Miracle of Thinking

Copied and pasted from this blog.

It is amazing how consistently the New Testament refers to the depravity of the individual by mentioning the debasement of the mind. In Ephesians 4 Paul describes those who are outside of Christ in a string of clauses that regard the intellectual faculty of a person– “in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph. 4:17-18, italics mine).

Outside of Christ, something is messed up in how we think. This grave condition of our minds is countered by the transformation that occurs in God’s salvation of sinners. Paul calls it the “renewal of the mind” and he prays for its effect (Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 4:23; Col. 3:10; cf. Eph. 5:10; Phil. 1:9-11; Col. 1:9; Phlm 6).

The implications are glorious. I think that what it means at the most basic level is that thinking is a matter of the life transformed by the gospel. Thinking rightly is not about intellectual giftedness. A person’s main problem with messed up thinking is not their IQ, but alienation from their Creator.

Thinking and theology–thinking about God–is utterly miraculous. In order for it to happen Jesus Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree. The smallest reception in our heads of God’s truth is miraculous enough to leave us bewildered and intoxicated by grace until we’re speechless. What do you have that has not been given? What do you know that has not been purchased for you by the blood of Christ?

It is for this reason alone that a kid who bombed his SAT’s can still look forward to a conference on the subject of thinking. Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God is not a conference for academicians, but for those who have been radically transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.