How Do We Avoid Over-Thinking (or Under-Thinking) the Christian Life?
00:00:00.000 | Well, how do we avoid overthinking or under thinking the Christian life?
00:00:07.920 | It's a relevant question for a podcast that spends a lot of its time
00:00:11.240 | talking about the Christian life.
00:00:12.400 | And the question today comes from a listener named Ronnie.
00:00:15.400 | Hello, Pastor Jon, thank you for the podcast.
00:00:17.580 | I've been richly blessed by this podcast over the years.
00:00:21.060 | So thank you.
00:00:21.780 | I know you are a great nuts guy.
00:00:24.620 | I am too.
00:00:25.840 | So I chuckled when I read this in GK Chesterton's book, heretics, where he
00:00:30.280 | says this, there is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse.
00:00:36.240 | Then in the man who eats grape nuts on principle, the chief error of these
00:00:42.660 | people is to be found in the very phrase to which they are most attached.
00:00:46.760 | Plain living and high thinking.
00:00:48.880 | These people do not stand in need of, will not be improved by
00:00:52.000 | plain living and high thinking.
00:00:53.640 | They stand in need of the contrary.
00:00:56.040 | They would be improved by high living and plain thinking.
00:00:59.640 | So do you ever wonder or harbor a concern over, and in this podcast, I
00:01:04.000 | think maybe an expression of, an overthinking of all the details and
00:01:08.280 | options in the Christian life at the expense of simply living our
00:01:12.000 | lives with the joy of impulse?
00:01:14.240 | In other words, Pastor Jon, can we overthink the Christian life?
00:01:19.280 | Well, a complex mental tortured eating of great nuts is probably inferior to a
00:01:30.480 | spontaneous, happy, simple eating of caviar.
00:01:34.800 | But I wonder about a spontaneous, simple eating of grape nuts.
00:01:38.960 | Here's my answer to whether you can overthink things.
00:01:45.360 | The answer is yes.
00:01:46.720 | We can overthink our lives.
00:01:48.720 | And if Ronnie were to ask me if we can underthink our lives, I would say yes.
00:01:53.760 | We can underthink our lives.
00:01:56.200 | And the problem is not just quantity over and under thinking.
00:02:00.280 | The problem is quality as well, like thinking carefully and thinking sloppy
00:02:07.280 | or thinking truly and thinking falsely.
00:02:10.880 | Now, whether this podcast is guilty of overthink or underthink and sloppy
00:02:17.880 | think and false think, others will have to judge.
00:02:20.840 | But yes, I'm aware of the danger.
00:02:23.520 | Just this morning, just to give you some examples of how aware I tend to be, just
00:02:31.080 | this morning, I was listening to an audio version of C.S.
00:02:34.600 | Lewis' essay on subjectivism.
00:02:36.880 | Excellent essay.
00:02:38.360 | Everybody, I wish, would read it.
00:02:40.400 | He was talking about the dangers of turning away from the real world and
00:02:47.640 | thinking about the world outside to an excessive introspection where we try to
00:02:54.400 | discern the true and the beautiful and the criterion for the true and the
00:02:59.120 | beautiful and the absolute inside.
00:03:01.640 | And in a typical genius for comparisons, Lewis compared turning inside for the
00:03:10.480 | sight of the absolute and the true and the beautiful.
00:03:14.240 | He compared it to taking your eyeballs out to look at them.
00:03:18.280 | I was getting dressed and I just thought, that is just helpful.
00:03:23.440 | We become blind in the very act of analysis as we try to see.
00:03:30.120 | It's what Wordsworth, I suppose, is getting at.
00:03:32.480 | We murder to dissect.
00:03:34.320 | So that's what Ronnie is waving a big yellow flag in front of Piper and saying,
00:03:39.400 | "You sure you want to do this podcast?"
00:03:42.360 | Now, of course, Chesterton and Lewis are two happy peas in a pod when it comes to
00:03:48.720 | helping us not overthink or underthink or badly think.
