Love Your God With All Your Mind

That is why our discipleship materials often leave Christian young people vulnerable to atheistic college professors with an ax to grind.

Individual rights are important, and, for the Christian, they are grounded in the image of God and not in the state. In other words, the Christian believes that human rights are derived from the image of God in us; they do not ultimately come from the state.

The Puritans were highly educated people (the literacy rate for men in early Massachusetts and Connecticut was between 89 and 95 percent)2 who founded colleges, taught their children to read and write before the age of six, and studied art, science, philosophy, and other fields as a way of loving God with the mind. Scholars like Jonathan Edwards we

This conceptualization of the Christian life is seldom brought to conscious awareness for debate and discussion. And our modern understanding of Christian practice underlies everything else we do, from the way we select a minister to the types of books we sell in our bookstores. It informs the way we raise our children to think about Christianity;

For one thing, confidence was shaken in arguments for the existence of God and the rationality of the Christian faith. Additionally, fewer and fewer people regarded the Bible as a body of divinely revealed, true propositions about various topics that requires a devoted intellect to grasp and study systematically. Instead, the Bible increasingly was

“Training the mind is an essential responsibility of the home, the church, and the school. Unless evangelicals prod young people to disciplined thinking, they waste — even undermine — one of Christianity’s most precious resources.”

Have you been afraid to stand up for Christ when the opportunity presented itself? Or when you have done so, have you come off as shallow, reactionary, and defensive? If so, there is nothing magical about changing your life in this area. First, as with every other area of life, you have to study hard and gain an intellectual grasp of the issues so

Why? Because a careful exercise of reason is not important in understanding what the Bible says for many of us. Besides, it takes work!

The Buddhist is to leave his mind behind, but the Christian God requires transformation by way of the mind’s renewal (Romans 12:1-2).