A: …so I was telling the youths that they must read, study, interpret, excavate the Word, dig for nuggets of wisdom. Because they can.
B: What do you mean by ‘because they can’?
A: I mean, they have been given the intellectual ability to do so, so they should put it to use.
B: Just because I can paint, doesn’t mean I HAVE TO. Why the obligation?
A: …
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That day, I was dumbstruck, taken aback by the rebuttal. I didn’t expect anyone to go against (what I thought to be) axioms. Axioms need no explanation; they are just taken to be true. I couldn’t justify why I thought what I said was right.
Thank God, days later, I was at the library and I chanced upon Habits of the Mind by James W. Sire. A familiar verse struck at my numbed mind. I had found my answer.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:30
In essence, we’re called to love Him with our minds.
In English, the word “mind” can refer to “consciousness and thought”, “intellect or memory” and “attention or will”. In the mini-tussle with my friend, I had unwittingly made reference to the “intellect” or the ability to think, question, reason and understand.
We’re called, not just to use our mind to love God, but to use ALL of it, to the best of our ability. Stretch it. Challenge it.
But how does exercising the intellect (this particular aspect of “mind”) relate to loving God?
I guess the most obvious way is to study (not just read) His Word, to discover what God has revealed about Himself through the Scriptures, to make links across Scripture, to grapple with the Truth, to see the big picture, to grasp the incredible nature of grace…to allow His Word to shape our thoughts and desires...
“Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.”
In English, the word “mind” can refer to “consciousness and thought”, “intellect or memory” and “attention or will”. In the mini-tussle with my friend, I had unwittingly made reference to the “intellect” or the ability to think, question, reason and understand.
We’re called, not just to use our mind to love God, but to use ALL of it, to the best of our ability. Stretch it. Challenge it.
But how does exercising the intellect (this particular aspect of “mind”) relate to loving God?
I guess the most obvious way is to study (not just read) His Word, to discover what God has revealed about Himself through the Scriptures, to make links across Scripture, to grapple with the Truth, to see the big picture, to grasp the incredible nature of grace…to allow His Word to shape our thoughts and desires...
“Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.”
1 Corinthians 14:20
