A few nights ago I got into a relatively heated discussion with a dear sister in Christ online about the place of emotions and experience in the Christian walk (of which I must apologise to this sister, who may be reading this, for any seemingly argumentative remarks made – whilst this may be an area we disagree on, it wouldn’t necessarily break our unity in our Lord Jesus :).
I’ve been doing a fair bit of ‘thinking’ since that discussion and after reading this entry in todays ‘A Slice Of Infinity’ I thought it valubale to the discussion of intellect in our Christian faith and personal walks…
11/9/06
Where Is the Wisdom?
Ravi Zacharias
One of the tragic casualties of our age has been that of the contemplative life–a life that thinks, thinks things through, and more particularly, thinks God’s thoughts after Him. A person sitting at his desk and staring out the window would never be assumed to be working. No! Thinking is not equated with work. Yet, had Newton under his tree, or Archimedes in his bathtub, bought into that prejudice, some natural laws would still be up in the air, or buried under an immovable rock. Pascal’s Pensees, or “Thoughts,” a work that has inspired millions, would have never been penned.
What is even more destructive is the assumption that silence is inimical to life. The radio in the car, Muzak in the elevator, and the symphony entertaining callers “on hold” add up as grave impediments to personal reflection. In effect, the mind is denied the privilege of living with itself even briefly, and is crowded with outside impulses to cope with aloneness. Aldous Huxley’s indictment, “Most of one’s life… is one prolonged effort to prevent thinking,” seems frightfully true. The price paid for this scenario has been devastating. As T. S. Eliot observed:
Where is the life we have lost in the living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuriesbring us farther from God and
nearer to dust.
Is there a remedy? May I make some suggestions for personal and corporate benefit? Nothing ranks higher for mental discipline than a planned and systematic study of God’s Word, from whence life’s parameters and values are planted in the mind. Paul, who loved his books and parchments, affirmed the priority of Scripture: “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). And Psalm 119 promises that God’s statutes keep us from being double-minded.
Thankfully there are exceptions. When living in England, our family attended a church that offered incredible, hour-long messages, which held the attention of a packed auditorium. Cambridge, being rife with skepticism, demanded a meticulous defense of each sermon text.
I mention this to say one thing. When we were leaving Cambridge, our youngest child, who was nine years old, declared these sermons to be one of his fondest memories. Even as a little boy he had learned that when the mind is rightly approached, it filters down to the heart. The matter I share here has far-reaching implications. We do a disservice to our youth by not crediting them with the capacity to think. We cannot leave this uncorrected.
The Bible places supreme value in the thought life. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he,” Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin’s gravity lay in the idea itself, not just the act. Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote: “Whatever is true, whatever is pure… if there be any virtue… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). The follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it is not just to think, but to think justly. Thus, in the words of aging David to his son Solomon: “[A]cknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever” (1 Chronicles 28:9).
Let us serve the God of creation with both hearts and minds. After all, it is not that I think, therefore, I am, but rather, the Great I Am has asked us to think, and therefore, we must.
Comments are closed