Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #823 (8-23-22), “Brain Scan.”  We talk so much about behavior in Christianity; today let’s talk about God’s intellect and our thinking.  See the column below.  Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #823

August 23, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Brain Scan

By Bob Walters

“But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2:16

I was surprised to learn that the word “brain” does not appear in the Bible.  “Mind,” “soul”, and “spirit” show up a lot.  “Heart” is mentioned more than 800 times. 

But “brain”?  Evidently not a Bible thing.  Let’s talk about that.

This is one of those scriptural tidbits I stumbled upon while looking for something else.  I was searching commentary on Paul’s powerful “mind of Christ” verse.  My mission was to refute the behavioral overkill that is the focus of the modern church and explore the too-light treatment of the intellect of God as it manifests in humanity; i.e., the church of “feeling” vs. the church of “thinking.”  And … “brain” isn’t in the Bible?  Huh.

To me, brain power is the real power of God with which mankind is gifted through faith in Jesus Christ: an intellectual synergy with the Creator of the universe.  I truly do believe that faith in Jesus initiates as a matter of the heart (more in a minute), but the massive payoff for our creative intellectual existence – gifted by Christ – can be stated simply as this: knowledge that God truly exists, Jesus truly lives, the Spirit animates our multi-pronged connection with the divine, the Bible can be trusted, and we are loved.

For all the endless Christian therapeutic chatter about “doubt,” once the human heart lands on Jesus and opens the corresponding human brain to God’s intellect, human existence grows into the great heavenly realm of thinking with Christ.  

Mankind, as a matter of worldly pride and a false sense of self-sufficiency, too often – maybe overwhelmingly often – imagines a self-inflicted intellectual “depth,” assessing of knowledge: “I’ve got this; No God Needed.”    

It’s as if to say: “On my own … in my brain … I am sufficient.  I neither can nor desire to prove God exists, but am assured a god cannot broaden my mental acuity.  I’m already smart enough.  I can do clever things.  Give me a few minutes and I’ll invent a gadget, or work up a philosophy that explains to my satisfaction who God is supposed to be.  Give me a few more minutes and I’ll fashion a treatise on the truth of good, evil, right, wrong, and an overarching thesis on the way things ought to be.  God?  No need.”

That is too-common, worldly, human philosophy – spanning the ages, we might add – that ditches Godly relation and is ultimately – shall we say eternally – useless.

If there is one “worldly thing” (1 John 2:15-17) that God’s wisdom would indicate and recommend not attaching to our minds, it would be “wisdom” that does not include Jesus Christ. That empty wisdom goes nowhere beyond the finite dimensions of this material existence and its inescapable death.  And it steers nowhere near the heavenly realms: that ineffable but unmistakable experience of divine presence and truth in the here and now – for fleeting, precious, profound moments – when we touch God.

Our brains will not – cannot – be right with God until our hearts are right with Jesus. We have “the mind of Christ” when our hearts, in the conscience of Christ, are able to resist worldly, impermanent, and intemperate temptations, and to think anew.

“Repent,” at its Greek basic, means “to change ones thinking.” Paul’s mission at Corinth is to secure their hearts truly for Jesus so they may grasp the wisdom of God.

Heart change speaks to behavior and joy; Godly wisdom hastens the Kingdom.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures “Godly smart” is the best kind of smart.