So You Think?
As a matter of fact, I do!
We think about ourselves. We think about our world. We think about others. We think about how things operate in the world. We think about the way things “ought” to be. We think about diversity. We think about equality. We think about pleasure, about entertainment, about pain, about relief, about destiny, and on and on it goes. Sometimes we think too much about certain things.
I was filling out a survey the other day, where I am to respond by circling “0″ to “4″; “0″ meaning “never” and “4″ meaning extremely. One of the question (among others) that was, how shall I say, retarded, was: “Do you have ideas or beliefs that others do not share.” Okay. Obviously this is some kind of psychological analysis, and obviously, this question is entirely vague. I was going to circle “4″—Extreme! Of course I have ideas and beliefs that others do not share. I Believe In JESUS! Besides, everyone has ideas and beliefs that others do not share. Even more, everyone has their own idea and no one shares ideas or beliefs with anyone else in any real way. In other words, no such thing as telepathy! This survey was evaluating how a person thinks. And it just made me wonder if the people who created this survey ever thought about the way THEY think.
How often do we think about the way we think?
I am not sure we do—at least by and large. This is one of the reasons I enjoy philosophy, theology, and apologetics so much, because it forces me to think about how I think. Also, it causes others to do the same. Because we think certain ways, our beliefs are shaped around our thoughts.
“For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” Proverbs 23:7, NASB
Don’t worry. I am not advocating that we create our own universe by this passage. I am simply stating that we typically live the way we think. When I trained martial arts, I made sure to practice and train the way I would if I would be in a real fight. Why? Because I will perform the way I practice.
But do we do this as Christians?
I will be the first to confess that I am not consistent here. I proclaim one message, and at times live another. My merge to Gospel centeredness has helped this tremendously.
One of the reasons I am doing a series on Worldviews is for this very reason: to get us to think about the way we think. I hear too much the notion that philosophy is not needed for seminarians or Bible students; pragmatism is all that is necessary. Where ever this idea came from is about one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. Is not the way we think about Scripture, the Church, and our response to it of utmost importance? Indeed, it is. Without understanding clearly the basic foundation of Christian theology, one is without the ability to articulate what he or she may believe and why it is believed.
This ought to shape our understanding of how we engage in prayer (an area in which I lack), the difference of testimony and the Gospel, and the ideas behind popular books.
—Jonathan
Photo by florriebassingbourn
The beauty of sanctification – your mind is progressively renewed, transformed, by time spent meditating on truth found in the Word.
Sounds like we need to meet up at the DG conference next year – the conference topic is ""THINK: The Life of the Mind & the Love of God"
What belt were you in martial arts? I enjoyed me stint in that stuff.
This is one of the reasons I love "Renewing Your MInd" by R.C. Sproul. He is after the mind, but he stays grounded in how the Scriptures speak to the heart as well.
DG Conference: I would love to do that. And what better way to meet some fellow Gospel bloggers than to do it at this conference. You know what? I think I may work on making this happen. Do you have info on it?
Martial Arts: I did not study traditional arts (belts, karate, taekwondo, etc,). I studied Jeet Kune Do Concepts, Bruce Lee's concepts of fighting. What it does is take what is useful from other arts and disregard with is not useful. Unfortunately there are a host of practitioners who claim that Bruce Lee taught a rigid style of fighting, and that we ought to remain faithful to that fighting technique. This is not true. Bruce Lee taught what works best. Example: Kicking someone in the head is just about as effective as punching someone in the foot. Now, some people can be good at kicking to the head, but it's just not very practical. How far did I advance? Well, we didn't go by belts—they got in the way of really telling if someone could use what they taught in the "real" world. I was opening and closing the school many times, teaching all levels of classes. I was on my way to starting my own school, but had to give it up. It was my Isaac. I started to love it more than, or just as much as, Jesus.
What is also interesting is that I am working on a new blog post about how to read Scripture, and it encompasses an acronym for think. Stay tuned!