“MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES”
(Rev. Doan Nhat Tan PhD.)
(Rev. Doan Nhat Tan PhD.)
“In his heart a man plans his course,
but the LORD determines his steps.”
(Pr 16:9)
but the LORD determines his steps.”
(Pr 16:9)
Young people are supposed to have dreams, and as a young man, I was no exception. With a mind for patriotism, I envisioned myself serving my nation; perhaps becoming president one day. The only problem was that my nation, South Vietnam, was in the throes of severe political turmoil: waging a war against the Communists from North Vietnam. That was life in South Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s.
I grew up in Central Vietnam in a family of eight. My family was non-religious, but we had a near-religious zeal for a better country. Years of French colonialism and an ongoing war with the North Communists inspired me to serve my country without relying on outside help, whether from US., or other Western Powers, or even from God. But God intervened.
While eating lunch one day from a street vendor in 1971, I found that my loaf of bread was wrapped in a discarded Gospel Tract on John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.
My blind mind and heart to God in that time were horrified to find literature that taught divine-reliance with a story about God having “a son” with “a woman”. “How could Vietnam modernize with dangerous ideas like this,” I thought.
I decided to fight against that teaching which I perceived as “fancy tale”, “untrue story” to help get rid of Christian teachings for my country, protecting our culture and tradition.
I took counsel from a friend of mine to go asking for truths but I went arguing with a Bishop and then a Pastor instead. The Bishop kept talking on Mari’s virginity and the Pastor kept excerpting verses from the Bible while I had no idea of the nature of Bible! Although the Pastor gave me a New Testament but poor explanations from these men made me even the more confused and I thought I am correct and will eventually win the argument.
I shared that thought with the friend I’ve just mentioned and he did not agree with me about that, he suggested that I have to ask the American Missionary in town for a better understanding of Evangelical faith before taking any action against it.
Soon after, I decided to take my argument to that American Missionary. Right at the first opportunity with that Missionary I showed him the tract I had found on John 3:16 which I understood as a fancy tale. I also showed him the New Testament the Pastor gave me which I considered as a collection of tales and untrue stories. I did not let him talk but kept criticizing him of fooling our Vietnamese people with tales like that. “We don’t need you Americans fool us with tales and untrue stories, what we have in our culture are enough!” I shout at him and kept on insisting that teachings like John 3:16 in no way good for the modernization of Vietnam.
The Missionary patiently listened to my argument. He seemed trying to understand what is going on in my blind mind and he did. He let me say and he did read the mind of an unsaved, patriotic student in his first year in college like me, I believe.
When the Missionary saw that I had said all what I wanted to say to him he graciously looked at me, offered me a cup of water to drink, and slowly and softly said: “Mr. Tan, I recognize that you’re a fine young man, you love your country dearly and you don’t want anyone to come to fool your people. I admire your strong desire for your country and people. However, please allow me to show you something quite new to you…”
He pointed his finger to a flock of ants moving on the floor and said: “Look at the ants there, which is the best way for you to communicate with them to help them avoid some danger that they are unknowingly heading toward…”
“No, sir. We don’t need to do that! Those ants have the natural instinct to avoid dangers ahead.” I shout out loud.
“But…”, the Missionary patiently and softly spoke to me, “let’s assume that they unknowingly heading toward some danger, and you know about that, and you love them enough to go telling them of the danger; do you think which way is the best way?”
His gracious manner toward me convinced me to think of his question and when he saw that I was thinking to find a good answer for him he continued:
“Well, may be the best way is to become one of them to speak to them about their danger in their own language. Do you agree with me about that?”
When he saw I nodded my head to show that I agree with him he began explain the message from John 3:16 for me. He said:
“The concept ‘Only Son’ in John 3:16 that you feel bothering about is not ‘a son’ that God had with ‘a woman’ as you thought but it’s God Himself. It’s God Himself who took the human form, became like us human to teach us on how to be delivered from the debt to Him, and to die to pay debt for us…”
He went on to preach about my need of salvation through Jesus Christ. After a few times of talking to him and arguing against him, however, I found myself becoming increasingly convinced of the truth of the message. Eventually, my opposition to the Gospel faded away and I submitted my life to Jesus. That was in the summer of 1971.
Although I was converted I still fear of informing my family about my conversion: my father would kill me if he knows that I’ve left the tradition of ancestors worship to follow Christ. That fear kept making me to delay from telling my family my new faith for the next two weeks.
On Friday of the third week at lunch time my father made a solemn and shocking announcement to the whole family: “From this Sunday on all of you should follow me to the Church to worship God with me! I’m now a Christian and my Church is the Baptist Church over there.”
Much to my surprise, my father had providentially received Christ the same week with me under completely unrelated circumstances. My mother was also found by the Lord after that event. God certainly had a plan for my family.
I thought I was the wise one, unaware that the wisdom of God is unfathomable. As the Bible says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). Obviously man proposes but God disposes. I always thank God for His wisdom in turning my rebellion into a quest to find Him and save me from perishing.
I found hope that day, but my newfound faith was not firm enough in me those days. As the Communists took over Vietnam in 1975, anti-US sentiment was on the rise. Since Christianity was considered a Western religion, many Vietnamese Christians were under suspicion as potential dissidents. For my family, this meant exile.
