Matthew 22.37-40
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart a and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the prophets.”
We are the recipients of the mind of Christ. Because of God’s grace through Jesus, our minds have been redeeming med and are in the process of being renewed. Therefore, we should use our minds to think skillfully about how we go about daily life in response to God’s call. This means thinking deeply and with skill about Scripture, and it also means thinking deeply and with skill about the world — and the time — in which we live.
As the Matthew passage above makes very clear, Jesus commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. In response to the Lord’s love for us, we are to love him with the fullness of our being … including the way we think.
It must be noted the word for “mind” in this verse is dianoia, which is an intensified form of nous, the word that is more commonly used for “mind.” Dianoia adds the prefix dia to nous, thereby conveying the commitment and wisdom to think in a way that “reaches across to the other side of a matter.” The goal of Christ-centered dianoia is to thoroughly understand a situation in order to draw a wise conclusion. It is the mental-spiritual discipline of “critical thinking and thorough reasoning.”
Dianoia is deep thinking, not shallow thinking. It is thorough, not sloppy. It is disciplined, not impulsive. This kind of skillful use of the mind is essential to loving the Lord and loving your neighbor. In other words, how you think affects how you love God and others.
Given the importance of dianoia in the life of individual believers and the Christian community, we must challenge ourselves and ask: Are we obeying Jesus’ command to love God with all of our mind? Do we think skillfully and with thorough reasoning? Are we disciplined thinkers? Are we exercising dianoia in response to God’s call on our life?
The answer is that too often the church has been ambivalent about the life of the mind. America, in particular, has a long history of evangelical suspicion of education and intellectual labor.
Here are observations from a number of wise Christian leaders:
“Thinking — the alert, meticulous, probing, logical, critical use of the mind — will be a highway either to godliness or to its opposite, depending on how it is done,” J. I. Packer
“We cannot feel like Christians or act like Christians if we don’t think like Christians,” Michael Horton
“Much in contemporary American life promotes sloppy thinking or the use of careful thinking for human self-promotion. Much in conservative Christian churches promotes suspicion of modern learning or the use of reactionary emotion to replace thinking. The point of Christian thinking is to understand God’s two books — Scripture and the world —and, with that understanding, to glorify God,” Mark Noll
“In contradistinction to the secular mind, no vital Christian mind plays fruitfully, as a coherent and recognizable influence, upon our social, political, or cultural life. . . There is no Christian mind,” (Harry Blamires)
“The challenge is not only to win souls but to save minds … The greatest danger besetting American Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The mind as to its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough … Evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual life.” (Charles Malik)
Are these assessments too harsh? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Because we have received the amazing gift of redeemed minds, the Christian community should have a reputation for wise, insightful, and effective thinking about the created world and the way mankind operates within it. We should be known for skillful thinking about science, history, education, business, politics, psychology, the arts, media, entertainment, athletics, etc..
The reality is that the Christian community does not have a reputation for disciplined thinking in any of these culture-shaping categories. Yes, there are some very wise Christians who think deeply, research thoroughly, and write effectively about some of the topics (Os Guinness comes to mind), but people like Dr. Guinness tend to be the exception, not the rule.
It is time the 21st century Christian community confront the painful truth that we are experiencing a very serious poverty of effective thinking. We have a great deal of work to do to restore our intellectual integrity.
“The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.” (Proverbs 14.15)
More next week …
