An Unalterable Need: The Thinking Christian

“I think that one of the problems for you, students is that you are not thinking about this material outside of class."

That was the rebuke one of my professors recently gave to my classmates and me, and it was a point well taken. The goal of his rebuke was not to get us to be better students, but it was aimed at the fact that we were unaware of what was taking place in our respective fields. For most of us, class was a time to come prepared to discuss our assigned readings and bring forth some content to the table. Yet, outside of class, we were not aware of the discussions about the very thing we were to study. This is problematic because at the degree level, we were at, there would come a day when we would be looked upon as experts in our field of study merely because of the initials behind our name, and we weren't prepared to live up to that expectation.

In thinking about that rebuke, I had a lightbulb moment when I began to think, "We do the same thing in the church." Writing in 1913, J. Gresham Machen assessed the problem of the church in the day as a lack of thinking, saying,

"The church is perishing today through the lack of thinking not through an excess of it"

(1). He goes on to say that in its current state, as a people who fit the study of God's Word into the useless, leftover moments of the day, the church and its people will never have to deal with the tough questions.

Though the words were written over 100 years ago, I suspect that many Christians would find application of Machen’s critique for today. Personally, I tend to agree with him as well, thinking that we should devote more time to thinking about the things of God (cf. Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:1-2). Yet, I believe there is a specific level of thinking that is currently missing in our church: thinking about the things of the Lord outside the house of the Lord. Like those students who failed to think of their area of study outside of class, I think we fail to think about our lives as Christians outside of the church.

It's easy to sing to the Lord when the words are placed before us. It's easy to spend time in prayer when someone is urging us to pray. It's easy to dwell upon the Word after we've heard it preached. But what happens when we exit the church doors? When life gets complicated at work, or we're battling with the will of our children at home, where are our thoughts? By calling ourselves Christians, the assumption is that our thoughts are constantly with the Lord. Yet, the reality is often quite the opposite. I say that not as a point of shame, but as a point of challenge because the battle in this area is not exclusive to a few believers but one that most of us must confess we face.

Why is it that once we enter the world, we don’t think about heaven? I think there are several reasons for this:

• Division: We've divided our lives inside the church and outside the church, disconnecting them from one another.
• Discipleship: There is a lack of intentional discipleship to connect the teachings of the faith with our walk of the faith.

The result of these two mentalities is that we're not thinking Christians in the sense that we are not thinking about the Christian life outside of our 'Christian life.' We have segregated the Christian part of our life into certain realms. But the Bible teaches that identifying ourselves as Christians transforms all aspects of life; it influences how we think about politics, how we shepherd our family, and how we behave at work. The identification of this problem has critical implications then for our evangelism and discipleship. If there is a lack of thinking at this level, then it signals for us the need to develop this aspect of our people in our time of discipleship.How do we do this? The most obvious answer is to teach them and model it for them.

This is not untrue. Yet, I think there is a more specific aspect for us to consider: connect their situation to Scripture. To think about the Christian life outside of the church means we have to connect God’s truth with the circumstances that are going on in our lives. In both triumph and trial, we have to see how God is at work and how His instructions are applicable.

By this, I don't mean standing up in the pulpit and preaching 'love others,' giving people a general application only. But at the personal level, when you're talking with someone struggling with a coworker, talk to them about specifically loving that person and take them to other Scriptures to explain what that looks like.This kind of teaching and thinking happens at the discipleship level because it requires a personal involvement in the lives of the people and a knowledge of what is happening in their lives. This is the unalterable need in the church today: the need to develop thinking Christians. They need to teach Christians how to think about the Christian life outside of the church, and how to think about the Christian life when they may not have someone there in the moment to prompt them to do so. The unalterable need is for us to be thinking Christians.

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(1) J. Gresham Machen, Christianity, Culture, and Liberalism (Louisville, KY: GLH Publishing, 2018), 12.