Because of our faith, my family was exiled to a region in the mountainous jungles of Vietnam. The family’s only possessions were the clothes on our backs, and, as soon as we arrived, we were left to fend for ourselves. We built a shelter out of trees, vines and mud, learned to use the root of manioc (cassava) for food, and attempted to find work at local farms. Each night, the government officials convened a propaganda meeting, indoctrinating us with Communist Dogma because we were seen as “troublemakers.”
Life in the jungle was hard for my family. My nine year old sister died from manioc poisoning because, in her extreme hunger, she ate too much at one time. My father died in 1982 as a result of malnutrition and general mistreatment. My wife whom I married before the exile escaped the jungles in 1981 and I left the area in 1987. However, my siblings had to remain there until 1989, and my mother was the last one to escape the exile in 1992.
In the midst of a tortuous exile, I became bitter. I began hating all those who escaped to foreign countries, hating the Communists, and hating God for letting all of this happen. One night in 1977, prior to my father’s death, I awoke in the middle of the night and heard my father quietly praying in the corner of our tent. As I moved closer, I noticed that my father was pleading with God for his embittered son (namely me).
Immediately after my father finished his prayer, I asked him in a rude way, “How can you pray? Communists have taken over; the Christian leaders have left the country. God is not here anymore.” My father calmly replied, “Son, because of that, we need to pray. We have no choice but to pray.” I was broken. God had not abandoned me, I had abandoned God. That day brought renewed hope as well as a commitment to Christian service.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). Forty years later, I still serve God in full-time ministry as you see me speaking to you today. Life after the exile has not been easy. I have been observed, questioned, physically attacked, and forced to live separately from my wife for almost nine years. Thank God, we are now reunited.
During those difficult days after 1975, to be a Christian is to be a criminal, and to be a Pastor is to be a double criminal. But despite the hardships, I remain committed to go alongside leaders with training, coaching, consulting, and counseling; protecting sound doctrine; and assisting the growing Vietnamese underground Church.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). I always thank God for forgiving me in such a way, and for using me for His glory until today!
I grew up in Central Vietnam in a family of eight. My family was non-religious, but we had a near-religious zeal for a better country. Years of French colonialism and an ongoing war with the North Communists inspired me to serve my country without relying on outside help, whether from US., or other Western Powers, or even from God. But God intervened.
While eating lunch one day from a street vendor in 1971, I found that my loaf of bread was wrapped in a discarded Gospel Tract on John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.
My blind mind and heart to God in that time were horrified to find literature that taught divine-reliance with a story about God having “a son” with “a woman”. “How could Vietnam modernize with dangerous ideas like this,” I thought.
I decided to fight against that teaching which I perceived as “fancy tale”, “untrue story” to help get rid of Christian teachings for my country, protecting our culture and tradition.
I took counsel from a friend of mine to go asking for truths but I went arguing with a Bishop and then a Pastor instead. The Bishop kept talking on Mari’s virginity and the Pastor kept excerpting verses from the Bible while I had no idea of the nature of Bible! Although the Pastor gave me a New Testament but poor explanations from these men made me even the more confused and I thought I am correct and will eventually win the argument.
I shared that thought with the friend I’ve just mentioned and he did not agree with me about that, he suggested that I have to ask the American Missionary in town for a better understanding of Evangelical faith before taking any action against it.
Soon after, I decided to take my argument to that American Missionary. Right at the first opportunity with that Missionary I showed him the tract I had found on John 3:16 which I understood as a fancy tale. I also showed him the New Testament the Pastor gave me which I considered as a collection of tales and untrue stories. I did not let him talk but kept criticizing him of fooling our Vietnamese people with tales like that. “We don’t need you Americans fool us with tales and untrue stories, what we have in our culture are enough!” I shout at him and kept on insisting that teachings like John 3:16 in no way good for the modernization of Vietnam.
The Missionary patiently listened to my argument. He seemed trying to understand what is going on in my blind mind and he did. He let me say and he did read the mind of an unsaved, patriotic student in his first year in college like me, I believe.
When the Missionary saw that I had said all what I wanted to say to him he graciously looked at me, offered me a cup of water to drink, and slowly and softly said: “Mr. Tan, I recognize that you’re a fine young man, you love your country dearly and you don’t want anyone to come to fool your people. I admire your strong desire for your country and people. However, please allow me to show you something quite new to you…”
He pointed his finger to a flock of ants moving on the floor and said: “Look at the ants there, which is the best way for you to communicate with them to help them avoid some danger that they are unknowingly heading toward…”
“No, sir. We don’t need to do that! Those ants have the natural instinct to avoid dangers ahead.” I shout out loud.
“But…”, the Missionary patiently and softly spoke to me, “let’s assume that they unknowingly heading toward some danger, and you know about that, and you love them enough to go telling them of the danger; do you think which way is the best way?”
His gracious manner toward me convinced me to think of his question and when he saw that I was thinking to find a good answer for him he continued:
“Well, may be the best way is to become one of them to speak to them about their danger in their own language. Do you agree with me about that?”
When he saw I nodded my head to show that I agree with him he began explain the message from John 3:16 for me. He said:
“The concept ‘Only Son’ in John 3:16 that you feel bothering about is not ‘a son’ that God had with ‘a woman’ as you thought but it’s God Himself. It’s God Himself who took the human form, became like us human to teach us on how to be delivered from the debt to Him, and to die to pay debt for us…”
He went on to preach about my need of salvation through Jesus Christ. After a few times of talking to him and arguing against him, however, I found myself becoming increasingly convinced of the truth of the message. Eventually, my opposition to the Gospel faded away and I submitted my life to Jesus. That was in the summer of 1971.
