Unpacking the Mind

As I meditate on the Spirit's role in my thought life, I find my mind, or should I say the Spirit, bringing to mind other things that God's Word tells us, for instance, "loving God with all your mind" and "the mind set on the flesh is death", and "set your mind on things above". We are exhorted to "gird up our minds", and to "renew our minds".

The other day, my husband was observing how the variety of words used to describe the same thing in a language reflects the importance of that particular thing in the culture. Do you know how many Greek words are used in the Bible for the mind? Would you believe no less than six? My plan here is to unpack each one with the goal of growing in our Biblical understanding of how walking by the Spirit should affect our minds.
The verses are quoted from the New American Standard Version.
The definitions of the Greek words were compiled from biblehub.com.

nous:
This Greek word means mind, reason, or intellect.
Not all occurrences in the Bible are included here; I have chosen ones that relate to our walk. You will find the form of the word marked by asterisks.

Romans 7:23-25
         "but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my *mind*, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my *mind* am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin."
Romans 11:34
         "For who has known the *mind* of the Lord or who became His counselor?"
Romans 12:2
         "And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your *mind*"

1 Corinthians 1:10
         "I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same *mind* and in the same judgment.
1 Corinthians 2:16
         "For who has known the *mind* of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have the *mind* of Christ
1 Cor 14:14, 15, 19
         "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my *mind* is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I shall pray with the Spirit and I shall pray with the *mind* also; I shall sing with the Spirit and I shall sing with the *mind* also. In the church, I desire to speak five words with my *mind*, that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue."

Ephesians 4:17-18
         "This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their *mind*, being darkened in their understanding."
Ephesians 4:22-24
         "in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your *mind*, and put on the new self, which in God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

Philippians 4:7
         "And the peace of God, which surpasses all *comprehension*, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus."
Colossians 2:18-19
         "Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly *mind*, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God."

What do we learn about the mind, reason and intellect?
We are told that, though the Lord's mind is beyond our grasp, we have the mind of Christ!
We serve the law of God with our minds; it is where we find freedom from sin. My fleshly mind does not hold fast to the mind of Christ, but leads me astray to fleshly things like visions and the worship of created beings and pleasure in self-harm. Before Christ, my mind took me in useless directions, but now my mind goes through real transformation when I abandon the old lusts of the flesh and put on the new self, created in righteousness and truth. Change will have to occur in our minds.
In the church, we pray and sing with both the Spirit and the mind, and we seek for agreement of mind and judgment with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Finally, that is not a typo in Philippians 4:7. The word "nous" is indeed translated comprehension, while another word is used for "mind".
So what is that other word?

noema:
This Greek word means the mind, thought, purpose, or scheme.
With the exception of Philippians 4:7, it is used exclusively in 2 Corinthians in the following verses.

2 Corinthians 2:10-11
         "if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his *schemes*."
2 Corinthians 3:14
         "But their *minds* were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ."
2 Corinthians 4:4
         "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the *minds* of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
2 Corinthians 10:5
         "we are taking every *thought* captive to the obedience of Christ,"
2 Corinthians 11:3
         "I am afraid as the serpent deceived Eve, your *minds* may be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ."

Philippians 4:7
         "And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your *minds* in Christ Jesus."

This one unpacks quite differently, doesn't it? Here we see Satan's scheming mind, see him blinding the minds of unbelievers and leading our minds astray. It also seems to reveal weak minds, hardened minds, vulnerable minds, desperately needy minds.
I feel like I'm more intimately connected to this mind, but Truth tells me I have the mind of Christ. Which one am I going to live by?

Let's review Paul's exhortation.
Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. Make your requests known to God. And God's peace, which is so vastly beyond all your reasoning and intellect, will act as a guard, surrounding and protecting your heart and mind from attack. philippians 4:6-7


AMEN!

