What Does It Mean to Be a Thoughtful Christian? E-Book

David S. Dockery

• Herausgeber: Lexham Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Questions for Restless Minds
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 75

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

How to love God with your heart, soul, and mind. Christians are surrounded by differing voices and opinions. How can you be grounded? How can you be sure you think Christianly? In What Does It Mean to be a Thoughtful Christian?, David S. Dockery argues that Christians must be intentional about their thought life. Thoughtful Christians follow guidance from the Bible, possess a consistent worldview, listen to voices of the past, engage with the world, and prioritize faithful community and character development. Learn how thinking well and thinking Christianly is what you, your church, and your culture needs. The Questions for Restless Minds series applies God's word to today's issues. Each short book faces tough questions honestly and clearly, so you can think wisely, act with conviction, and become more like Christ.

Leseprobe

QUESTIONS FOR RESTLESS MINDS

What Does It Mean to Be a Thoughtful Christian?

David S. Dockery

D. A. Carson,

Series Editor

What Does It Mean to Be a Thoughtful Christian?

Questions for Restless Minds, edited by D. A. Carson

Copyright 2022 Christ on Campus Initiative

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [email protected].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible references are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV®). Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Print ISBN 9781683595175

Digital ISBN 9781683595182

Library of Congress Control Number 2021937687

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Abigail Stocker, Danielle Thevenaz, Mandi Newell

Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

Contents

Series Preface

1.Introduction

Thoughtful Christians …

2.Love God with Heart, Soul, and Mind

3.Think with Faith and Truth

4.Prioritize the Pattern of Christian Truth

5.Pattern Their Worldview by Christian Truth

6.Affirm the Authority of the Bible

7.Value the Christian Intellectual Tradition

8.Emphasize Reading and Culture

9.Live Faithfully

10.Serve the Church, the Culture, and the World

11.Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Study Guide Questions

For Further Reading

Series Preface

D. A. CARSON, SERIES EDITOR

The origin of this series of books lies with a group of faculty from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), under the leadership of Scott Manetsch. We wanted to address topics faced by today’s undergraduates, especially those from Christian homes and churches.

If you are one such student, you already know what we have in mind. You know that most churches, however encouraging they may be, are not equipped to prepare you for what you will face when you enroll at university.

It’s not as if you’ve never known any winsome atheists before going to college; it’s not as if you’ve never thought about Islam, or the credibility of the New Testament documents, or the nature of friendship, or gender identity, or how the claims of Jesus sound too exclusive and rather narrow, or the nature of evil. But up until now you’ve probably thought about such things within the shielding cocoon of a community of faith.

Now you are at college, and the communities in which you are embedded often find Christian perspectives to be at best oddly quaint and old-fashioned, if not repulsive. To use the current jargon, it’s easy to become socialized into a new community, a new world.

How shall you respond? You could, of course, withdraw a little: just buckle down and study computer science or Roman history (or whatever your subject is) and refuse to engage with others. Or you could throw over your Christian heritage as something that belongs to your immature years and buy into the cultural package that surrounds you. Or—and this is what we hope you will do—you could become better informed.

But how shall you go about this? On any disputed topic, you do not have the time, and probably not the interest, to bury yourself in a couple of dozen volumes written by experts for experts. And if you did, that would be on one topic—and there are scores of topics that will grab the attention of the inquisitive student. On the other hand, brief pamphlets with predictable answers couched in safe slogans will prove to be neither attractive nor convincing.

So we have adopted a middle course. We have written short books pitched at undergraduates who want arguments that are accessible and stimulating, but invariably courteous. The material is comprehensive enough that it has become an important resource for pastors and other campus leaders who devote their energies to work with students. Each book ends with a brief annotated bibliography and study questions, intended for readers who want to probe a little further.

Lexham Press is making this series available as attractive print books and in digital formats (ebook and Logos resource). We hope and pray you will find them helpful and convincing.

1

INTRODUCTION

As the workday concluded on the Trinity campus prior to the Thanksgiving break, two students visited my office with a bag full of delicious cookies. I thanked them for their kindness and their thoughtfulness, reminding them how meaningful it was for me that they would remember those in the administration at this time of year. I then shared the cookies with others on the hallway, who likewise expressed appreciation for my consideration and thoughtfulness. As I packed my briefcase to go to the house, I included a new book that had arrived on my desk that day. One of the endorsements on the back of that new book lauded the “wise insights to produce a lucid and thoughtful proposal.” Thoughtful in the first instance describes a kind-hearted remembrance. Thoughtful in the second instance expands the description to include the idea of being considerate. The third usage points to the kind of reflective thinking that is noteworthy and commendable.

To describe someone as thoughtful may well suggest that this person is characteristically kind and considerate of others. Using the adjective in this manner would be quite consistent with New Testament teaching. The Apostle Paul told the Philippians to consider others better than themselves (Phil 2:3b). In Ephesians, we read “be kind and compassionate to one another” (Eph 4:32a). While this understanding of “thoughtful” is an important aspect of the Christian life, our primary focus in this book has to do with thinking deeply or carefully or reflectively about things.1 In doing so, we will explore what it means for thoughtful Christians to “think Christianly,” to love God with our minds (Matt 22:37).2

2

LOVE GOD WITH HEART, SOUL, AND MIND

Becoming a thoughtful Christian means learning to think well and to think Christianly. And in noting these two points, we want to say that they must be both at once. Making this observation recognizes that it is possible to be thoughtful without being Christian, and that it is possible to be a Christian without being thoughtful. Frankly, in our current duality-promoting context, either of these would be easier for most people to contemplate. What is challenging is to be both thoughtful and Christian in vigorous and vital engagement with each other and interdependence among each other.3 We believe, however, that such integration is precisely what is needed at this time in the church and in our culture.4

To be a thoughtful Christian does not mean that one only thinks about Christian matters, though the way one thinks should be thoroughly shaped by Christian teaching, the pattern of Christian truth.5 In doing so, the thoughtful Christian will explore a wide, complex, and diverse range of topics through the lens of the Christian faith.6 Such exploration implies more than being thoughtful about life in general, even by a person who claims to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, for unfortunately, it is quite possible to be a Christ-follower without thinking faithfully or consistently in Christian categories. We also recognize that there are times, even when we want to be thoughtful Christians, that we, like the Apostle Paul, often do not do the good we want to do (Rom 7:14–16). Being a thoughtful Christian then has more to do with the intentional way we process ideas, issues, and information, learning to think in a Christian manner on a consistent basis.

We certainly want to love God with our hearts and our souls. We must, however, as Christ followers who desire to be Great Commandment Christians in line with the teaching of Jesus (Matt 22:37–39), love God with our minds as well.7 Learning to be a thoughtful Christian, or, to express it differently, to think in Christian categories, will shape the way we think about all aspects of life, whether we are talking about businesses, health care agencies, governments, social structures, recreational activities, and yes, our homes and churches, too.8 To be a thoughtful Christian means that we seek to think differently about the way we live and love, the way we worship and serve, the way we work to earn our livelihood, and the way we learn and teach.

More than just new ideas and enhanced programs for churches and Christian organizations, the need of the hour is for thoughtful Christ followers who reflect distinctively Christian thinking, the kind of serious-minded thinking that results in faithful engagement with the great ideas of history and the issues of our day.9 Such thinking means seeing all of life and learning from a Christian vantage point, thinking shaped by the Christian faith.10