Although I was converted I still fear of informing my family about my conversion: my father would kill me if he knows that I’ve left the tradition of ancestors worship to follow Christ. That fear kept making me to delay from telling my family my new faith for the next two weeks.
On Friday of the third week at lunch time my father made a solemn and shocking announcement to the whole family: “From this Sunday on all of you should follow me to the Church to worship God with me! I’m now a Christian and my Church is the Baptist Church over there.”
Much to my surprise, my father had providentially received Christ the same week with me under completely unrelated circumstances. My mother was also found by the Lord after that event. God certainly had a plan for my family.
I thought I was the wise one, unaware that the wisdom of God is unfathomable. As the Bible says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). Obviously man proposes but God disposes. I always thank God for His wisdom in turning my rebellion into a quest to find Him and save me from perishing.
I found hope that day, but my newfound faith was not firm enough in me those days. As the Communists took over Vietnam in 1975, anti-US sentiment was on the rise. Since Christianity was considered a Western religion, many Vietnamese Christians were under suspicion as potential dissidents. For my family, this meant exile.
Because of our faith, my family was exiled to a region in the mountainous jungles of Vietnam. The family’s only possessions were the clothes on our backs, and, as soon as we arrived, we were left to fend for ourselves. We built a shelter out of trees, vines and mud, learned to use the root of manioc (cassava) for food, and attempted to find work at local farms. Each night, the government officials convened a propaganda meeting, indoctrinating us with Communist Dogma because we were seen as “troublemakers.”
Life in the jungle was hard for my family. My nine year old sister died from manioc poisoning because, in her extreme hunger, she ate too much at one time. My father died in 1982 as a result of malnutrition and general mistreatment. My wife whom I married before the exile escaped the jungles in 1981 and I left the area in 1987. However, my siblings had to remain there until 1989, and my mother was the last one to escape the exile in 1992.
In the midst of a tortuous exile, I became bitter. I began hating all those who escaped to foreign countries, hating the Communists, and hating God for letting all of this happen. One night in 1977, prior to my father’s death, I awoke in the middle of the night and heard my father quietly praying in the corner of our tent. As I moved closer, I noticed that my father was pleading with God for his embittered son (namely me).
Immediately after my father finished his prayer, I asked him in a rude way, “How can you pray? Communists have taken over; the Christian leaders have left the country. God is not here anymore.” My father calmly replied, “Son, because of that, we need to pray. We have no choice but to pray.” I was broken. God had not abandoned me, I had abandoned God. That day brought renewed hope as well as a commitment to Christian service.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). Forty years later, I still serve God in full-time ministry as you see me speaking to you today. Life after the exile has not been easy. I have been observed, questioned, physically attacked, and forced to live separately from my wife for almost nine years. Thank God, we are now reunited.
During those difficult days after 1975, to be a Christian is to be a criminal, and to be a Pastor is to be a double criminal. But despite the hardships, I remain committed to go alongside leaders with training, coaching, consulting, and counseling; protecting sound doctrine; and assisting the growing Vietnamese underground Church.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Pr 16:9). I always thank God for forgiving me in such a way, and for using me for His glory until today!
| manproposesgoddisposes.pdf |
“MY CONVICTION AND COMMITMENT”
(Mrs. Doan Nhat Tan)
(Mrs. Doan Nhat Tan)
“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
(Ps 23:6)
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
(Ps 23:6)
My maternal grandmother was one of the few first fruits of Quinhon Evangelical Church in the early years of the 1950s. The Lord by then found her through Chester and Mary Travis, an American Missionary Couple who could sit with us the Vietnamese in our huts and eat steaming hot rice with nuocmam sauce, who learned to enjoy the taste and the odor, who endured malaria and dysentery while ministering to their assigned districts and towns of provinces in Central Vietnam and our hometown Quinhon was one of them. It was Christ’s love seen in the impressive life of the Travis’ impressed my grandmother, drawing her near to His teaching in the Bible taught by this couple, nurturing her to become a faithful Christian and an excellent vehicle for the Lord to find me as I was a little girl.
My grandmother lived with us in a paternalistic family of five and all were non-believers. My grandmother experienced from failure to failure as she sought to share her faith to our parents despite her tireless efforts, the ancestor-worship belief in my father's heart stonewalled all of them. However, failure with our parents could not prevent her love of reaching out to her grandchildren for Christ.
My grandmother could not read and write Vietnamese and this defectiveness was very common among Vietnamese in the old days and she took it as an excuse to get my sister and I to go to Church with her in order to read the verses in her Bible for her. My sister was so shy to go to such a large congregation so all the opportunities were mine exclusively!
Our God seems to have a sense of humor, He takes my grandmother’s illiteracy in human language to promote me to the literacy of His language in the Bible! Week after week, month after month, and year after year I kept accompanying my grandmother to Church and what God taught her through the Bible taught me also; what convinced her convinced me also… At my age of fourteen I was fully convinced that I should have God’s forgiveness through Christ for His eternal salvation and I’ve been following Christ as my own Savior and Lord since then.