Whoa Nellie

As a child, I had this romantic view of horses, always dreaming of having one. I remember riding by fields with horses in them and saying, "those are my horses." When I was about 12 years old, we moved to a 20 acre lot in Louisiana and my dream came true; my dad bought two old horses, but when I got close to "old Nellie", as we called her, my illusions evaporated and in their place I saw this muscle-bound, powerful creature who, every now and then, released that intimidating power through her nose, snorting loudly. I was terrified inside, but I got on her anyway, and my brother warned me not to let Nellie step into the fence-post holes that he and my dad had just finished digging, but had not yet filled with poles. I am of the sad kind of person that as soon as you give me a warning, I'm certain that that is exactly what I'm going to do, somehow destined now to screw it up. So I got extremely nervous, to which some kind, helpful spectator shouted "don't get nervous, they can sense your fear". "Great!" I thought, too late now, and, as if she really could sense my fear, Nellie took off running down our gravel driveway, knocking me flat on my back, but not out of the saddle.
Thus began the most terrifying ride of my life.
I knew that in a half mile, we would come out on the highway, so as my head bounced on the horse's rump, I started thinking about my options. How was I going to get out of this muddle I had gotten myself into?  I should just roll off the horse onto the ground, but that brilliant idea was abandoned as soon as I glanced over the side and saw the speed with which the gravel was streaking by. There was a moment when I resigned myself to my fate. "Oh well, there was nothing I could do about it," I thought, "I'm completely at the mercy of this horse, I'm going to die." I didn't think I could sit up on the horse, let alone stop her. Then, out of nowhere, "do something" swooped in like a super-hero and I did. Miraculously still holding onto the reins, I managed to pull myself up and bring Nellie to a stand still at the top of a rise, just short of the highway, and just in time to see my big brother, half way down the drive, coming after me on the other horse. Having jumped on with no time to adjust the stirrups, he looked very comical, bumping down the road with his knees sticking out the side of the horse like wings.

Sometimes our minds and our thoughts run away with us. We find ourselves flattened out by the things we think; they carry us away, bouncing us along against our will it seems, and feeling helpless to stop them. Do you ever feel as if you are at the mercy of your mind, that it chooses to run off with your thoughts and you can do nothing to stop it?

"For though we walk in the flesh (as in, we are in these bodies until we die or are taken up with Christ), we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses."
fortresses: strongholds, not a common word in classical Greek according to Strong's concordance, but used in this occasion, figuratively, of false arguments which may serve as a place of refuge from reality.

Where are those fortresses that divine weapons can tear down?
"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

This war is being waged right in my mind, every waking moment and sometimes even in my sleep. I feel completely unprepared for it, most often cowering behind the rubble trying to not get hit. Sometimes I fight back, rising up and launching a counter attack, shooting arrows of arguments, only to drop and hide from the bombarding that comes in reply. I'm feeble. I'm tired. I want to give up. I want it to stop. I want to lie down and sleep.

Oh, no you don't!
If you go to battle with weapons of the flesh, you are guaranteed defeat, guaranteed to give up and give Satan a foothold, but you have divine weapons, have real spiritual power.
Don't bother with whether you feel like warfare or not, that's a waste of time. You are in this, whether you want to or not. Are you ready?

Be strong in the Lord. Put down your flesh and put on the full armor of God. Stand firm, with truth, righteousness and salvation strapped on. Don't launch arguments anymore, you will never win, instead, take up the shield of faith, blocking and deflecting those fiery darts. With the helmet of salvation and the Word of God, lies will no longer have a foothold in your mind. Speak truth to yourself in the Spirit, and never stop praying. Ephesians 6:10-18

And if you can't remember all of that, when you do catch your mind running away, just say "whoaaaa, Nellie".

The Delusional Nature of the Flesh

Delusion: a belief that isn't true
Delusional: inability to distinguish between what is real and what seems to be real
latin from deludo: to deceive or dupe

Delusional disorder, according to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, appears in the person who is convinced of an irrational belief to such an extent that he or she refuses to change his mind even when presented with proof that contradicts that belief.
(hey, that's.....hmmmm)
Sounds like that could describe you a little, right, but we're talking about things like someone who is convinced they are being watched or under surveillance, someone who believes that Brad Pitt secretly loves them, people who are irrationally convinced that their spouse is cheating on them, the person who believes he has been given a special revelation from a spiritual power, or that aliens have planted a creature inside him who is eating his brain.

Okay, so maybe I don't have the disorder, but that definition still hits pretty close to home.

Cambridge Neuroscience published an article titled "The Deluded Brain" that includes their recent findings in exploring why our brains are subject to delusional thoughts. "We learn by our mistakes" they explain. Dopamine neurons in our brain cells receive information and from that we learn to predict what will probably happen next time. If future information presents a contradiction to the first prediction, our brains should reason a way to choosing the more likely prediction and adjusting our beliefs. But our brains don't always do that, can't always be relied upon to be able to choose what is the most probable.
So why do we sometimes believe the option that is least probable?
What influences that decision? Why do we give more credence to some evidence over another?
Are we biased in our beliefs, predisposed to accept one system of truth over another in the absence of evidence or in the presence of a more logical explanation?
When others tell us we are wrong, we stick to what we have experienced, discarding any evidence because it cannot outweigh the presupposed bias to truth that we are already convinced to be true.
Sure, we don't all suffer from delusional disorder, but doesn't it often seem like we are all genetic cousins to the disorder?

