First and foremost, we must love God with our minds because we are commanded to do so. Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4–5: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (The word “heart” is often a stand-in for “mind” or “mindset” in the Old Testament.) And, when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he cited Deuteronomy, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:29–30). Intellectual love for God is at the center of Old and New Testament spirituality.

Mental piety and intellectual acumen are essential aspects of a holistic spirituality. God’s word is the most interesting, incisive, uplifting, and pragmatic information available on planet earth. The Bible is full of intellectuality. For this reason, willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism are not spiritual virtues. Passive consumerism of popular culture is not God-honoring. Intellectual boredom is not healthy or pious. Relegating serious thought to Monday through Friday or for professional purposes only signifies a spiritual malady.

Second, God made humans as thinkers, because he is a thinker. With our minds, we create, make, imagine and build. We need our minds to be his stewards in creation. Since we are created in his image, we must bring our brains to God and enroll in his school. We must learn to love God with our mind, as Moses and Jesus told us. (God does not require us to become rocket scientists or philosophers, but to develop the potential he gave us individually for his glory and the good of others.)

In fact, God created a world for beings that were fit for thinking and learn­ing in all forms. He made them with intellectual curiosity. To carry out our vice-regency, we must apply our cognitive abilities in compliance with the God who made us and the real world we live in. We must learn to honor God with our intellect in motive, method, and content.

Third, we must learn to love God with our minds because the modern world is very complex and confusing. There is much more information today, as well as diverse opinions, propaganda, and ever-present marketing. There is constant interaction of perspectives through globalization. Our world is a battlefield of opposing worldviews.

Probably more than ever, therefore, we need to interact with our cultures with wisdom and understanding. To remain relevant, we need discernment and knowledge. We must become “wise as serpents” (Matt 10:16), especially in missions and for engaging unbelief in all its forms. We should be like the Sons of Issachar, who served God with their intellects, “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron 12:32).

If this reasoning seems compelling to you, check out the resources available or recommended on this site.

Watch these two excerpts from a sermon delivered in Buenos Aires several years ago (with Spanish translation) by Dr. Keith Campbell, Vice-President of Global Scholars and a Founder of the Society of Christian Scholars. Part one concerns the significance of the mind (8:20)  and part two addresses the strategic necessity to reach out to the intelligencia (6:38).

Worldviews are a very complex phenomenon. A worldview is really a web: the convergence of ideas, culture, and history. Our worldview webs are the social and mental matrix in which “we live, and move and have our being,” as Paul says (Acts 17:28).

People are not simply “blank slates” that we write upon with the biblical worldview. They present themselves already locked in a maze of preconceptions and cultural expectations. Those with whom we engage are not simply “empty” or “neutral,” just waiting for us to enlighten them. No. They perceive the world and themselves with sinful biases and idolatries. People are formed by ideas and cultural norms that skew how they view reality, the Bible―and us.

Moreover, worldview formation is difficult to understand because it involves a mix of complex, theological factors. First, there is our post-fall spiritual context: sin complicates everything. Paul mentions in Ephesians 2:1–3 three negative dimensions of human existence: our sinful nature, the world, and the devil.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of  the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Together, these produce evil “desires of the body and mind.” Paul says in Galatians 1:4 that we live in “this present evil age.”

Second, there is God’s common grace (Ps 104, Acts 14:17), which often restrains evil for his purposes, and amplifies the beauty and potential of this world, even though it is fallen into sin.

Third, there is the gospel itself, which has the power to transform lives and communities.

But fourth, there is the enigmatic concept of divine providence. Consider Acts 17:26–27.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

What does verse 26 mean considering the history and cultures of South America, for example, since God “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God”? Remember that South America was colonized by Catholic empires. Imagine, however, if the continent had been colonized by Protestant nations. Imagine, also, what might have happened if there had been a Protestant Reformation here. Think about the social, political, economic, and intellectual implications that might have occurred.

Sadly, what really did happen is that millions of people in this continent died, through violence and disease, because of the lust for empire and its cousin, colonialism. Lands were acquired. Peoples were dispersed or enslaved for purposes of security, gain or glory. Millions of Africans were brought as slaves to Brazil.

And Christianity? It was often affiliated with the powerful and prosperous, with empire and colonialism, and overlooked the victims: the poor, exploited, enslaved, abused, and condemned.

We could name other enigmas of history and continue speculating. The matrix of evil, common grace, gospel, and divine providence in human history and worldview formation is very complicated.

We need a lot of humility, wisdom, and compassion to discern the intricate worldview web we encounter in cultures through evangelism, church planting, and missions.

Why? Because people are pre-packaged by ideas and cultural norms in complex ways that distort their worldviews before we arrive. We cannot simply overlay the Bible, assuming that people are open or neutral. They are often wounded, confused, indifferent or hostile.

If you wear reading glasses and look at objects far away or, if you wear glasses for driving and look at objects close at hand, they will appear out of focus, distorted. When I wear my reading glasses, people faraway look strange. Why? Because my glasses distort my vision, how I see reality.

If we think of glasses in a metaphorical way, I suggest that everyone wears glasses. Because everyone looks at the world through distorted lenses and fails to see what is really there―or what God sees. They do not perceive reality or see the truth. They do not see creation or the Creator. This is due to sin.

These distortions happen because our epistemological glasses, so to speak, function as sinful biases, worldviews, and idolatries. The Bible says that human beings have a severe vision problem. Sin affects how and what we see or how and what we think, commonly called the noetic effect of sin.  For this reason, we do not want to see clearly (John 3:19–20).

The Bible teaches, therefore, that we need radical surgery to fix our sight and thinking. For those who follow Christ, this is already happening. Slowly, our vision is being restored and one day in eternity we will see everything clearly, including ourselves (1 Cor 13:12). Until that time, God provides corrective lenses, so to speak, to help us see and think more clearly. The scriptures, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, provide the God-sanctioned assumptions by which to view the world and operate in it (Ps 16:11; 119:105).

By way of example, think about how people view the Bible. When you look at the information and the worldview represented there as a follower of Jesus, you already possess corrective lenses. You are inclined to look favorably on the Bible and to value its teaching. You see its beauty. You hear the voice of God in the word. You are learning the truth. You are beginning to perceive reality. You understand the Bible’s relevance for yourself and society.

But imagine how an unbeliever views the Bible. They view the same information, but with their sinful biases, presuppositions, and erroneous worldviews. They cannot see what you see. They do not hear God speaking in the text.

Therefore, when we present the Lord Jesus to unbelievers, we must not forget how sinful bias affects spiritual vision. If we talk about the Bible’s relevancy for society or as a revelation from God for our souls, we must always recognize the influence of sin upon our minds. Or, when we focus on the biblical worldview as a framework for interpreting human experience, we cannot forget the intellectual impact of the fall. Of course, we hope and pray that the Spirit works through the text to open eyes and heal sight.

So, when we read the Bible, we should―also―remove our “glasses.” And, when we share the Bible with non-believers, we should say to them, “Take of your glasses, please.”