In the early years of my Christian life there was a war between my eagerness of living a new life and the inhibitive power of tradition from both family and society and it was not easy for me. I had to find hard against all kinds of unbiblical beliefs and practices and at times I was tempted to quit the race. I also found out that there were so many weaknesses and limits in me as obstacles on the racecourse that the Lord has called me to run… Thinking back to those days I’m now so grateful to the Lord for positioning my grandmother beside me to encourage me, urge me, guide me, teach me, and pray for me. It was her ministry to me that helped build me up in my walk with Christ to the point where I now can boldly say that nothing can hinder me from pressing on toward the goal “to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”.
When my husband and I first met each other in the last year of senior high school our Christian faith was relatively tested in both lives and we could easily share the same values, beliefs, and directions for life. We got engaged in the first year of college and we married each other right after graduation from college. We thought our course of life will be smooth and we will live teaching as our lifetime career. We had no idea of the upcoming historic event of our country, the victory of the Communists and their taking over the South part of the country in Summer 1975.
The overthrow of the South Vietnam Government by the Communists from the North marked a turning point of Vietnam as the beginning of a Communist country, putting the whole country under a totalitarian Government. Christians like us were seen as traitors to the country because Christianity was considered as just a tool of American Imperialism to fool the indigenous people. For the first few decades after Summer 1975 to be a Christian is to be a criminal and to be a Christian worker is to be a double criminal and all American missionaries were believed as CIA high rank officers. My father in law who was the chairman of the staff in our Church was condemned as a CIA agent because he worked closely with American missionaries before the fall of the South regime, he and his household were punished with an expulsion to a mountainous region and my husband and I were included. We were stripped of everything we had and my husband was dismissed from teachership because he was also a youth leader in our Church.
After overcoming his own mental crisis and despite strict control during our exile my husband began his ministry with scattered Church members by sneaking to their homes for teaching and exhorting them to keep persevering the faith. His beginning of ministry was my start of being a sort of caretaker for our own family who took over the responsibility of covering physical needs for a family of four people. It’d been almost three decades since that moment I did everything I could to support our family financially until my husband met Dr. Russell F. Lloyd and began to work for IBL some twenty years ago. It’s been almost five decades I patiently and gladly shared with my husband every hardship in life and in ministry, taking them as privileges of being yokefellow with a faithful servant of God.
Now that my husband’s ministry with IBL facing a crunch but the fire in his belly is still full and he wants to take this as an opportunity to restore Russ’ original vision and mission for the Church in Vietnam I feel proud of him and believe that I now can do it over again what I’d done many years ago to support him for his ministry. I think I may start a street vendor to sell fruits or vegetables to cover our daily needs so that my husband could have time and freedom to serve those who serve the Churches in our country.
My prayer now is that we may maintain our course of life as it’s been since Christ found us more than half a century ago and that we may, through His indwelling grace and power, overcome difficulties and temptations to glorify Him.
(Deborah Tran)
My grandmother lived with us in a paternalistic family of five and all were non-believers. My grandmother experienced from failure to failure as she sought to share her faith to our parents despite her tireless efforts, the ancestor-worship belief in my father's heart stonewalled all of them. However, failure with our parents could not prevent her love of reaching out to her grandchildren for Christ.
My grandmother could not read and write Vietnamese and this defectiveness was very common among Vietnamese in the old days and she took it as an excuse to get my sister and I to go to Church with her in order to read the verses in her Bible for her. My sister was so shy to go to such a large congregation so all the opportunities were mine exclusively!
Our God seems to have a sense of humor, He takes my grandmother’s illiteracy in human language to promote me to the literacy of His language in the Bible! Week after week, month after month, and year after year I kept accompanying my grandmother to Church and what God taught her through the Bible taught me also; what convinced her convinced me also… At my age of fourteen I was fully convinced that I should have God’s forgiveness through Christ for His eternal salvation and I’ve been following Christ as my own Savior and Lord since then.
In the early years of my Christian life there was a war between my eagerness of living a new life and the inhibitive power of tradition from both family and society and it was not easy for me. I had to find hard against all kinds of unbiblical beliefs and practices and at times I was tempted to quit the race. I also found out that there were so many weaknesses and limits in me as obstacles on the racecourse that the Lord has called me to run… Thinking back to those days I’m now so grateful to the Lord for positioning my grandmother beside me to encourage me, urge me, guide me, teach me, and pray for me. It was her ministry to me that helped build me up in my walk with Christ to the point where I now can boldly say that nothing can hinder me from pressing on toward the goal “to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”.
When my husband and I first met each other in the last year of senior high school our Christian faith was relatively tested in both lives and we could easily share the same values, beliefs, and directions for life. We got engaged in the first year of college and we married each other right after graduation from college. We thought our course of life will be smooth and we will live teaching as our lifetime career. We had no idea of the upcoming historic event of our country, the victory of the Communists and their taking over the South part of the country in Summer 1975.
The overthrow of the South Vietnam Government by the Communists from the North marked a turning point of Vietnam as the beginning of a Communist country, putting the whole country under a totalitarian Government. Christians like us were seen as traitors to the country because Christianity was considered as just a tool of American Imperialism to fool the indigenous people. For the first few decades after Summer 1975 to be a Christian is to be a criminal and to be a Christian worker is to be a double criminal and all American missionaries were believed as CIA high rank officers. My father in law who was the chairman of the staff in our Church was condemned as a CIA agent because he worked closely with American missionaries before the fall of the South regime, he and his household were punished with an expulsion to a mountainous region and my husband and I were included. We were stripped of everything we had and my husband was dismissed from teachership because he was also a youth leader in our Church.
