord. If that is the case, we must ask ourselves just how valuable is our witness for Christ? How much are we committed to living the Christ-life?
Let’s Look Again at Matthew 22:37-38
We have already looked at the passage from Matthew, but let’s return to it for a moment. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38).
God is not limiting our love of Him to an emotional love (heart), or spiritual love (soul), but is explicitly commanding that we also love Him with an intellectual love (mind). Moreland comments, “In other words, God is worthy of being loved with every single facet of human personality, not simply with one or two aspects of our nature.” [7]
Love is an act of worship. We may say that the exercise of our minds in serious study and thinking is one way to worship to God. Besides, we have already seen this effort is necessary if we are to aim for holiness and stand apart from the unbelieving world.
1 Peter 3:15-16
Our ability to express our faith is the subject of the passage from First Peter: “…but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (3:15-16).
On what is your faith based? If your answer is that you “just believe” or “it is a matter of faith” then I challenge you to think more deeply. Peter says we should be able to tell others what we believe and why we believe it. Christianity is a proven faith that rests on logical, reasonable grounds. Our Lord does not ask us to give devotion to a doctrine that is vague, mindless, and only revealed in the bye-and-bye. We can prove the truth of Christianity (granted, it will take the Holy Spirit to change people’s hearts to accept this proof) and it takes hard mental work to do this.
Philippians 4:8
In Philippians 4:8, we see that thinking Christianly is not limited to topics related to the faith. Paul writes:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Paul uses “whatever,” “any,” and “anything” eight times in this one sentence. Clearly, his emphasis is that the Christian should engage his or her intellect in a broad rather than limited sense. Paul himself practiced this when he evangelized the Greeks in Athens (Acts 17:16-31), demonstrating his familiarity with their philosophers.
As we have seen, being a thinking Christian is a necessary part of discipleship and is of practical value. But loving God with our minds also involves thinking that goes beyond the pragmatic and utilitarian. It means to produce results. Much of our thinking and learning focuses on what we can do with the knowledge or information. In fact, if this is the only way we think about the life of the mind, we are missing an important truth.
Thinking, by itself, is good. Thinking is intrinsically good. Christian educator Williams writes:
The thesis that thinking and learning are good apart from their consequences should now be clear. Education, whether Christian or not, that aims solely at equipping students for work, ministry, and social change, though vitally significant, neglects an essential ingredient in a life well lived: the intrinsic goodness of knowledge. We certainly may value knowledge and the other aims of thinking and learning for their usefulness, but we should also value them without regard to their usefulness.[8]
A Personal Example
When we approach thinking and study in this way, it becomes an act of worship. Allow me to share a personal example. A few years ago, I became interested in God’s relationship to time. Is God inside time or outside time? Or is he both outside time and inside time? Questions like these rolled around in my mind. Now, searching for answers to these questions has little practical application for someone in the financial services business. I mean, how of my fellow congregants are excited about attending a class I might lead on the subject? I have even watched Marsha’s (my wife of 53 years) eyes glaze over when I wax eloquent on the subject over dinner.
My point is there is little of pragmatic value for me in this study. Yet, I’ve pursued it now for several years. I’ve read philosophical and theological books addressing the questions I’d raising. I’ve found learned papers and articles on the internet and in philosophical journals. I’ve learned a great deal. I know how some have answered these questions. But I am far from having an answer that satisfies me and I probably won’t find one this side of eternity. But has this been a waste of time on my part? My answer is unequivocally “no!” Through this study, my relationship with God has changed. I see more and more of the majesty, glory, mystery, and awesomeness of God as I study and ponder these questions.
Conclusion
What does it mean to love God with your entire mind? Williams captures it well in the following passage:
The kind of love involved might be called an intellectual love of God, or more simply, loving God with our minds. To love God with our minds does not mean that it is our minds that actually do the loving. Rather, we love God by using our minds. The situation is analogous to a surgeon who loves God with her hands — she uses her hands to express her love for God. Her hands are not doing the loving; she is doing the loving by using her hands.
Both the surgeon and the learner can love God with all their hearts, that is, from the center of their personalities and with fervor and warmth. They do so through the special talents they have. Loving God with our minds, therefore, is no different from loving God with our hearts, or simply loving God. It is just a special way of doing so.[9]
This is to be a thinking Christian. This is thinking Christianly. This is exercising the Christian mind.
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Next in the series: Barriers to being a Thinking Christian
Recommended Resources
End Notes
[1] James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind, (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2000), 205.
[2] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies Fat Minds, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 21.
[3] Ibid. 36.
[4] Sire, Habits of the Mind, 90.
[5] James W. Sire, Discipleship of the Mind, (Downers Grove, Il: Intervarsity Press, 1990), 16-18
[6] J. P. Moreland, Love God With All Your Mind, (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 1997), 26
[7] Ibid
[8] Clifford Williams, The Life of the Mind: A Christian Perspective, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 32-33
[9] Ibid. 34.
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