00:03:52.040 | But they also offer a warning because no Christian in the 20th century applied the
00:03:59.880 | razor of the law of non-contradiction to all the follies of the world the way C.S.
00:04:06.320 | Lewis did.
00:04:06.960 | I think I can say that without exception.
00:04:10.080 | No Christian in the 20th century applied the razor of the law of non-contradiction
00:04:17.040 | to all the follies of the world the way C.S.
00:04:20.720 | Lewis did.
00:04:21.280 | And Chesterton did the same thing in his own way.
00:04:24.280 | Chesterton wasn't nearly as given, I think, to a direct analysis as Lewis was.
00:04:30.040 | But, oh my, behind all those paradoxes, there was a razor sharp mind who did his
00:04:36.000 | fair analysis of the world.
00:04:39.200 | Both would agree that logicians go crazy.
00:04:43.800 | That would be my danger, right?
00:04:45.480 | Logicians, you know, excessively picking apart and analyzing and being logical.
00:04:51.840 | Logicians go crazy because they try to get the heavens into their head.
00:04:57.040 | But poets are mentally healthy because they try to get their heads into the
00:05:01.120 | heavens.
00:05:01.840 | That's what Chesterton said, and they would both agree on that.
00:05:05.640 | But both would also agree that one should use his head to avoid putting it in a
00:05:12.480 | meat grinder.
00:05:13.440 | Does the Bible give us help in not falling off cliffs of over and under
00:05:21.920 | thinking?
00:05:22.400 | And I think the Bible does help us, and I'm going to give three kinds of help
00:05:27.040 | real quickly.
00:05:27.680 | First, it celebrates thinking.
00:05:30.200 | You cannot blow off thinking if you want to be a Bible person.
00:05:34.800 | Second Timothy 2.7, "Think over what I say, and the Lord will give you
00:05:40.080 | understanding in everything."
00:05:41.200 | So thinking is valuable as a prelude to receiving divine illumination.
00:05:48.120 | Second, I've got three texts.
00:05:51.640 | Second, "Brothers, do not be children in your thinking.
00:05:55.040 | Be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature."
00:05:59.760 | So thinking is a mark of being a grown-up.
00:06:03.720 | A third text, Romans 12.2, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be
00:06:07.520 | transformed by the renewing of your mind."
00:06:10.320 | So thinking is part of Christian newness in Christ.
00:06:15.080 | So that's the first thing that the Bible does to help us not fall off the cliff
00:06:20.240 | of over or under thinking.
00:06:21.720 | It celebrates the importance, like, be a grown-up.
00:06:24.600 | Think clearly.
00:06:25.680 | The second thing it does, or the second thing the Bible does, is show us that
00:06:32.240 | thinking is not an end in itself.
00:06:34.600 | Thinking exists to serve love, 1 Timothy 1.5.
00:06:39.120 | Thinking exists to serve joy, 1 Peter 1.8.
00:06:43.520 | Joy inexpressible and glorified.
00:06:46.240 | Thinking exists to serve peace of heart and mind.
00:06:49.560 | That passes thinking, Philippians 4.8.
00:06:54.040 | So you think your way up, and then God, the Holy Spirit, zooms you on
00:06:59.120 | beyond what you can compute.
00:07:01.400 | Thinking in the Bible is never the final goal of life.
00:07:06.120 | I wrote a whole book called "Think."
00:07:07.880 | That was my main point, I think, that the Bible never makes thinking
00:07:13.520 | the final goal of life.
00:07:15.920 | The head, where the thinking is, the head must do its supporting work so that the
00:07:23.840 | heart can do its main work and not be deceived.
00:07:29.000 | So that's the second way the Bible helps us not fall off the cliff of over or
00:07:34.040 | under thinking.
00:07:34.920 | And here's the last, the third and last thing the Bible does.
