Fools! Simpletons! Dullards!

From a sermon preached by D. M. Lloyd-Jones called The Church Today: The Road to Emmaus as it is found in Crossway's book entitled Setting Our Affections Upon Glory:

I say again that I have an awful feeling that is what our Lord is saying about us and to us today. "You fools!" What he means is that we are dullards, that we are simpletons, that we do not know how to think, that we allow ourselves to be governed by circumstances and accidents and change and the things that happen to us and the conditions in which we find ourselves. And instead of using our minds and reason and our understanding and applying the truth we have received, we allow ourselves to be in this state of misery and dejection and discouragement. "What a terrible world this is!" Is that not true of us? Fools! Simpletons! Dullards! 

This is said frequently in the New Testament. Writing in his first epistle to certain churches, to unknown people whose names we do not know, strangers scattered abroad in various countries who were having a horrible time and were enduring terrible persecution, the apostle Peter says-and its one of the first things he tells them, "Gird up the loins of your mind" (1 Pet. 1:13). 

The church must think. She must use her mind and her reason. The tragedy is that we constantly tend to fall back on other things in order somehow or another to relieve ourselves and to keep thing going. We are sentimental. Sentimentality is very largely the trouble with present church. We are very nice people, we members of the Christian church, but we are very foolish. And the first thing we must do is wake up and gird the loins of our minds and think and understand the truth and begin to apply it to the situation in which we find ourselves, instead of giving way, instead of giving in, instead of just commiserating with one another. I am sometimes afraid that the church is dying of niceness. We are really good at praising one another, are we not, and saying that we are doing well. We have become a mutual admiration society, sympathisizing and communing with one another, and thus being sentimental with one another. And the whole time the condition of the church degenerates from bad to worse. Fools! We must apply our understanding to the situation with which we are confronted (76-7).

Oliphint on the trinity

This is an interesting point that Scott Oliphint makes while discussing God's character as it relates to the trinity in Reason for Faith:

While there is no way for finite human beings completely to circumscribe the relationship of the one God to three persons, we may rest content, with the history of the orthodox Christian tradition, with the fact of God's triunity and it's evidence of God's utter incomprehensibility (Rom. 11:33-34). (227)

If a astute mind such as the one in Oliphint's skull struggles with circumscribing the doctrine of the trinity, than the rest of us need not get to upset about our shortcomings in grasping this belief. Ultimately, God's "incomprehensibility" should offer us comfort; he is the transcendent deity the Bible claims he is. He is an awesome God.

We certainly should pursue our understanding of God to the limits we can given our natural proclivities and the Biblical account. But when we come up to an impassable chasm of mystery, we can be, and should be, content.

From Your Mind Matters by John Stott:

But the fact that man’s mind is fallen is no excuse for a retreat from thought into emotion, for the emotional side of man’s nature is equally fallen. Indeed, sin has more dangerous effects on our faculty of feeling than on our faculty of thinking, because our opinions are more easily checked and regulated by revealed truth than our experience.

How can we behold the glory of Christ?

In The Glory of Christ, John Owen addresses how we can behold the glory of Christ:

1. We need, firstly, a spiritual understanding of his glory as revealed in Scripture.
2. Secondly, we need to think much about him if we wish to enjoy him fully.

In contemplating Christ, with a Scripturally-informed perspective, we avail ourselves of the 'spiritual power' that accompanies beholding His glory. Owen writes,

"If we a satisfied with vague ideas about him we shall find no transforming power communicated to us. But when we cling wholeheartedly to him and our minds are filled with thoughts of him and we constantly delight ourselves in him, then spiritual power will flow from him to purify our hearts, increase our holiness, strengthen our graces, and sometimes fill us 'with joy inexpressible and full of glory'."

Owen moves on from here and discusses the difficulties associated with only an intellectual view of Christ that lacks any experiential component. "When the light of revelation is not accompanied by spiritual experience and power in our souls, then it will end either in outward formality or atheism." Legalism and atheism are, according to Owen, two possible outcomes of 'head knowledge' without inner experience.

Owen then counters these ideas with a similar warning that now focuses on emotional experiences that are not balanced with intelligent thinking: "But when feeling outrun the light of revelation, then they sink into the bog of superstition, doting on images and pictures." Clearly, for Owen, both the heat and light of revelation are necessities.

So, we are encouraged to think hard and often of Christ, beholding his glory in the faculties of our minds. But we must also experience corresponding religious affections.

Transforming the mind

The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the "renewal of the mind." This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed.

True transformation comes by gaining a new understanding of God, ourselves and the world...

To be conformed to Jesus, we must first begin to think as Jesus did. We need the "mind of Christ."...

That cannot happen without a mastery of His Word. The key to spiritual growth is in-depth Christian education that requires a serious level of sacrifice. (Sproul, R. C.The Holiness of God. Illinois: Tyndale.1998. 164, emphasis mine)

Insight from Triumph Over Temptation

From chapter three, The Deceit of Indwelling Sin:

Four ways sin seeks to accomplish its ends:

1. Sin takes advantage of the weariness of the flesh.
2. The deceitfulness of sin argues falsely about the pressing circumstances in life.
3. Sin argues for compensatory duties.
4. Sin feeds the soul with false promises and purposes.

Sin uses at least six ways to distract the mind:

1. Sin persuades the mind to deal in generalities and to avoid particular duties.
2. The mind feels content in performance of its duties while secretly sinning.
3. The mind often becomes perfunctory in its performance of its duties.
4. Sin distracts the mind from maintaining its diligence.
5. Sin distracts the mind by using deceit to take it by surprise.
6. Sin deceives the mind by frequent and lengthy solicitations.

In regards to the proper attitude towards duty:

1. We must obey God wholeheartedly.
2. We must depend on God in faith to obey Him.
3. We must exercise our understanding and affections to obey God.
4. We must obey God to bring Him glory.

Five ways to direct our minds against deceit that hinders us in our duties:

1. We must consider the sovereignty of God.
2. We must consider the punishment of sin.
3. We must consider the love and kindness of God against whom sin is committed.
4. We must consider the blood and mediation of Christ.
5. We must consider the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Triumph Over Temptation

"Man was made to know good with his mind, to desire it with his affections once he knows it, and to cleave to it with his will once he has felt its attraction. Accordingly God, who is the supreme good, moves man not by direct action on the affections or will, but by addressing His speech to man's mind, so bringing to bear on him the force of truth." - J. I. Packer (from the Introduction in Triumph over Temptation by John Owen as edited by James M. Houston, p24)

I have begun reading Triumph Over Temptation: Pursuing A Life Of Purity. This book, edited by James M. Houston, addresses 3 of John Owen's works of practical theology: Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers(1656), Of Temptation(1658), and The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin(1667). Having read Owen unabridged, I am looking forward to this unabridged and 'modernized' version for comparison.

One more quote in which Packer, in the Introduction, quotes Owen: "When Christ comes with His spiritual power upon the soul to conquer it to Himself, He hath no quiet landing place. He can set foot upon no ground but what he must fight for." (23)

Paying the price!

To develop a Christian mind skillfully, you must want to be a certain kind of person badly enough that you are willing to pay the price of ordering your lifestyle appropriately. - J. P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind, p105