The Christian Mind

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hostsof wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6.12

The Christian Mind
Harry Blamires (1916-)
“The notion that this world, and the powers of it, are in the grip of evil, is too well established in Christian teaching to be lightly disregarded, yet Christians have grown accustomed to shrug off the more somber implications of this truth. We have inoculated ourselves against sensitive realization of the world’s evil.”

Harry Blamires has shown that the Christian mind is distinct in that it focuses on an eternal horizon, takes its bearings from unseen things, and thus seeks a Kingdom not of this world as its highest priority and objective. He turns now the second characteristic of a Christian mind, and that is its awareness of evil, and its preparation to recognize and deal with evil at every turn. Just consider the matter of temptation. Helmut Thielicke, the great German theologian, described temptation as finding ourselves at the point of wanting to be disloyal to God. Which means being loyal to Satan, who wants nothing more than to usurp the throne of God and get the world back to where it was before the coming of Christ. If we do not see lurking in the dark behind every temptation the wicked purposes of the enemy of our souls, then we are not taking evil seriously. When we play fast and loose with sin, we deny the victory of Christ over Satan, sin, and death, and play into the hands of him who would destroy us, and everyone we love, just to attain his virulent ends. The Christian mind is alert to evil, and resists it with the strength of the Lord.

In your church, are people taught how to recognize and deal with temptation? Should they be?

Recovering Christian communication
Our Mission Partners Outreach program is designed as a life-based training curriculum, to help church members identify and begin working their Personal Mission Fields for the purpose of making disciples and advancing Christ’s Kingdom. I’m looking for some men to lead through this training program, and to help you see how our Mission Partners Outreach programcan help your church overcome its failure to communicate. If you’re interested, drop me a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Landscape of Unseen Things
Here are a few places you can begin to improve familiarity with the landscape of unseen things. Download our free 28-day devotional, Glorious Vision: 28 Days in the Throne Room of the Lord, and immerse yourself in Psalm 45 for a month (click here). You can also walk with Scripture and great saints from the period of the Celtic Revival for 28 days in our devotional book, Be Thou My Vision (click here). Finally, the 24 lessons in our workbook, The Landscape of Unseen Things, provide a tour de force of the spiritual realm, and can help you learn to be more at home there (click here).

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).