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A Peculiar Hardness

We expect conflict with the unbelieving world.

The Christian Mind

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great isyour reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5.11, 12

The Christian Mind
Harry Blamires (1916-)
“A peculiar quality of the Christian mind is that, knowing the weakness of human nature, it expects conflict in the moral sphere. It assumes that the powers of evil will exploit every possible occasion for drawing men into the mental confusion of blurred concepts, and twisted values. There is about the Christian mind a peculiar hardness – a refusal to be surprised at evil and depravity; an inability to be overcome by shock; an expectation that evil will be at large where God is not.”

Christians are not naïve about the state of things spiritually and morally. We are engaged in a continuous spiritual warfare, and we expect that to take a wide variety of forms. Moreover, we expect spiritual forces of wickedness in high places to enlist and deploy as many unwitting mercenaries as they can to try to stop or slow the advance of Christ’s Kingdom. So when we are slandered, falsely accused, or attacked for our faith; or when we are confronted with the starkest forms of evil or the most blatant meanness; we are neither surprised nor set back, nor do we retaliate in kind. Our rule tells us to love others as we love ourselves, not as they love us. The presence of evil in the world, and impinging upon us, does not cause us to shrink back from what we know to be true. Our minds are set like flint to seek Christ’s Kingdom and righteousness, and we expect a few bumps in the road along the way. But the grace of Christ can lubricate our journey, and make the rough places plain.

How would you apply Jesus’ counsel in Matthew 5.11, 12 to help someone who was coming under mean attack at his work or school?

Renewing the Mind
We are currently running a multi-part series on Renewing the Mind in our daily ReVision series. The sixth installment is entitled, The Mind of Christ in His World: Part 1, and is available as a free PDF download by going to the website, www.ailbe.org, clicking on today’s ReVision column entitled, “Speaking Everywhere” and clicking the link at the end. I urge you to follow this entire series, and to consider using it with your leaders. 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.

Thinking for a Christian Worldview
Christian thinkers have a Christian worldview. Our course, One in Twelve: Introduction to Christian Worldview, uses twelve diagrams to provide a comprehensive framework for thinking and living Christianly in the world. It’s free, online, and available for you to study by yourself or with your leadership team, at your own pace and on your own schedule. For more information and to register, click here.

The Fellowship of Ailbe is supported through the generous and faithful gifts of those who benefit from and believe in our work. Does the Lord want to use you in this way? 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).

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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