The Renewed Mind

I. God Cares About Our Mind

We are created in His image!

He created us to think, and in creation He gave us a task—creating culture—that requires our mental faculties.

Jesus says we must love God with all our mind. Throughout Paul’s letters he emphasizes the importance of the mind and seeking truth and understanding. Paul tells the Ephesians

Ephesians 4:23 CSB

23 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

the Philippians, he prays

Philippians 1:9–10 CSB

9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ,

2 Timothy 3:15–17 CSB

15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to All of Your Life 2. We’re Created to Grow

John Stott writes in Your Mind Matters, “God has revealed himself in words to minds. His revelation is a rational revelation to rational creatures.”

There are also harmful consequences when the life of the mind is neglected in the Christian walk. It can lead to a faith that is incomplete, for we are commanded (not suggested) to love God with our mind, not abandon our mind.

In addition, we use our rational mind for daily activities (work, banking, hobbies, politics, science, mathematics, etc.). When we neglect the mind, we compartmentalize our faith to just being about feelings.

God has a lot to say about wisdom, knowledge, and truth that go beyond our personal feelings. When we neglect the mind and the importance of theology and doctrine, we open ourselves up to believing other things that go against the teachings of Christ.

II. We Must Be Careful Not To Overthink

In episode 13 of season 2 of The Big Bang Theory

Sometimes we assume people just need to know more in order to experience growth. To be sure, knowledge is important. Scripture teaches us about God, and it’s critical that we know more about Him.

but a knowledge without a relationship leads to a “head knowledge” we mean a belief that overemphasizes the importance of knowledge, wisdom, and the intellect.

For people who emphasize a faith of the head knowledge, the mind is the key to Christian maturity and transformation. If you believe the right things, you will grow. Now, the mind plays an important role in the Christian faith, but it needs to be kept in balance with the heart.

Church history there have been moments when the mind was overemphasized. In an attempt to make God rational to the human mind Christians have, at times, made the Christian walk only about gaining biblical knowledge and doctrinal statements, forgetting that God isn’t just to be studied but known in a relationship.

Theological knowledge does not equal spiritual maturity.

However meaningful, an overemphasis of the head has consequences:

(1) You can deceive yourself by thinking that knowledge about the Bible or God equals saving faith.

(2) You can have a faith that lacks compassion and conviction and is just about the facts, forming a cold, dead kind of orthodoxy.

(3) Worst of all, it is possible to be so over focused on the mind, without balancing it with the heart, that you abandon the faith.

“History shows that those who ardently defended Christianity by mind alone often gave birth to a generation that abandoned Christ. Many of the Enlightenment rationalists and deists were the sons and daughters of seventeenth century orthodox scholastics” (Dennis P. Hollinger, Head, Heart & Hands: Bringing Together Christian Thought, Passion and Action, 66).

4) knowledge can make us more arrogant

1 Corinthians 8:1 CSB

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Many of us know a lot about God, but it hasn’t always translated into greater holiness. We need more than another workbook or curriculum. Knowledge is essential, but it’s not enough.

Perhaps you’re a person who is more inclined to the head. You’re always studying about theology, the Bible, or debating finer points of doctrine. God doesn’t want you to become a one-legged stool. Take time in your study and prayer to look at the beauty of God’s creation. Observe a sunset or sunrise. Appreciate the aesthetic of God’s world. Quiet yourself when you pray with no study materials and write down what you believe the Spirit is speaking to you.

III. Our Minds Are Renewed in Christ

Romans 12:2 CSB

2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Do Not Conform

Renew

Paul wants to emphasize resisting a fallen and wicked world. This emphasis reflects his early description of a depraved and sinful world in Romans 1. Paul declares that humanity rejected knowledge of God and was given over to a “depraved mind” (Romans 1:28). There is a relationship between the depraved mind and the wickedness that plagues the world. Thus, it is important for Christians to have a transformed mind.

The Christian refuses “the norms of conduct employed by a sinful world … reaffirming for himself the spiritual norms befitting the redeemed. Aiding this process is ‘the renewing of your mind,’ which seems to mean that the believer is to keep going back in his thought to the original commitment” (Everett F. Harrison, “Romans,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976], 128).

As we live in a sinful world we are to reaffirm the truth of God’s grace. To continually bring to our minds the truth of God.

2 Corinthians would say

2 Corinthians 10:5 CSB

5 and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

God cares about truth, knowledge, and wisdom, and he wants us to understand him and the world around us. Sin has impacted our minds and our thinking must be transformed by the power of God.

A Transformed Mind is discerning, good, pleasing,