In answer to his question "Is healthy belief formation optimal, or are we all deluded?", Rob Hoskin, PhD student in the Neuroscience Department of Sheffield University, writes this observation in his August 12, 2012 blopost on British Science Association Brainwaves, "most people display a "belief bias", the tendency to evaluate the validity of evidence based on their prior beliefs, rather than on the inherent validity of the evidence as could be assessed through logical reasoning." He goes on to say, "we have a bias towards evaluating beliefs more in terms of their inherent probability (as we see it) without fully taking into account new evidence," concluding that since the coded transmission of neural signals are influenced by a significant amount of noise, "differences in beliefs between people are presumably therefore inevitable, as is the likelihood that we all, at some time, adopt irrational convictions. Of course these are just things that I believe, and I may be deluded in believing them!"

"When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable," says Rene` Descartes, 17th century French Philosopher, best known for his statement "I think, therefore I am".
Descartes assumes that we can and will follow the path of greatest probability, but is that true? Even he based his whole approach to philosophy on one night of intense dreams that he had while shut up in a heated room. How rational is it to trust in visions you receive in a hotbox? It would seem that Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, succumbed to building his own truth off of an irrational experience.

I think I have a good grasp on this probability factor for determining truth, but then my daughter said to me the other day, "sometimes you couldn't see truth when it was staring you in the face." "Really," I said, "give me an example." I know, what was I thinking?  Anyway, she proceeded to dramatize an evening at the dinner table where she, my husband and I were eating, and I asked how the food tasted? She tells me, "we said, 'it's good, but a little salty', and suddenly you, Mom, threw up your hands (this was where she got dramatic) and said 'fine! I'm never going to cook again.' We said, "Mom, it's good", but it didn't matter. You kept arguing, "No, no, it's too salty, I'm a terrible cook. You won't have to eat my food anymore," continuing to mutter, "that's the last time I'll ever cook."

Our brains are wired to mis-fire.
As I said before, we would like to think that we are rational beings, capable of thinking our way to truth.
But then my version of the truth makes total sense to me, seems completely rational from my perspective. I've got all the proof I need to be convinced of my truth. Why can't you see it!

Don't be duped, you can't arrive at truth in the flesh.
Stop deluding yourself.
Truth is the indispensable role of the Spirit.

The Truth is Out There

"I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth." 1john2:21

What is the truth?
How do you arrive at the truth?
How do you know what truth you should believe?
Is truth based on facts, is it measured by the mounds of evidence, is it found in consistency, is it arrived at by the most convincing argument?

Scientists would say that truth is based on evidence, the more overwhelming the evidence, the more certain the theory. Theories are the structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts, but "fact" in science doesn't mean absolute certainty. According to scientists, overwhelming evidence has made biological evolution a fact for over a century. Just as the fact that the earth is round is no longer a matter of debate, the book on evolution is also closed.
What about the contribution that modern technology has revealed? Is there really nothing newly discovered over the last hundred years that might shed doubt? Does saying that evolution is a fact, infer then, that all new evidence must support it, or that no new evidence can reverse it?  If we followed this "logic" in the past, might we still be living on a flat world being circled by the sun?

It is a widely accepted notion that sugar causes children to be hyper, yet the results of a double blind study, published in the November 22, 95 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, couldn't prove it. In fact, according to a study published in the August 94 issue of Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, parents who thought their kids were being fed sugar, when they were actually given a placebo, were more likely to report hyperactivity than parents whose children had indeed received sugar, but their parents thought they hadn't. It would seem that expectations affected perception. In spite of these findings, will we ever be convinced that sugar is not at fault?

I say that we are all prone to consider true whatever we already believe to be true, and thereby filter all further evidence as either supporting our truth, or if it doesn't, as unreliable, irrational or conspired. I like hearing my truth being proclaimed; it downright makes me euphoric.

We are also prone to believe what we want to believe is true. "Do you think he likes me?" the young woman asks her friends, as if a consensus will confirm truth. A boy says "I love you", and a girl loses her virginity because she wants to believe it.  She's not interested in her friends' warnings, doesn't believe the rumors of infidelity, ignores the red flags. Is that rational?

Juan Diego sees an apparition in 1531, and an entire country is converted to worshiping a woman. The vision and interpretations of Joseph Smith in the 1820's led to a religion that has swept the world. Since 610, when the prophet Muhammad began receiving visions from the angel Gabriel while alone in a cave, Islam has grown to include more than 23% of the world's population.  How do so many arrive to a truth built on a single person's vision without any witnesses? Does that sound logical?

