What Is The Mind?

Romans 12:1–2 (LSB)

Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The Apostle Paul writing to the Roman church identifies a Grave Danger and a Great Need that the Christian faces in each generation.

Grave Danger: The Christian’s conformity to the world (do not be conformed to this world).

Great Need: The Christian’s recognition of the will of God (approve what the will of God is).

In response, Paul prescribed a lifestyle that would neutralize the danger and provide for the need: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

This short but profound command summarizes the duty of Christian life. It focuses our attention on the renewal of our minds as the basis for spiritual growth.

Consistently Christian conduct comes only from a consistently Christian heart and mind.

Douglas J. Moo

But what exactly is being talked about in the term mind?

As you can see, there are about 19 Hebrew and Greek terms that are associated with the English word “mind” in Scripture; and each of the terms carries with it their own variety of lexical possibilities.

So, the “mind” cannot be boiled down to a simple definition like “the brain” or “intelligence quotient (IQ).”

Rather, it is best to understand the mind as a disposition—a pattern of making judgments about fundamental issues in life, of truth vs. error, right vs. wrong, beauty vs. ugliness, and reality vs. myth.

The mind is what we use to perceive and make sense of ourselves, the world around us, and God.

The mind is the domain of convictions, values, desires, judgments, attitudes, affections, and faith.

The mind is fundamentally religious in nature.

When a man worships, whether he worships the one true God or a false god, it is the mind that worships.

In describing God, the Bible describes Him as having a mind and as having thoughts, that are infinitely greater, higher, and truer than ours.

Romans 11:34 (LSB)

For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?

Isaiah 55:8–9 (LSB)

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares Yahweh. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.

When God created man in His image, He created man to think as a reflection of God’s own majesty.

While man could never think just as God thinks, he can think in response to God’s self-revelation in creation and in His Word. Unfortunately, this process has been marred by sin, but not without hope for improvement (we will deal with this later on).

As great a gift as the mind is to the believer and as necessary an instrument it is to the believer’s life and fellowship with God, it is often not “renewed” as it ought to be.

While it does not take much of an imagination to see that reality today, back in 1963, Harry Blamires wrote in his book The Christian Mind:

The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to describe the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth century church. One cannot characterize it without having to recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic. There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. . . But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularism.

Os Guinness echoed this alarm: “Failing to think Christianly, evangelicals have been forced into the role of cultural imitators and adapters rather than originators. In biblical terms, it is to be worldly and conformist, not decisively Christian.”

7 Consequences of Not Thinking Christianly

(Brad Klassen, When Men Don’t Think)

1. Compromise

Failure to think Christianly—to think in line with and according to God’s thoughts—necessarily means thinking according to a standard that is not comprised of God’s self-revelation.

Paul identifies this very consequence when he warns the believers in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .” (Rom 12:2).

As a human being, you are a thinking being. You cannot avoid thought life. But in that thought life there is no such thing as neutrality.

The use of the mind is always an issue of conformity to a standard.

2. Enslavement

Failure to think Christianly—according to God’s revelation—enables patterns of thinking to take root that will increasingly enslave the mind.

Writing to the believers in Colossae, the Apostle Paul warns, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Elsewhere he warns the Corinthian church that Satan appears not in his vile ugliness but “as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14) seeking to lure Christians to error.

The world, the flesh, and Satan actively seek to attract Christians to patterns of thinking that will rob them of the purity, holiness, freedom, and joy of the gospel.

What a Christian takes into his mind will always have some kind of impact on his thinking—whether for good or for evil.

3. Cowardice

Failure to think according to God’s thoughts creates a deficiency of the courage needed to defend and promote truth in the face of opposition.

This failure in thought-life leads Christians to think their calling is to be “nice” and “non-offensive” even in the face of outright error and immorality. Their great motto becomes, “Whatever you say, don’t offend!”

4. Downfall

Failure to think Christianly leaves the mind open and vulnerable to the onslaught of temptation.

Notice James’ warning: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death” (James 1:14–15).

If “lust” (sinful desire) is not being mortified by the right kind of thinking, it will not remain docile but will adulterate the Christian’s thinking and leave him weakened to its fancies.

5. Fear

Failure to think according to God’s thoughts makes one susceptible to ungodly fear, and this ungodly fear is the exact opposite of intelligent faith.

This truth is expressed well in Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride” (vv. 1–3).

Right thinking leaves no room for fear. But when we do not reverently fear God and submit to His revelation, we are left to fear something else—people, circumstances, tomorrow, the unseen, death.

6. Sentimentalism

Failure to think Christianly—that is, according to God’s thoughts—leaves one looking to feelings to define “truth.”

R.C. Sproul writes, “Many of us have become sensuous Christians, living by our feelings rather than through our understanding of the Word of God. Sensuous Christians cannot be moved to service, prayer, or study unless they ‘feel like it.’ . . . Their ‘inner feelings’ become the ultimate test of truth” (Knowing Scripture, 31).

7. Desecration

Failure to think according to God’s thoughts dishonors the One whose image we reflect and distorts the worship due Him. Regardless of the sincerity of the worshiper, there can be no true worship, no God-pleasing life, apart from truth

John 4:24 ““God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.””

To abandon the mind, or to use it contrary to God’s intent, is to render the person like a “beast”

Psalm 73:21-22 “When my heart was embittered And I was pierced within, Then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.”

On the other hand, to fill the mind with truth and to conform its thinking to God’s kind of thinking achieves the very highest form of worship attainable.

Kelly Kapic states, “The goal of the Christian life is not external conformity or mindless action, but a passionate love for God informed by the mind and embraced by the will” (“Introduction,” Overcoming Sin and Temptation, 28).