April: Intellectual Wellness - II

We use many thinking or intellectual terms in expressing the Christian faith. One of the earliest songs many children learn is “Jesus Loves Me This I Know.” On Sunday mornings, we state “I believe” when it comes time to “Confess” our faith. Although many seem to think that “faith” is the opposite of knowing, intellectual life is a vital part of the Christian Faith. Who became the provider of education as European civilization crumbled after the Romans? The Church. What group founded most of the Universities in Europe and many in the United States? The Church.

Intellectual wellness, therefore, embraces the faith, builds on the faith, and explores the connections to the world which faith offers. We are not a people who must check our brain at the door when we enter the church, whether for Bible and Topic Studies, Volunteering, or Sunday Worship. God created us to be thinking and feeling people, folks who embraced this world which God created, persons equipped with intellectual abilities. (Is this what makes us just less than angels in God’s eyes?)
Yes, we have our human beginnings story in Genesis 3, acknowledging limits to our intellectual pursuits. But I read that not as rejection of the intellectual life, but as a warning about sin, against the desire to be god. Genesis 3 seems, in fact, to offer humans so much to explore and know in the world (the multitude of trees given) with a nod of recognition that trouble comes, sin comes, all the good sours, when we try to exchange the bounty of blessing for isolated independence, for intellect as "god-enough." Instead we are invited to use our God-given gifts and abilities to embrace this world, to know this world, and to understand our part in this world.

I encourage you into enter the biblical story through your mind: read, study, discuss, and share with others. May this intellectual pursuit deepen the gift of faith God gives. Notice the way the Gospel of John closes chapter 20: “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

Think about it!