This Mindless AgeRomans 12:1-2Theme: Christ’s call to think.This week’s lessons teach us our responsibility to be thinking Christians. LessonThis week we’ve looked at different ways that “the pattern of this world” eases its way into our worldview. And this is the point at which we also need to talk about genuine mind renewal for Christians, which is what I will continue with next week. But I want to mention a helpful little book by John Stott, the Rector Emeritus of All Soul’s Church in London. It is titled Your Mind Matters. It deals with six spheres of Christian living, and it argues that each one is impossible without a proper and energetic use of our minds: Christian worship, Christian faith, Christian holiness, Christian guidance, Christian evangelism, and Christian ministry. We need to think.
Stott argues that “anti-intellectualism… is… part of the fashion of the world and therefore a form of worldliness. To denigrate the mind is to undermine foundational Christian doctrines.” He asks pointedly, “Has God created us rational beings, and shall we deny our humanity which he has given us? Has God spoken to us, and shall we not listen to his words? Has God renewed our mind through Christ, and shall we not think with it? Is God going to judge us by his Word, and shall we not be wise and build our house upon this rock?”1
They are important and helpful questions, if you think about them.
1 John R.W. Stott, Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 26. Study Questions
What are the six spheres of Christian living?
Why should we be thinking Christians?
Are we rational beings?
Why is God pleased with thinking Christians?
Why is mind renewal so significant for the Christian?
PrayerOur Father, we confess that it is hard for us to think – certainly hard to think your thoughts after you – and we are undoubtedly hindered from thinking at all by the world in which we live. How much easier for us to watch television than to read our Bibles, or Christian books, or converse on Christian themes, or rigorously examine our thoughts and lifestyle to see if it conforms to what you’ve revealed to us in Scripture! But we recognize also, our Father, as our text tells us, that that is what we need to do. And so we pray that you will use this study today to launch us along that path so that when, at the end of our days, we stand before the throne of your grace, we’re not found to be mindless Christians, but as those who actually tried to think your thoughts after you and conform our lives according to the revelation of Scripture, and that that might be done to the praise of the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.
