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Your Mind Matters

Two ladies were having a chat in a supermarket. One said to the other, "What's the matter with you? You look so worried."

"I am," replied her friend. "I keep thinking about the world situation."

"Well," came the first lady's response. "You want to take things more philosophically and stop thinking!"

It's an extraordinary idea that the way to become more philosophical is to do less thinking. But the ladies in the story were reflecting the modern mood of anti-intellectualism, which has given birth to the ugly twins called mindlessness and meaninglessness. By contrast, consider the injunction of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:20. He begins with the same two words "Stop thinking," but he continues on: "Stop thinking like children…in your thinking grow up." But why should we use our minds?

To Glorify

Firstly, to use our minds glorifies our Creator. It acknowledges that we have a rational Creator who made us rational beings in God's own image, a creator who has given us in nature and in Scripture a double rational revelation. Francis Bacon, the 17th century philosopher-statesman said (in The Advancement of Learning, 1605) that God has written not one book but two— the "book of God's words" (Scripture) and the "book of God's works" (nature). There's an important parallel between science and theology. Science is the attempt to understand what God has revealed in nature; theology is the attempt to understand what God has revealed in Scripture.

Both are investigations into divine revelation, explorations of God's mind. In both (to paraphrase the astronomer Johann Kepler as quoted in The Home Book of Quotations, 10th edition) we're thinking divine thoughts after God has thought them. As the great Albert Einstein once said, the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is its comprehensibility ("Physics and Reality" in Franklin Institute Journal, March 1936).

To Enrich

Secondly, to use our minds enriches our discipleship, no part of which is possible if we don't use them, every part of which is enriched if we do. Failure to use our minds in the Christian life condemns us to spiritual stagnation and perpetual immaturity.

My first example of this is worship. Every Christian is a worshipper. But we cannot worship God if we don't know God. Christians aren't like those Athenians whose altar Paul found inscribed "to an unknown god." No, worship is a response to revelation. That's why the reading and exposition of God's word in public worship is indispensable. The word of God is what evokes the worship of God. To worship is to "glory in God's holy name" (Psalm 105:3)—that is, to revel in who God is. So we have to dissent from that worshipper who said that he felt like unscrewing his head and putting it under his seat, since in worship he had no use for anything above his collar button. To be sure, our emotions are also involved, for sometimes in worship we're transported above and beyond ourselves. But in all true worship we're reflecting on the greatness and glory of God.

My second example is faith. It's amazing how many Christians imagine that faith and reason are mutually incompatible. After all, they're never placed in antithesis to one another in Scripture. Faith and sight are contrasted, but not faith and reason. For what is faith? Faith isn't a synonym for credulity or superstition. Faith is not "an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable" (H. L. Mencken, the so-called sage of Baltimore, in Prejudices: Third Series, 1923). No, faith is a reasoning trust. Consider Psalm 9:10, "Those who know your name put their trust in you." That is, we trust because we know that God is trustworthy. So the more we use our minds to reflect on the character, covenant, and promises of God, the more our faith is drawn out from us.

My third example of enriching our discipleship is guidance. We all want to discern God's will for our lives. But too many Christians regard the guidance of God as a convenient alternative to thought, a device for saving us the bother of thinking. They regard their minds as a screen onto which they expect God to flash answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. And of course God is free to do this. But the normal way of guidance is through the mental processes God has created, not in spite of them.

Notice the beautiful balance of Psalm 32:8, 9 (NIV):
I will instruct you and teach
you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.

Verse 8 contains a threefold promise of guidance: "I will instruct you…I will teach you the way you should go…I will counsel you with my eye upon you" (RSV). But verse 9 adds a prohibition to the promise: "Do not be like a horse or mule which lack understanding." In other words God says to us: "I promise I will guide you, but don't expect me to guide you as you guide horses and mules. Why not? For the simple reason that you aren't a horse or mule. To be sure, they have a rudimentary brain, but they lack understanding, intelligence, or wisdom. You, however, were made in my image rational beings and must use the minds which I have given you."

To sum up, in worship, faith, and guidance, and indeed in every aspect of our discipleship, we must use our God-given minds. Our progress will be seriously impeded if we don't, but wonderfully facilitated if we do.

To Strengthen

Thirdly, to use our minds strengthens our witness. One of the major reasons some people reject the gospel isn't that they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be trivial. It doesn't seem to be big enough for the complex and tragic world in which we live. Of course it's right to simplify the gospel (it would be silly to complicate it), but it's wrong to trivialize it.

The apostles didn't make this mistake. On the contrary, they weren't afraid to use their minds and develop arguments in evangelism. In their ministry, apologetics and evangelism, the defense and proclamation of the gospel, went hand in hand. Paul defined his ministry in the words "We try to persuade others" (2 Corinthians 5:11). But we cannot persuade people without using arguments. To be sure, his trust was in the Holy Spirit, who alone can bring people to faith in Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. It brings people to faith not in spite of the evidence, but because of the evidence when people's minds are opened to attend to it. We need to be able to say to people what Paul said to the procurator Festus: "What I am saying is true and reasonable" (Acts 26:25).

Perhaps the best example is what Paul did in Ephesus when he visited it during his third missionary journey. He began his mission in the synagogue, but then rented the hall of Tyrannus for two years. There every day, some manuscripts adding "from the fifth hour to the tenth" (that is, from 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon), when most Ephesians would have been enjoying their midday siesta, Paul argued and debated the gospel. A daily five-hour lecture six days a week for two years is 3,120 hours of gospel argument. No wonder we read that "all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord" (Acts 19:10). For Ephesus was the capital of provincial Asia, and everybody came up to Ephesus at some point—to visit the library or the amphitheatre or the temple of Diana—and while there, many listened to Paul, were converted, and returned home newborn in Christ. It's a strategy for city-center evangelism that we need to recover today.

In conclusion, let us repent of the cult of mindlessness, of any residual intellectual laziness of which we may be guilty. Anti-intellectualism is a negative and destructive mindset. It insults God who has made us. It impoverishes us, hindering our spiritual growth, and it weakens our testimony in the world. Whereas a conscientious use of our minds glorifies God, enriches us, and strengthens our evangelistic witness. We come back to where we began: "in your thinking grow up!"

John Stott is the founder of the Langham Foundation—later renamed John Stott Ministries by its board. JSM helps Majority World pastors to preach and teach effectively by providing scholarships for key international seminary faculty, books for pastors and seminary libraries, and preaching seminars (for more information, see www.johnstott.org). Uncle John, as he's known throughout the world, was just named as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World (4/18/05 issue).