The Mind of Christ – An Instrument of Love

The Mind of Christ – An Instrument of Love.

“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.

… the mind of Christ.” (Greek for mind is “nous”); Through the Holy Spirit…

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.

“Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone! And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

“And Jesus replied, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind….” (Matthew 22:37).

“Jesus answered, ‘The first commandment above all the others is this, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:29-30).  

“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 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 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.

Why Did Jesus quote the Shema? SHEMA (sh’ma) is the first Hebrew word in the essential prayer of the Jews in the Hebrew Bible, found in Deuteronomy 6:4. It is usually translated “hear,” but actually means hear and do, listen and obey, hear and respond, listen and take action, take heed; there is a traditional Jewish saying that “to hear God is to obey God, and to obey God is to hear God.” Hearing and doing are two sides of the same coin of faith, and is a vital aspect of biblical spirituality.

The Full Shema: “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone! And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and shall be immovable before your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

Jesus Believed in the Shema. Jesus highlighted the essential, eternal truth of this vital teaching of Moses. Jesus knew that every Jew had it memorized, and He fulfilled its importance in His public ministry. Why did Jesus assume every Jew knew the Shema?

1. the foremost of biblical commands in the Hebrew Bible;
2. the biblical Pledge of Allegiance for every believing Jew;
3. the central creed of the pre-Christian faith;
4. Scripture’s “greatest commandment,” according to Jesus Christ (Matt. 22:36-40, Mark 12:29, Luke 10:27;
5. Judaism’s most essential prayer;
6. a biblical Jew’s statement of faith;
7. the marching orders for a faithful parent in the Jewish home;
8. the most important passage in Deuteronomy, Moses’ final address to the Israelites.

Other Aspects of the Shema: 

1. It is the first prayer taught to Jewish children;
2. It is prayed daily by observant Jews, sunrise and sunset, and many Christians;
3. It makes each parent responsible to pass on the Faith, the Word of God, to the children in the home. Biblical discipleship of the children is a home-schooling affair, and turns the home into a domestic church. Parents are the child’s first pastors and the child’s first teachers;
4. It was given by Moses to the Israelites as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. It laid the groundwork for how the people were to live out their faith in their new homeland. The Shema was intended to help the people to always remember Whom they worship and how they are to hand it on to each generation to keep the faith alive;
5. It continues to be recited in the weekly Sabbath service in the home;
6. Jewish law requires a greater measure of concentration on the first verse of the Shema. Traditionally, the Jewish worshipper is thus asked to close their eyes or cover their eyes with the palms of their hands while reciting it, so that they can focus attentively with a minimum of distractions;
7. Later Jewish tradition added two biblical passages to the original Shema, Deuteronomy 11:13-21and Numbers 15:37-41. This was done to cover all aspects of the Ten Commandments;
8. If a person is alone praying the Shema, he begins with the phrase “God, faithful King,” in order to bring the number of words in the Shema to 248, which is the number of parts in the human body. The person praying thus dedicates his or her whole body to serving and loving God;
9. Hebrew scholars say that the Shema starts with four Hebrew nouns… Yahweh our God, Yahweh one. So the passage depends on the placement of the word “is.” Many of these scholars say the proper translation is “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone,” or maybe “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.” This translation seems appropriate because Moses went to great lengths to explain the religious beliefs of the Canaanites. They believed in many gods, and the Israelites needed to be reminded that the Jews believed differently. They worship one God only, Yahweh.
10. Observant Jews and many Christians have a mezuzah on their front doorpost of their home. The Hebrew word mezuzah means “doorpost,” and is a decorative little casing placed on the right front upright doorpost at the entrance to the home. Inside the casing is placed a handwritten little piece of paper with the first verse of the Shema. The mezuzah is fixed on the doorpost with a slight tilt to the right, indicating the people living there are not perfect, they are not perfectly straight, but instead sinners in need of redemption. Whenever passing through the entrance of the house, many people touch the mezuzah as a way of showing respect to the words hidden therein.
11. “Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your home and on your city gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, MSG).

The Context for the Shema according to Luke: “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).

A lawyer comes to Jesus to put him to the test. A lawyer at that time was an expert on Jewish law, a scholar of the Jewish religion. The lawyer asks a theological question, to spur debate, a religious conversation. The lawyer wanted to see not only how orthodox Jesus was in his beliefs, but also to tempt Jesus into giving a controversial answer to a difficult question. The scholar “stood up” to address Jesus, much like a student of that time always stood up when talking with a teacher, out of humility and respect. He then referred directly to Jesus as Teacher, or Rabbi. Jesus had evidently earned the lawyer’s respect through his words and actions. Jesus took the question seriously.

The Lawyer’s Question. He asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. He was a pious man who wanted to earn his way to life everlasting, mostly through his actions. He was thinking he had to do something special to deserve life in heaven, and Jesus took him at his word. Here we find the best evidence that the Christian faith has precise Jewish roots.

The Lord’s Response. Jesus responded by asking a question of the lawyer. Jesus referred him to Scripture and asked him if he could find his answer there. Jesus didn’t want to merely state the answer to the question. Jesus instead helped the lawyer to find the answer for himself. He did what good teachers do: Help the student to think for himself, to become an active learner. It’s clear that Scripture was His reference point in His life. He gave the best answer possible, the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4. The Shema is the 1st prayer taught to children in a Jewish household, and it is prayed twice daily by every believing Jew, every sunrise and every sunset. Love your God, with everything you got, heart, soul, strength, mind, everything!

Two Commandments in One. The lawyer then adds Leviticus 19:18 to the Shema, something that Jesus himself said many times. Love your neighbor as yourself. This scholar had evidently been following Jesus and hanging on His every word.

Live Into This Word! Jesus affirmed his lawyer and told him, “That’s it! Good job! Now go and do what the scripture says.” In other words, Jesus is saying that it is not enough to simply believe the right words, or to include those words in is spiritual life as an insignificant part of the teachings of Moses. Jesus told him that he must also demonstrate through action that those words are true in his life by loving his neighbor as well as loving his God! We reveal that we love God by loving our neighbor! If we don’t love our neighbor, then we aren’t loving God with everything we got! Christ’s literal response to the lawyer reads, “Do this, and you will come alive,” or “Do this, and you are truly living.” Eternal life starts now, my dear learned friend, as you love both God and neighbor.