The Christian Mind

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ…Ephesians 4.17-20

The Christian Mind
Harry Blamires (1916-)
“The mental secularization of Christians means that nowadays we meet only as worshipping beings and as moral beings, not as thinking beings. We agree that it is right to be present on the Lord’s own day in the Lord’s own house. We agree that it is sinful to commit adultery or to slander our neighbors. But we cannot meet, as thinking Christians, over the controversial political, social, and cultural issues whose airing constitutes the vigorous intellectual life of many both inside and outside the Church. This is not because there are no propositions on which we can agree with fellow-Christians, but because there is no common field of discourse in which we can dispute either harmoniously or inharmoniously, unless we first step out of our theological skins.”

Our “theological skins” have become shrunken, as David Wells memorably put it a few years back. We cannot think theologically – with God and Christ at the center, and the Scriptures undergirding all things – about anything much more than worship, personal piety, and the various programs and activities of our church. We seem not to recognize that life is much bigger than this, or if we do recognize it, we have chosen not to shine the light of truth into areas other than what Harry Blamires outlined in our excerpt. This is what it means to have the mind of Christ? Yet Christ, by His mind and Word, upholds the entire universe and everything in it, all the time, vigorously, unfailingly, and for beauty, glory, and truth. When we begin to apply our minds with this kind of scope and vitality, we’ll be thinking with the mind of Christ, and fleshing out our theological skins.

How would you describe the “theological skins” of the people you serve? Healthy, vibrant, and growing? Or something else?

Kingdom Vision
Two books can help you begin to strengthen your vision of Christ and His Kingdom. Order a copy of The Kingship of Jesus (click here) to grow in your understanding of what in the world Jesus is doing as He sits at the Father’s right hand. And what He’s doing is bringing His Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven, which is the subject of The Kingdom Turn (click here). Let these two books challenge your vision of what Christ can do as He makes disciples and builds His Church.

Renewing the Mind
We are currently running a multi-part series on Renewing the Mind in our daily ReVision series. The first installment is entitled, The Mind of Christ, and is available as a free PDF download by clicking here. I urge you to follow this entire series. If you are not subscribed to ReVision, you can do so at the website. Or you can download each week’s PDF study in a format suitable for group or personal use.

Does the Lord want to use you to help support The Fellowship of Ailbe? Please look to Him in prayer over this question. You can contribute to The Fellowship of Ailbe by using the Contribute button at our website, or by sending your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452. Thank you.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from The Christian Mind are from Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1963, 1978).