Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life
Overview
“Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service,” writes John Stott. “If we do not use the mind which God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality.” While Christians have had a heritage of rigorous scholarship and careful thinking, some circles still view the intellect with suspicion or even as contradictory to Christian faith. Many non-Christians are quick to label Christians as anti-intellectual. In this classic introduction to Christian thinking, John Stott responds to this criticism with a forceful appeal for Christian discipleship that engages the mind as well as the heart.
Top Highlights
“Faith is a reasoning trust, a trust which reckons thoughtfully and confidently upon the trustworthiness of God.” (Page 52)
“But animals were created to behave by instinct, human beings (pace the behaviorists) by intelligent choice” (Page 24)
“God’s purpose is both, zeal directed by knowledge, knowledge fired with zeal” (Page 13)
“God as creator, God as revealer, God as redeemer, God as judge” (Page 8)
“One may perhaps say that if in nature God’s revelation is visualized, in Scripture it is verbalized, and in Christ it is both, for he is ‘the Word made flesh.’” (Page 29)
- Title: Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life
- Author: John Stott
- Series: IVP Classics
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 1972
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Christian life; Faith and reason › Christianity
- ISBNs: 9780830879601, 0830879609
- Resource ID: LLS:YOURMINDMATTERS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T04:32:36Z
John Stott is known around the world as a preacher, evangelist, and writer. He was one of the main contributors to the Lausanne Covenant (1974) and the founder of Langham Partnership, which seeks to equip a new generation of Bible teachers around the world.
Reviews
1 rating
Glenn Crouch
12/27/2019
I haven’t read this book in probably 40 years. I encountered it in High School back in the 70’s as it was promoted by my school’s Christian Fellowship group - and being an academic it did appeal to me. It is a good, short book that basically says that being a Christian is NOT turning your brain off, rather as Christians we are challenged to use the minds that God has given us. I also think Stott does a good job of avoiding an “intellectualism” approach. However, I know many of my Pentecostal friends were hurt when reading this back in the 70s - and I must admit I still find the Authors words harsh when it comes to our Pentecostal friends. It is not that he is incorrect in the dangers he is highlighting, but that he tends to see the problems as universal to the movement. So perhaps this hasn’t aged as well as many of his other books, but is was nostalgic to read it again :)