After overcoming his own mental crisis and despite strict control during our exile my husband began his ministry with scattered Church members by sneaking to their homes for teaching and exhorting them to keep persevering the faith. His beginning of ministry was my start of being a sort of caretaker for our own family who took over the responsibility of covering physical needs for a family of four people. It’d been almost three decades since that moment I did everything I could to support our family financially until my husband met Dr. Russell F. Lloyd and began to work for IBL some twenty years ago. It’s been almost five decades I patiently and gladly shared with my husband every hardship in life and in ministry, taking them as privileges of being yokefellow with a faithful servant of God.
Now that my husband’s ministry with IBL facing a crunch but the fire in his belly is still full and he wants to take this as an opportunity to restore Russ’ original vision and mission for the Church in Vietnam I feel proud of him and believe that I now can do it over again what I’d done many years ago to support him for his ministry. I think I may start a street vendor to sell fruits or vegetables to cover our daily needs so that my husband could have time and freedom to serve those who serve the Churches in our country.
My prayer now is that we may maintain our course of life as it’s been since Christ found us more than half a century ago and that we may, through His indwelling grace and power, overcome difficulties and temptations to glorify Him.
(Deborah Tran)
| my_conviction_and_commitment.pdf |
“LOVING GOD WITH OUR MINDS”
(Rev. Doan Nhat Tan, PhD)
(Rev. Doan Nhat Tan, PhD)
The mind is a faculty of knowledge and from the beginning of the Old Testament knowledge implies a relationship (cf. Ge 4:1, NIV). Relationship between the Christian and Christ is also understood in the same way (cf. Jn 10:14; 8:32; NIV) and to know Christ is to have faith in Him, to follow Him, to love Him, and to let Him be the highest authority (cf. Jn 14:7; 1Co 8:3; Gal 4:9; 2Ti 2:19, NIV). With such a pattern, “loving God with our minds” should certainly relate to our appreciation of God, submission to God, devotion to God, and God’s dominion over our thought-life. John Piper in his book “Think: The Life Of The Mind And The Love Of God” offers a clarification for his readers to understand the overall meaning of “loving God with all your mind”:
“Loving God is most essentially treasuring God - valuing him, cherishing him, admiring him, desiring him. And loving Him with all our mind means that our thinking is wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express this heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things” (Piper 2010, 88).
We only appreciate God if we know His truth about who He is and this demands us to embrace His self-revelation. Those who do not have faith in Christ cannot love God, not to say loving God with their minds, and those who fail to hold tightly His truth in His Bible cannot love Him as He desires. This helps explaining why some people think that loving God is to worship “Mary the Mother of God”, to observe the “Sacraments”, or just to go after their feelings - these all relate to the way people think of God’s truth in His Bible. We’re living in an “evil age” (cf. Gal 1:4, NIV) whose way of thinking is suppressive to God’s truth and our redeemed intellect is still subjected to the “lingering corruption” (Webster 2008, 748) therefore we’re to think about what we think about. R. Albert Mohler Jr. puts it well in his article “The Way The World Thinks: Meeting The Natural Mind In The Mirror And In The Marketplace”:
“Because of the biblical imperative to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, Christians must perpetually think about thinking” (Mohler 2011, 48).
Elizabeth George begins her book “Loving God With All Your Mind” with a brief examination on Philippians 4:8 (KJV) to raise almost the same concern as Mohler does in his essay:
“So here’s a first step: Remember these eight words from God’s Word - ‘Whatsoever things are true... Think on these things’” (George 2005, 24).
We should think of the truth of God to know Him and to love Him. Without a full appreciation of God we will not be able to be overwhelmed under the tremendous affections of all what He is. The true and real comprehension, assessment, and esteem of God over our intellect is indeed the first key for us to love God with our minds.
Once awaken to comprehend an appreciation to God the intellect can express its volition to submit Him. To some people submission simply means to surrender to someone’s authority and losing even one’s identity but the biblical submission is in fact the new power of a redeemed mind. To us as Christians submission is necessary in order to recognize the authority of God and to fall under His guidance and direction. It means we willingly come under who He is as revealed in Christ and His Word and eventually it means all what in our lives come under “His Word”, “His Ways”, “His Will”, and “His Work”. Submission to God helps us developing faith, remaining teachable, being the better leaders, discharging our responsibilities in a better way. It seems in the same course of thought John Piper uses the phrase “wholly engaged to do all it can” (Piper 2010, 88) to describe our volition when we love God with our minds.
Contrarily the lack of submission to God leads to chaos, problems, and painful consequences but not all people want to accept the fact. Natural minds think themselves as “homo sapiens” but they are in fact just “suppressors of truth” (Mohler 2011, 51), they “became fools” (cf. Ro 1:22 NIV) in making their gods as “Higher Consciousness”, “Super Consciousness”, “Objective Consciousness” and the like. The New Thought Movement even abuses Christ’s title in naming its god, namely “Christ Consciousness”. Besides, there are also subtle rebellious efforts against God through deceptions and unbiblical teachings within the Church by their worldviews, philosophies, dogmas,… They misrepresent the truth to teach God’s people to submit to “the embassy of Scripture” (Webster 2008, 747) instead of God through His Scripture alone.
