What’s the Connection Between IQ and Holiness?

00:00:05.000 | Pastor John, a young man in Korea emails to ask, "Is intelligence required for becoming holy?

00:00:11.000 | Smart Christians can have better understandings about God, which gives them better discernment

00:00:15.000 | on how to glorify God, and the opposite goes for dumber Christians. I think I'm wrong, but why?"

00:00:21.000 | Convince this young man that he's wrong, and explain the connection between intelligence and godliness.

00:00:27.000 | He's on to something, true, and yet you can't draw a straight line from intelligence to godliness.

00:00:36.000 | So here's what I would say. The mind, the human mind, is required for becoming holy.

00:00:44.000 | It's required for becoming human. The Bible says, "Think over what I say," 2 Timothy 2.7.

00:00:52.000 | "Think over what I say, and the Lord will give you understanding." So he's dealing with Timothy as a thinker,

00:00:58.000 | as a person with a mind, and so he's calling him, "Use your mind to think over what I say."

00:01:03.000 | He says in 1 Corinthians 14, "Be babes in evil, but in your thinking be mature."

00:01:12.000 | So he's calling us to mature through our thinking. Don't let your thinking lag behind.

00:01:21.000 | Grow in grace as you think clearly about the things that I've spoken.

00:01:26.000 | And he says in Ephesians, "You will know my mystery, my understanding of the mystery,

00:01:34.000 | as you read what I have written." Now, reading is a task of the mind.

00:01:39.000 | It requires that we teach our kids grammar and syntax, and that they be able to construe lines of thought

00:01:49.000 | from one phrase to another, one sentence to another, and therefore Paul has clearly connected

00:01:55.000 | acts of the mind with being able to grasp the mystery of God.

00:02:00.000 | So in that sense, this friend from Korea is on to something.

00:02:06.000 | Here's the problem with drawing a line from there to, "Oh, well, then all smart people are godly people."

00:02:11.000 | There are so many other factors besides IQ that go into deciding whether a person is holiness or not.

00:02:22.000 | Those other factors about rebellion come into play and may make a person who is very intelligent

00:02:31.000 | very rebellious, very angry, very bitter. And so I know of zero correlation between intelligence and godliness.

00:02:42.000 | In fact, Jesus said in Luke 10, 21 or 20, "God has hidden these things from the wise and understanding

00:02:56.000 | and revealed them to babes," which I think leads us to this paradox.

00:03:02.000 | Yes, use your mind, but use it to become a babe. Use it to become childlike.

00:03:10.000 | I just read this morning in my devotions, "Unless you receive the kingdom of God like a child,

00:03:18.000 | you will not enter it," which means that the mind, which is usually considered something that is going to

00:03:28.000 | make us independent from the need for somebody else, should be used to show that we are more dependent

00:03:36.000 | and childlike when it comes to God and bring us to a place of humility.

00:03:41.000 | Then the mind can serve godliness. We use our intelligence, which is usually considered an instrument of independence,

00:03:53.000 | to lead us to be increasingly dependent on God.

00:03:58.000 | Well said, Pastor John. I think you should tweet that, actually.

00:04:01.000 | Thank you for listening to this podcast. Send your questions to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:04:06.000 | Please include your first name and your hometown.

00:04:08.000 | You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at desiringgod.org.

00:04:12.000 | I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.

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