AUGUST 28
scripture reading: Philippians 4:8

Mind Your Mind

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”(Matthew 22:36–37)

American Evangelicals are quick to grasp the importance of loving God with all of our heart and soul. Amen! It just makes sense that true religion is all about having a passionate and spiritual love relationship with God. But when it comes to loving God with our many evangelicals draw a blank. Huh? How do you do that? Some of the great minds of history have wrestled with what it means to love God with our minds. Let me share with you some of my favorite quotes from some of my favorite authors on the spiritual importance of the mind.

,. I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this I believe—that unless I believe, I should not understand. (Anselm of Canterbury, 1033–1199)

,. The goal of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents Adam and Eve. (John Milton, 1608–1674)

,. Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed, to consider well that the main end of his life and studies is “to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life” (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. (Mission Statement of Harvard College, 1643)

,. For the most part [public education] only serves to enlarge stupidity, inflate conceit, enhance credulity, and put those subjected to it at the mercy of brainwashers with printing presses, radio, and television at their disposal. (Malcolm Muggeridge, 1969)

,. The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind. (Mark Noll, 1994)

,. There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. (G. K. Chesterton, 1905)

,. “But do you really mean, sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds— all over the place, just round the corner—like that?”

“Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do teach them at these schools?” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis, 1950)

,. Christian education is not simply a matter of starting class with Bible reading and prayer, then teaching subjects out of secular textbooks. It consists of teaching everything, from science and mathematics to literature and the arts, within the framework of an integrated biblical worldview. (Charles Colson, 1999)

Authentic discipleship and true spirituality is not just a matter of the heart and soul. Our love for God must also involve our minds. The redemption Jesus makes possible involves more than warming your heart, washing your soul and taking your spirit to heaven when you die. Jesus gave his life on the cross and poured out his Spirit so that your mind could be renewed! Therefore, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing [not the removal] of your mind (Romans 12:2).

The mental secularization of Christians means that nowadays we meet only as worshipping beings and as moral beings, not as thinking beings. —Harry Blamires

point to ponder • Why do so many evangelicals struggle with anti- intellectualism?

prayer focus • Christian scholars—for discernment and the proper maintenance of a heart for God as they pursue their studies.