Love God with Your Mind.
Don't lose your mind.
When we are faced with a health or legal crisis most people want the most experienced and educated doctors or attorneys in the world. Places like Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Emory, and University of Chicago are all very prestigious institutions. I’ve never dismissed a physician client who attended Yale as someone I would not want on our staff.
We like doctors from prestigious schools operating on our hearts and attorneys doing our taxes but when it comes to matters of faith many Christians have discounted scholars from those very schools.
I wonder why?
Are we not to love God with our minds?
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself." This was Jesus’ reply to the rich young ruler who questioned salvation. In the Gospel of Mark, the story reports that Jesus instructed a lawyer with this text.
Jesus combined Deuteronomy 6:5 "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." and Leviticus 19:18 "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."
And he added, "with all your mind."
Apparently, it was critical to Jesus that we not leave out our minds when it comes to issues of God and faith.
Clear, sound reasoning is important in living out our faith. We are to love God with our heart, soul, strength, and MIND. The Greek word for mind is dianoia, which means center of rationality and understanding. This doesn’t mean that we disregard matters of the heart, but we must be careful not to allow how we feel about God to be our single source of direction. Just like we cannot allow our minds to dominate our hearts, we cannot allow our hearts to dominate our minds. We must not allow how we feel (heart) about God to prevent us from loving God with our mind. Proverbs teaches, "Though it cost you all you have, get understanding."
To Jesus, we must love God with our whole beings and that includes our minds. For faith without reason and understanding-- that is, faith that is only felt but not understood is deadly. It often kills faith in the life of a believer over time and it often cause real death in others as a result of zealous actions. We all know what happens when zealots lose their minds.
Never be afraid to love God with your mind.
It only makes God sense.
5 Comments:
Somewhere along the line we've been called crazy, by those who use their minds to absolutely reason away any justification for our choice to follow God.
At some point along that very same line, God is going to cheerfully defy our logic, and He's gonna ask us, "Will you also go away?"
I believe in loving with the mind as well. But somewhere along the line, mindlessness is going to challenge us. Our choice to love will be questioned. Mine has. And when I got there, even if I didn't have a reason others could understand, I didn't mind...and it didn't matter. ;)
Great post. Good points. And this is just a mmmuse.
Rick,
That was a wonderful post, very well balanced and insightful. So often the Church seems to think what we should be brainwashed when we are baptized into the faith. Not thinking critically about what you are told, or what you read leads to imbalance in the Faith. After all one of my favorite verses in the Christian Scriptures is Acts 17:11 where people check out what they have been told.
I saw an ad once, that said: "He died to take away your sins, not your mind". I have always liked that.
Thanks for the comments.
I have rarely (if ever) met someone who did not believe in God and used their intellect to reason away God. I HAVE met folks who may not believe in the God of one's particular understanding. Just as there are Christians who "kill" for God in bombing abortion clinics. There are zealots who serve Allah by flying planes into buildings. I seriously doubt these folks were loving God with their "mind" (and heart for that matter) when they took such senseless action.
For example, if one questions the creation stories found in Genesis, some folks would think they are questioning God, when in relaity they are questioning how one can understand how God is revealed in the story.
Jesus is the one who added the phrase... "with your MIND." Too often, in some circles, Christians have been abused for using their intellect. As if using the God-given ability to reason is wrong.
God wants our hearts, but God also deserves our minds as well.
Monk, welcome to my blog.
I too like that ad.
This post speaks to me, and to the topics I'm trying to grapple with on my blog. (no? really?)
I grew up in the Deep South, in a church environment that was almost entirely emotion, very little intellect. Because of this, I spent years struggling with the idea that I could use my mind *and* be a Christian. It just didn't seem possible.
Over recent years, I've found that when I use my mind to try to understand God, my belief is stronger after, not weaker -- because it's been tested, and there's not a fear of analyzing my beliefs too closely.
i am contemplating this, but i put an altar-call for you on my blog because i need your wisdom, especially, in answer to a question.
forgive my boldness.
peace.
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