The author of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, may have written a fascinating piece of fiction, but why should that keep us from wondering if the conspiracy of the Catholic church is true? Conspiracies are just too appealing to the flesh to pass up a chance to exploit one.

"Truth has power," Dan Brown says, "and if we all gravitate toward similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true...written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us...vibrating with our unconscious wisdom."

Remember how we thought society was going to collapse on January 1, 2000? Did you feel the gravitational pull of that "truth"? Oh it vibrated violently in all our wisdoms when we heard it, yet somehow that didn't make it to be true.

My purpose here is not to be an apologist, to give clever arguments for what is the truth.
My purpose is to expose us to the reality of human nature, to the flesh, and suggest that we are not so especially good at knowing or finding truth, not so especially consistent with truth, as we would like to think ourselves to be. We say that we arrive at the truth through inquiry, proof, and logic, but historically, we have consistently proven that our minds are irrational, that we are predisposed to believe certain things, that we easily succumb to irrational thought due to fears, even when the evidence isn't there.

We are naturally skeptics and doubters, but does that mean we are naturally truth seekers?
I wonder if we have grossly over-estimated our "natural instinct" for truth. Are we as logical and consistent as we believe ourselves to be? Is it the nature of flesh to seek truth?

I asked a young friend of mine whose flesh appeal is existentialism, if, having believed in Jesus Christ, he believed he had arrived at the truth. His answer: he believed he had arrived at the source of truth. Like you and me, every day he must crucify the flesh, for flesh doesn't know the meaning of surrender. Every day he must be ready to put to death the desire his flesh has to think on existential thought, and return to the Spirit for his truth.
Do not be deceived in thinking that your flesh will guide you into truth, only the Spirit can do that.

Jesus promised,
"when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth;" john16:13
Jesus prayed,
"Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth." john17:17

Love and Buzz Lightyear

It was the day of the feast when the lamb was to be sacrificed and Jesus had given instructions to Peter and John to prepare the Passover for him and the rest of the disciples. Upon entering the city of Jerusalem, they were to expect to encounter a man carrying a pitcher of water, and once they found him, they were to follow him and ask to use his guest room. That's exactly how they found themselves alone that evening in a large, furnished upper room.  Knowing the agony that was coming his way, Jesus was eager to celebrate with them what would be his last Passover on this earth. John begins his account of that night by saying of Jesus, "having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." Already loving these men that his Father had given him, he is about to love them to the complete end, to the outer limits, or as Buzz Lightyear would say, "to infinity and beyond".

How did He love them (and us) so fully that night?
Was it by taking up a basin and towel and serving them?
Was it by taking up the cross and dying there in our place?
Was it both of those things and everything He promised in between?
Was it the promise of beautiful dwelling places in Heaven, of being received there?
Was it the promise He made to do whatever they asked in His name, the promise that the Father loves those who love the Son, who keep his commandments?
Did he show His love by calling us friends, by praying for us, by giving us peace, joy and eternal life?
Did he show us the extent of his love by promising to not leave us as orphans, but to give us the Helper, the Spirit of truth, who would guide us into all truth?

John must have been captivated by this "love" talk he witnessed that night, must have listened intently to everything Jesus said, for he recorded it in great detail. He remembered how several times that night Jesus spoke of the Helper. In fact, the subject was so important, Jesus emphasized it, in at least four different occasions, throughout the night. "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me, but when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth;
john14:16-17john14:26john15:26john16:13

Have you ever thought about how important that promise of the Spirit was to that small group of weak men? Was it love that prompted Jesus to give them something they would need so much, before they even knew they needed it?

John later wrote in a letter, "Look how great is the love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; this is how God showed us His love, that He sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the sacrifice that pays the guilt of our sins." "And this is His commandment," John writes in that same letter, "that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." And again John repeats, "By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." (John's first letter)

Does God abide in you?

 "The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." It is a simple equation, "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life." 1john5:10-12
Have you agreed that Jesus Christ is God, that He has come to this world to be your Savior, to die for your sins?
There is no witness without the Spirit, there is no Spirit without new life in Christ.
If you believe in the Son, you have life and the Spirit is the witness within you to that truth.

"having also believed, 

you were sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise, 

who is given as a pledge of our inheritance"

ephesians1:13-14

"And it is the Spirit who bears witness, 

because the Spirit is the truth." 

1john5:7

The Spirit bears witness within me, always there, always sure, reminding me of my position in the family, of the love of the Father, of the truth, of the words of Christ, of the mind of God. It is a gift of love with infinite proportions. How precious is the Spirit of truth to you?