The Mind of Christ

Alexander D’Albini

The Christian life is a journey. But it’s not a typical voyage, where we travel from one destination to another.

It’s not like getting into a car and driving four hours, get out and set foot in a new location. But about developing a relationship with the Creator of all things.

So the first step in building a relationship with God is placing our trust in Him. Like when we get into a taxi, we trust the driver will drive us safely. Or when we get on an airplane, we trust the pilot is going to fly it without incident.

By trusting God, we build a relationship with Him. By spending time engaging with Him, meditating on His Word and opening ourselves up to His will, it means our relationship grows.

In the New Testsment, the word which is translated as mind is called nous. This isn’t the same as our understanding of the mind today. In fact, what we think of as the mind is more similar to the Bible’s concept of the heart.

The ancient understanding of the mind is more like it is a ‘spiritual sense’. Much like how we have the sense of taste, the sense of touch or the sense of hearing, the mind is the sense of the spiritual realm.

The mind acts like an antenna, tuning into ideas, thoughts, and messages from angels, demons and God. What we choose to allow our minds to focus on will influence our thoughts. This is why St Paul says,

Romans 12 v 2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind or nous. If we retrain our mind to focus on the things of God, we will see His perfect will act out in our lives.

But if we focus our ‘antenna’ and tune into the unvirtuous, then the thoughts which pop into our heads become unhelpful to our Christian walk.

The good news with this ancient paradigm, is it means those random intrusive thoughts aren’t generated from within us, but are ‘picked up’ by our nous. They fall into our minds like snowflakes. We can’t control them, but we can choose where to stand. We can’t stop thoughts coming, but we can choose where we focus our attention.

In this framework, if we have violent thoughts, it doesn’t automatically mean we are a violent person. These are simply thoughts which ‘drop’ into our head and we need to resist them.

The way I describe it is, our heart is like a walled garden. Weed seeds blow over the walls, land and germinate in the soil. We can choose to dig up these little weeds or allow them grow. If they grow, they will spread more similar seeds throughout the garden, causing more weeds. So as gardeners, we need to take the time to make sure we remove as many little weeds as possible. As Christians, we need to ensure we keep our minds focussed on Christ, removing unruly thoughts.

If we allow these thoughts to take hold and we entertain them, like jealousy, lust, envy and so on, they will continue to grow like weeds in the garden of our hearts.

1 Corinthians 2 v 16

But we have the mind of Christ.

If we understand the mind to be like the ancient nous, then this verse makes more sense. The nous of Christ is perfectly aligned with God. So as we read the Scriptures and attend Church, we open ourselves up to receiving the mind of Christ, becoming more aligned with God and His will. And our thought life will improve.

This is how we progress in our life’s journey, by build a relationship with God. Through trusting Him and allowing ourselves to adopt the mind of Christ.

By putting God first, showing mercy to our neighbour and aligning our mind (nous) to Him, we will aim at cultivating a weed-free heart and build a deeper relationship with the Creator of all things.

My name is Alexander D’Albini and I write the Tower of Adam SubStack. If you like my work, I’d encourage you to come over and subscribe to my newsletter. I also write articles on culture and Anglo-Saxon Christianity.