4. Eyes Wide Open: Seeing with the Mind of Christ
- Eyes Wide Open: Seeing with Mind of Christ.
“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
“We have…” (Greek, “echomen”), which means ‘are having,’ ‘are keeping,’ or ‘are holding;’ to have and to keep on having; an action in progress; a process that is now taking place; the present state is a continuing state. So the literal translation is, “We, however, are having the mind of Christ.” Through the Holy Spirit, we now are new creatures who were given the capacity to learn how to think like Jesus as we live into Him.
From the Eyes to the Mind. Creator God has designed us with a set of eyes that are directly linked to the brain… What we see is brought to the retina in the back of the eye; the retina converts what was seen into electrical signals that are passed onto a bundle of fibers called the optic nerve; the optic nerve takes the electrical signals straight to the thalamus in the brain; the thalamus acts as the relay station for all this sensory information and sends this information to the visual cortex, where the brain interprets the information and forms the images we have just seen; the visual cortex makes sense of all these electrical impulses, and either files the information for future reference or sends the message immediately to the motor area of the brain for a physical response.
Response Time. So each of us is equipped to respond to what we see. On the other hand, we could train our minds to store what we have seen in some distant part of our brain in our memory bank, as if sight unseen. Acquiring the mind of Christ includes the ability to see and then to respond to what was seen. If we don’t respond, we are illustrating what biblical writers say, we “have eyes but do not see.” When we follow through on what we have seen, we are using our mind as an instrument of love, the very mind of Christ.
Eyes that are Open but Blind: Those who are blissfully unaware of the needs of others; those who choose to ignore the needy around them; those who are intentionally blindfolded; those who are thoughtless of others and negligent in their care for others; those who are apathetic and self-centered; those with a one-track mind who carelessly overlook others; those who think they are above it all, with a haughty or arrogant look instead of a humble and merciful look; those who choose to live in a small world; those who claim to be compassionate but are too busy or distracted to demonstrate it.
“The Mind of Christ.” (Greek for mind is “nous”); Through the Holy Spirit…
We are growing in the ability to see what Jesus sees and respond the way He would;
We are being given the capacity to think the thoughts of the Anointed One;
We have the growing ability to reason, to be logical, and to think things through like Jesus;
We are being infused with the ability to understand God’s wisdom;
We are being equipped with the moral intelligence of the Lord;
We are being given access to the reasoning behind the actions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;
We are in the process of perceiving spiritual matters as Christ perceives them;
We have an increasing ability to understand life from God’s perspective;
We will be continually inspired to develop the divine common sense and street-smart shrewdness that Jesus was known for;
We are gaining insight into what truly matters according to the thinking of God;
We have a growing ability to reflect and ponder according to the will of Christ;
We enjoy an ongoing co-mingling of our mind with Christ’s mind, until the end, when the new will have completely replaced the old, and those two minds will be indistinguishable.
“Just then a religious scholar stood before Jesus in order to test His doctrines. He posed this question: ‘Teacher, rabbi, what requirement must I fulfill if I want to live forever in heaven?’ Jesus replied, ‘What does Moses teach us? What do you read in the Law?’ The religious scholar answered, ‘It states, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus said, ‘That is correct. Now go and do exactly that and you will live.” (Luke 10:25-28).
Mind. For the most part, Jesus used the Greek word “dianoia” for mind. It referred to one’s intellect and reason, one’s thought process, one’s mindset, especially as it concerns critical thinking. The dianoia functions as that part of each of us that allows us to draw conclusions about right and wrong, make distinctions, and form opinions.
Jesus Added ‘mind’ to the Shema! In quoting this most famous passage in all of Judaism, Jesus was not adding something so much as clarifying something for his listeners. The Hebrew understanding of heart (“lebab”) from the Shema included all the insides of a person, including thoughts and feelings, the intellect, the emotions, and the ability to act. The Hebrews believed that whatever a person thought or felt or did, the heart was literally right in the middle of all the action. To the Hebrews, one’s heart included the eyes of the mind, because the heart was considered to be the source of one’s thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. Jesus confirmed this with His comment in Matthew 15:19, that “Out of the heart proceeds thoughts…”
A Composite Whole. In fact, the Hebrews didn’t find it helpful to break things down into rigid little compartments. Thus, there is no Hebrew word for mind. Categorizing everything was a specialty of the Greeks, not the Hebrews. The Jews thought of the person as a whole being, and the heart as the catch-all term for the center of one’s inner being, the seat of one’s inner nature. “Why was the mind said to have an eye and not a hand or a tongue? Perhaps touch, taste, odor, sound were linked to the heart rather than the intellect.” (Laurie King). So the aspects of a person weren’t divided into separate pieces or categories by the Jews. The human person was simply one whole being, blended together: Thinking, acting, feeling, doing, worshiping, were all of one piece. The Greeks loved to separate everything into its parts, such as body, heart, mind, strength, soul, spirit, while the Hebrews liked to think more wholistically. So when Jesus was talking to a mixed audience that included those who spoke Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, He wanted to make sure everyone understood that one’s mind, one’s intellect and logic and understanding, was included in how we were to love the Lord God. Many listeners no doubt needed to hear the idea of “mind” separately because they didn’t necessarily consider the heart to include a person’s place for rational thinking. So, like any good teacher, Jesus understood the audience and made sure things were expressed as clearly as possible.
Love God with Everything You Have. In the Shema and in Christ’s quoting of it in His teachings, it’s clear that Yahweh intended one meaning… Love Me with all you’ve got! Love Me with everything you have been blessed with as a whole person, with everything that makes you a human being! Don’t just love Me with a part of yourself. I need your love for Me to be wholehearted and single-minded. Love Me with your acute vision, your body and actions, your emotions and feelings, with your motivations and attitudes, with your deep spiritual being, with your energies and abilities, with all the workings of your mind! Let your love of Me sink into the marrow of your bones. Let it permeate everything about your life! Love Me with all the resources at your disposal!
Love God with All Your Mind. God is commanding us, for our own good, to love Him and devote ourselves to Him with our whole mind. He is telling us… Love Me with your reason, your logic, your intellect. Love Me with your conscience and your moral understanding. Love Me with your imagination and your creative impulse. Submit your intellect to Me and you will be able to understand the truth. Submit your conscience to Me and you will grow in goodness and righteousness. Submit your imagination to Me and watch how I will inspire you and stimulate your creative impulse. Strengthen your union with Me and watch how the mind of Christ will shape your thinking. Nurture the life of My mind in you out of love and devotion to Me. Offer up the products of your mind to Me, whatever you think about, whatever you write and research and express to others. Cut out of your precious mind that which is not worthy of Me, and offer up all your thoughts, all the workings of your mind for My blessing. Use your intelligence to serve Me out of love, and the life of your mind will be resurrected, renewed in Christ. Let all your thinking spring out of a zealous love for Me. Form your deepest convictions around your love for Me.