For whatever reason, some Christian don't place a high importance on intelligence. Some believe that using our mind can even be contrary to having faith. But what does the Bible say? In Acts it says that Paul reasoned with, or debated with, the Jews in the temple every day. The Bereans were a group that Paul witnessed to in Acts. Acts 17:11 says, "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." So the Breans were praised because they examined the Scriptures. Here are some tips on how you can use your mind to love God.
Steps
2. Read the entire Bible and exercise your mind. Reading the whole Bible takes a lot of brain power and intelligence. It takes spiritual intelligence but it also takes a lot of mental intelligence. In the early church, Christians were some of the MOST intelligent people alive. Look at the letters that Paul wrote. Paul was a highly, highly intelligent man. And then you have the church fathers, Aquinas, Augustine, Ignatius etc. They were all extremely intelligent men. For some reason, Christians now can be some of the least intelligent people, sadly, and atheists are the most intelligent but this should not be. The reason for this is because the church as a whole has thrown the desire for rational thinking and intelligent out the door. For the most part, Christians are no longer encouraged to do rigorous studies of the Bible or to read Christian classics. Instead the emphasis in the church has now switched to music and emotions. We need to come back to our roots, which was caring very much about the mind about growing our minds. Amen.
3. Learn about other religions and what they believe. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." But how can we be prepared if we don't anything about anything? Knowing about other religions will not threaten your faith. Debating with people of other faiths should not sway your own faith, if you really do have faith. If you really believe deep in your heart that the Bible is true, no matter what someone else says, you won't get angry. You have no reason to get angry if you know that you know the truth and they do not, if they don't believe in Jesus. Jesus said, "I am THE way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except by me." Amen. Therefore, any religion that does not believe in Jesus and does not believe that he is the son of God, is wrong. It is not narrow minded to say that because God said that in his holy written word, the Bible.
4. Understand how our culture works so that when witnessing, you can make what you say applicable. There a is a huge tendency with Christians to stay in their holy huddle and never come out. They like to stay in their bubble, stick their heads in the sand, and completely ignore everything that is going on around them in the world. Christians know about abortion and same sex marriage in politics, but that is about it. Those are pretty much the only two things about our culture that Christians ever talk about, and our culture is getting quite tired of Christians talking about them. The more we talk about them, the more people want to do the opposite of what we are saying, just to spite us possibly. It is the same as when a parent tries to correct and control a child, the more the child will rebel and do the opposite of what the parent wants. Make sense? Generally, Christians don't keep up with the rest of culture. Christians are called to not love things of the world, yes, but we can't ignore that we are still living in the world. There is a great need to understand what the current issues of our day are, such as child molestation, people that cut themselves, drugs etc. If we don't understand issues like these how can we minister to the world? How can we really understand the world? We can't. And if we don't understand them, why would they listen to us? That is why they don't.
5. Understand philosophy and ethics. Even if people don't have faith in God, most people still follow a set of ethics for life. As in, they believe certain things are right or wrong. A good way to start a conversation with a non-Christian is to ask why they believe that certain things are right. Where do they think they got the notion of right and wrong from? If we are just random cells put together by chance? The Bible says that God has "written the law on our hearts." Since every single human being is made in God's image, every single human knows a part of what God knows, that certain things are simply not ok. Every human alive has an innate sense of ethics and a sense of what should be legal and ok and what should not be. Universally, everyone would agree that murder is wrong yes? Why? Because God, in a sense, told them that. That sense and intuition comes from God, NOT science. Science instead has the opposite effect on people. Science and evolutionary beliefs are actually partly what led to the Holocaust, because if we are just random cells put together with no purpose, why does life matter? Why would murder matter if people do not have actually have a soul? Make sense? God is the one who has given us the ability to live as law abiding citizens, not science. God is the one who gives everyone a certain set of ethics to live by, because his law is "written on our hearts. Amen. Those without Christ can still be convicted when they do the wrong thing. Why is this? Because God's law is written on their hearts.
Tips
Warnings
No comments:
Post a Comment