Sunday School at 9 am | worship at 10 am

The Christian Life Is a Thinking Life

Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Colossians 1:9).

This prayer challenges two notions that many American evangelical Christians have about the connection between our intellect and our faith. The first one is the belief that there is a tension between intellect and faith.

For some Christians, being unlearned is considered a credential. The less you know, the more honest and real your spiritual life is likely to be. Someone who thinks this way might say something like this: “I’m no scholar. I don’t read books or commentaries on the Bible. But what this passage seems to say to me is ….” In reality what this person is saying is this: You can trust what I say more because I haven’t studied.

In other settings, those words would sound ridiculous. Imagine a doctor or a lawyer saying something like that. But when it comes to the Christian life, those words don’t sound strange to us because we imagine the two options are dry doctrine or vibrant, genuine faith. Now there is a danger of intellectualism. But we should push back against the notion that intellect and faith are somehow at odds with each other, or that studying and learning is not as genuine and real as intuitively sensing or feeling. That’s the first notion this prayer of Paul’s challenges—that intellect and study are somehow at odd with faith and feeling.

The second notion that Paul’s prayer challenges concerns the will of God. It’s the notion that God’s will is a mystery. Paul says: “I’m asking God to fill you with a knowledge of his will.” Many Christians think that when it comes to decision-making, God has a particular path he wants you to take, one pathway to his perfect will. The problem is, he hasn’t told you what that pathway is. He hasn’t told you to take this or that job; go to this school or that one. Stay where you are or move. So you have to somehow discern God’s perfect will. You wrestle with it and pray about it until you have a feeling of peace. And then you say: “I feel at peace about this, so I know this is God’s will.” But where is that idea of finding God’s will in Scripture? Where are we told that there is one perfect path for every decision but God hasn’t told you, so you have to struggle with it until you feel a sense of peace, and that’s God’s will? The Bible doesn’t say anything at all like that.

The Bible teaches us that when it comes to decision-making and the will of God, he has given us two guidelines—his moral law and wisdom. God’s moral law very clearly tells us—Do this, don’t do that. This is the way that pleases me, walk in it. And God’s wisdom guides us in all other decisions. His wisdom tells us things like—seek the counsel of the wise, examine your motives, bathe your decisions in prayer, use your talents, seek first his kingdom. And so, with God’s moral law guiding you on one side, and biblical wisdom on the other—you make your own decisions.

The Christian life is a thinking life. It’s a life of deliberately, consistently conforming our thinking to the will of God by the study of his book, and of making our decisions according to his law and to wisdom.