As a result, both appreciation of God and submission to God may help awakening a devotion to God in the life of the Christian as we often see it happen when the intellect meets the volition within a life and then the loyalty comes. Biblically to think, to be devoted means to be completely “undivided” (cf. 1Co 7:35 NIV. Gr. ἀπερισπάστως) and “pure” (cf. 2Co 11:3 NIV. Gr. ἁπλότης) in devoting to Christ, or to be completely loyal and steadfast to Him as commanded - “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34 NIV). Intellectually to put, a devotion to God is an excitement of the mind on what God is - it’s an adoration for God, admiration of God, and exaltation to God. The devotion to God demands the renewal of the mind because the natural mind cannot become the Christian mind by itself (cf. Ro 12:2 NIV). Even us as Christians, due to influences of shifts in worldview like the “Five Precepts Of The Modern Mind” (Mohler 2011, 61-62) and the “lingering corruption” (Webster 2008, 748) we should always think about our thinking to make sure that we do love God and walk with Him daily (cf. Eph 4:23 NIV) “until Jesus comes” (Mohler 2011, 65) because our intellect is still vulnerable to remaining corruption within and without.
The Christian intellect - or “the mind of the Lord” (cf. 1Co 2:16 NIV) - is the regenerated intellect in terms of a correct understanding of the things and plans of God. It’s our worldview (volition) in harmonizing with God’s will (cf. 1Co 2:14 NIV) to help us being spiritual and making righteous judgments about all things while ourselves are still not subjected to “any man’s judgment” (cf. 1Co 2:15 NIV). God even wants the things that the Christian intellect judges to include the times (cf. Rev 13:18; 17:9) as Paul urges the Thessalonians not to allow their understanding to be shaken by false reports that the day of the Lord is already here (cf. 2Th 2:2). It seems in such a state we Christians can say about our emotion the way John Piper put: “In all my rejoicing over all the good things that God has made, God Himself is the heart of my joy, the gladness of my joy” (Piper 2010, 89).
In loving God we appreciate God, we submit to God, and we devote to God - meaning we make God our dominant joy from which all other joys flow (cf. Ps. 16:2 NIV) - therefore in loving God we put all our mental abilities at work for valuing God. This description may seem contrary or strange to some people because “faith is now understood as a blind act of will, a decision to believe something that is either independent of reason or that is a simple choice to believe while ignoring the paltry lack of evidence for what is believed” (Moreland 2012, location 203 of 5026). Human reason nature needs knowledge to believe as well as understanding to love. It’s in the realm of intellect our love for God works although there are people still in an ignorance (or disregard) of interchangeable meanings between (1) the heart and the mind, and (2) the soul and the mind in the Bible.
First of all, in the Old Testament the term “heart” (Hb. בל; cf. Ge 6:5) is used figuratively for the inner person, most of its usages is for mentioning to the mind or thought-life (cf. Pr 4:23; 23:7 NIV) therefore “set his heart” (2Ch 12:14 NIV) or “worked with all their heart” (Ne 4:6 NIV) means to make up the mind or decide. In the New Testament the term “heart” as Gr. καρδία (cf. Lk 2:19 NIV) is obviously used for thinking, and another Greek term for “heart” is Gr. νοῦς which is often translated as “mind” (cf. Ro 1:28; Eph 4:17; Col 2:18; 1Ti 6:5; Tit 1:15 NIV) for mentioning a broad concept of the mind to determine a disposition, an inner orientation, a moral inclination, or a course of action. Second, a well known Hebrew term used for “soul” is Hb. שׁפנ (cf. Dt 6:5 NIV) which refers to the intellectual or mental dimension of life and is often translated as “being”, “life”, “flesh”, “whoever”, “anyone” (cf. Ge 2:7; 12:13; 17:14; Ex 12:15; Lev 4:2 NIV) - and this is obviously for denoting the personhood. Third, it seems that the Old Testament uses several terms for referencing to the mind (or reason) in a wide range of ideas to describe the inward or invisible dimensions of the human being in a holistic manner and they may be perceived as “heart”, “spirit”, or “soul”. “Mind” is used to translate Hb. חור (cf. Ge 41:8 NIV), Hb. בל (cf. Nu 16:28; Dt 29:4; 2Sa 19:19 NIV), Hb. בבל (cf. Dt 28:28; 1Sa 14:7; 2Sa 7:3; 1Ki 10:2 NIV), Hb. שׁפנ (cf. Dt 28:65; 1Sa 2:35 NIV), and Hb. יוכשׂ (cf. Job 38:36 NIV). We also see the same pattern for the term “mind” in the New Testament as it is used to translate Gr. καρδία (cf. Mt 23:37; Mk 12:30; Lk 21:14; Ac 4:32 NIV), and Gr. νοῦς (cf. Ro 1:28; 11:34; 1Co 1:10 NIV). We now have at least two things to notice from the observations above: (1) Interchangeable uses between “heart”, “mind”, “soul” and (2) A hidden meaning of “mind” is always laid beneath the meaning of “heart” and “soul”.