00:07:39.360 | The Bible encourages us, and I think at this point Chesterton and Lewis would be
00:07:45.840 | jumping up and down with happiness.
00:07:48.400 | The Bible directs our thoughts outward, outward, away from subjectivism, away from
00:07:56.440 | introspection, to the right comprehension of great, glorious things.
00:08:02.600 | I mean, Philippians 4.8 and 9 are simply amazing for their simplicity.
00:08:09.000 | "Finally, brothers, whatever's true, whatever's honorable, whatever's just,
00:08:13.440 | whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's commendable, if there's any
00:08:17.640 | excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think, think about these things."
00:08:24.440 | In other words, stop standing in front of the mirror and worrying about your hair
00:08:29.800 | and your whatever, you're all worked up about, but get over to the window, go to
00:08:36.520 | the window and look out.
00:08:39.440 | "What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these
00:08:44.320 | things and the God of peace will be with you."
00:08:46.040 | So think about the right things and practice the right things, and the God of
00:08:50.120 | peace gets very close and precious.
00:08:54.680 | "Set your thinking not only on what is true, etc., but what is above."
00:08:59.760 | Colossians 3.2, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on
00:09:05.800 | the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
00:09:09.600 | When Christ, who is your life, appears, you will appear with him in glory.
00:09:13.840 | So be about the business of taking your minds and all your thinking and make
00:09:19.320 | heaven and all the realities of God in Christ the focus of your thinking.
00:09:26.080 | And then one more, Hebrews 12.3, "Look to Jesus, look to Jesus, the founder and
00:09:33.800 | perfecter of your faith.
00:09:35.200 | Consider him," that word "consider," think about him, "who endured from sinners
00:09:41.640 | such hostility."
00:09:42.520 | So you want to do something right with your mind and your thinking, put it on
00:09:47.880 | things that are true, put it on things that are above, put it on things that are
00:09:52.840 | Christ-ward, put it on Christ himself.
00:09:55.960 | So my three suggestions for how the Bible helps us to be summed up like this, helps
00:10:01.440 | us not be overthinking, underthinking, badly thinking, falsely thinking.
00:10:06.040 | Number one, the Bible commends thinking as part of being mature.
00:10:10.560 | Number two, it keeps thinking in its place and makes joy, peace, and love the
00:10:17.280 | touchstone of whether it's doing its work.
00:10:19.320 | If it's not producing joy, peace, and love, it's not doing its work.
00:10:23.000 | We're thinking badly.
00:10:24.400 | And thirdly, it points us away from excessive introspection and subjectivism
00:10:30.680 | and says, "Send your thinking again and again to truth and to Christ."
00:10:36.080 | So good.
00:10:37.360 | Yeah, not overthinking, not underthinking, and not badly thinking, and not falsely
00:10:42.640 | thinking.
00:10:43.080 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:44.040 | And Ronnie, thank you for the very good question.
00:10:47.080 | And thanks for the quote from Chesterton.
00:10:48.640 | And thank you for listening and supporting this podcast.
00:10:50.640 | You can stay current with the Ask Pastor John podcast episodes on your phone or
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00:10:59.360 | email of your own, even questions about the Christian life, as we soberly seek
00:11:03.400 | to honor God in our attitudes, words, and actions, you can do all that through
00:11:08.280 | our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:13.680 | Well, how has God at work in our most unproductive days when it feels as
00:11:17.240 | though we've accomplished nothing and we fall far short of our own planning,
00:11:22.360 | when everything we set out to do has collapsed into nothing but inefficiency
00:11:26.280 | and unproductivity?
00:11:27.840 | Those frustrating days are not outside of God's sovereign power.
00:11:31.280 | And when we return on Monday, we're going to talk about what God is doing in our
00:11:34.080 | lives in the days when everything seems to fall apart.
00:11:37.840 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:39.800 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:11:40.880 | God bless.
00:11:41.880 | [END]
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