The truth is that God says what He means and He means what He says in His Bible by the full course of operation of the Holy Spirit. In order to know and love God as He desires we should rely on the illumination ministry of the Holy Spirit to approach the Bible with a biblically exegetical interpretation, stay away from all kinds of worldview and unbiblical interpretations of the Bible. By doing so we then will gain a biblical insight on “loving God with our minds”: It’s to activate all our “powers of thought to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure Him for all He is worth” (Piper 2010, 90). Once we truly love God with our minds God’s authority, ascendancy, authorization will be a reality over our though-life and we will totally incline toward Him and Him alone. The age-old debate that the Pharisees once used (cf. Mt 22:36 NIV) is now the primary principle of the Christian life as commanded in the First and Greatest Commandment - “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37 NIV).
“Loving God is most essentially treasuring God - valuing him, cherishing him, admiring him, desiring him. And loving Him with all our mind means that our thinking is wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express this heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things” (Piper 2010, 88).
We only appreciate God if we know His truth about who He is and this demands us to embrace His self-revelation. Those who do not have faith in Christ cannot love God, not to say loving God with their minds, and those who fail to hold tightly His truth in His Bible cannot love Him as He desires. This helps explaining why some people think that loving God is to worship “Mary the Mother of God”, to observe the “Sacraments”, or just to go after their feelings - these all relate to the way people think of God’s truth in His Bible. We’re living in an “evil age” (cf. Gal 1:4, NIV) whose way of thinking is suppressive to God’s truth and our redeemed intellect is still subjected to the “lingering corruption” (Webster 2008, 748) therefore we’re to think about what we think about. R. Albert Mohler Jr. puts it well in his article “The Way The World Thinks: Meeting The Natural Mind In The Mirror And In The Marketplace”:
“Because of the biblical imperative to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, Christians must perpetually think about thinking” (Mohler 2011, 48).
Elizabeth George begins her book “Loving God With All Your Mind” with a brief examination on Philippians 4:8 (KJV) to raise almost the same concern as Mohler does in his essay:
“So here’s a first step: Remember these eight words from God’s Word - ‘Whatsoever things are true... Think on these things’” (George 2005, 24).
We should think of the truth of God to know Him and to love Him. Without a full appreciation of God we will not be able to be overwhelmed under the tremendous affections of all what He is. The true and real comprehension, assessment, and esteem of God over our intellect is indeed the first key for us to love God with our minds.
Once awaken to comprehend an appreciation to God the intellect can express its volition to submit Him. To some people submission simply means to surrender to someone’s authority and losing even one’s identity but the biblical submission is in fact the new power of a redeemed mind. To us as Christians submission is necessary in order to recognize the authority of God and to fall under His guidance and direction. It means we willingly come under who He is as revealed in Christ and His Word and eventually it means all what in our lives come under “His Word”, “His Ways”, “His Will”, and “His Work”. Submission to God helps us developing faith, remaining teachable, being the better leaders, discharging our responsibilities in a better way. It seems in the same course of thought John Piper uses the phrase “wholly engaged to do all it can” (Piper 2010, 88) to describe our volition when we love God with our minds.
Contrarily the lack of submission to God leads to chaos, problems, and painful consequences but not all people want to accept the fact. Natural minds think themselves as “homo sapiens” but they are in fact just “suppressors of truth” (Mohler 2011, 51), they “became fools” (cf. Ro 1:22 NIV) in making their gods as “Higher Consciousness”, “Super Consciousness”, “Objective Consciousness” and the like. The New Thought Movement even abuses Christ’s title in naming its god, namely “Christ Consciousness”. Besides, there are also subtle rebellious efforts against God through deceptions and unbiblical teachings within the Church by their worldviews, philosophies, dogmas,… They misrepresent the truth to teach God’s people to submit to “the embassy of Scripture” (Webster 2008, 747) instead of God through His Scripture alone.
As a result, both appreciation of God and submission to God may help awakening a devotion to God in the life of the Christian as we often see it happen when the intellect meets the volition within a life and then the loyalty comes. Biblically to think, to be devoted means to be completely “undivided” (cf. 1Co 7:35 NIV. Gr. ἀπερισπάστως) and “pure” (cf. 2Co 11:3 NIV. Gr. ἁπλότης) in devoting to Christ, or to be completely loyal and steadfast to Him as commanded - “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34 NIV). Intellectually to put, a devotion to God is an excitement of the mind on what God is - it’s an adoration for God, admiration of God, and exaltation to God. The devotion to God demands the renewal of the mind because the natural mind cannot become the Christian mind by itself (cf. Ro 12:2 NIV). Even us as Christians, due to influences of shifts in worldview like the “Five Precepts Of The Modern Mind” (Mohler 2011, 61-62) and the “lingering corruption” (Webster 2008, 748) we should always think about our thinking to make sure that we do love God and walk with Him daily (cf. Eph 4:23 NIV) “until Jesus comes” (Mohler 2011, 65) because our intellect is still vulnerable to remaining corruption within and without.
The Christian intellect - or “the mind of the Lord” (cf. 1Co 2:16 NIV) - is the regenerated intellect in terms of a correct understanding of the things and plans of God. It’s our worldview (volition) in harmonizing with God’s will (cf. 1Co 2:14 NIV) to help us being spiritual and making righteous judgments about all things while ourselves are still not subjected to “any man’s judgment” (cf. 1Co 2:15 NIV). God even wants the things that the Christian intellect judges to include the times (cf. Rev 13:18; 17:9) as Paul urges the Thessalonians not to allow their understanding to be shaken by false reports that the day of the Lord is already here (cf. 2Th 2:2). It seems in such a state we Christians can say about our emotion the way John Piper put: “In all my rejoicing over all the good things that God has made, God Himself is the heart of my joy, the gladness of my joy” (Piper 2010, 89).
In loving God we appreciate God, we submit to God, and we devote to God - meaning we make God our dominant joy from which all other joys flow (cf. Ps. 16:2 NIV) - therefore in loving God we put all our mental abilities at work for valuing God. This description may seem contrary or strange to some people because “faith is now understood as a blind act of will, a decision to believe something that is either independent of reason or that is a simple choice to believe while ignoring the paltry lack of evidence for what is believed” (Moreland 2012, location 203 of 5026). Human reason nature needs knowledge to believe as well as understanding to love. It’s in the realm of intellect our love for God works although there are people still in an ignorance (or disregard) of interchangeable meanings between (1) the heart and the mind, and (2) the soul and the mind in the Bible.
First of all, in the Old Testament the term “heart” (Hb. בל; cf. Ge 6:5) is used figuratively for the inner person, most of its usages is for mentioning to the mind or thought-life (cf. Pr 4:23; 23:7 NIV) therefore “set his heart” (2Ch 12:14 NIV) or “worked with all their heart” (Ne 4:6 NIV) means to make up the mind or decide. In the New Testament the term “heart” as Gr. καρδία (cf. Lk 2:19 NIV) is obviously used for thinking, and another Greek term for “heart” is Gr. νοῦς which is often translated as “mind” (cf. Ro 1:28; Eph 4:17; Col 2:18; 1Ti 6:5; Tit 1:15 NIV) for mentioning a broad concept of the mind to determine a disposition, an inner orientation, a moral inclination, or a course of action. Second, a well known Hebrew term used for “soul” is Hb. שׁפנ (cf. Dt 6:5 NIV) which refers to the intellectual or mental dimension of life and is often translated as “being”, “life”, “flesh”, “whoever”, “anyone” (cf. Ge 2:7; 12:13; 17:14; Ex 12:15; Lev 4:2 NIV) - and this is obviously for denoting the personhood. Third, it seems that the Old Testament uses several terms for referencing to the mind (or reason) in a wide range of ideas to describe the inward or invisible dimensions of the human being in a holistic manner and they may be perceived as “heart”, “spirit”, or “soul”. “Mind” is used to translate Hb. חור (cf. Ge 41:8 NIV), Hb. בל (cf. Nu 16:28; Dt 29:4; 2Sa 19:19 NIV), Hb. בבל (cf. Dt 28:28; 1Sa 14:7; 2Sa 7:3; 1Ki 10:2 NIV), Hb. שׁפנ (cf. Dt 28:65; 1Sa 2:35 NIV), and Hb. יוכשׂ (cf. Job 38:36 NIV). We also see the same pattern for the term “mind” in the New Testament as it is used to translate Gr. καρδία (cf. Mt 23:37; Mk 12:30; Lk 21:14; Ac 4:32 NIV), and Gr. νοῦς (cf. Ro 1:28; 11:34; 1Co 1:10 NIV). We now have at least two things to notice from the observations above: (1) Interchangeable uses between “heart”, “mind”, “soul” and (2) A hidden meaning of “mind” is always laid beneath the meaning of “heart” and “soul”.
The truth is that God says what He means and He means what He says in His Bible by the full course of operation of the Holy Spirit. In order to know and love God as He desires we should rely on the illumination ministry of the Holy Spirit to approach the Bible with a biblically exegetical interpretation, stay away from all kinds of worldview and unbiblical interpretations of the Bible. By doing so we then will gain a biblical insight on “loving God with our minds”: It’s to activate all our “powers of thought to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure Him for all He is worth” (Piper 2010, 90). Once we truly love God with our minds God’s authority, ascendancy, authorization will be a reality over our though-life and we will totally incline toward Him and Him alone. The age-old debate that the Pharisees once used (cf. Mt 22:36 NIV) is now the primary principle of the Christian life as commanded in the First and Greatest Commandment - “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37 NIV).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Anglican Theological Review Inc. 2008. Anglican Theological Review; Fall2008, Vol. 90 Issue 4. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson)
2. George, Elizabeth. 2005. Loving God With All Your Mind. Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition.
3. Moreland, J. P.. 1997, 2012. Love God With All Your Mind: The Role Of Reason In The Life Of The Soul. NavPress. Kindle Edition.
4. Piper, John. 2010. Think: The Life Of The Mind And The Love Of God. Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.
5. Piper, John & Mathis, David. 2011. Thinking. Loving. Doing.: A Call To Glorify God With Heart And Mind. Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.
1. Anglican Theological Review Inc. 2008. Anglican Theological Review; Fall2008, Vol. 90 Issue 4. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson)
2. George, Elizabeth. 2005. Loving God With All Your Mind. Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition.
3. Moreland, J. P.. 1997, 2012. Love God With All Your Mind: The Role Of Reason In The Life Of The Soul. NavPress. Kindle Edition.
4. Piper, John. 2010. Think: The Life Of The Mind And The Love Of God. Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.
5. Piper, John & Mathis, David. 2011. Thinking. Loving. Doing.: A Call To Glorify God With Heart And Mind. Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.
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