Dwight Fletcher | The intellectual Christian

“Treasure wisdom, and it will make you great; hold on to it, and it will bring you honour.” Proverbs 4:8 (NCV).

THE WORD ‘intellectual’ is defined as given to study and reflection or engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect. Intellect is the power of knowing, as distinguished from the power to feel and to will, or the capacity for knowledge. There’s a sentiment in the world that the Church is anti-intellectual, and Christianity has been viewed primarily as a heartfelt or an emotional phenomenon.

The suggestion is that smart people don’t become Christians and that faith is in opposition to intellectual thought. Rodney Stark wrote in his book, The Victory of Reason, that “Christianity has done more to promote reasonable thinking in our society than just about anything else (including some of the philosophical strains of thought)”, Christianity is a belief system that is based on reason, intelligence, as well as faith. God is honoured when we use our intellect along with the exercise of our faith.

God is a very intelligent being. He says, 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV). There, God is establishing that He’s immeasurably smarter, brighter, and more intellectually capable than we are.

God is omniscient and Psalm 147:5 (NIV) states, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit”. God has made a well-ordered universe in which truth can be known and logical rules applied. Our intellect just hasn’t caught up with His. The discovery of prebiotics, for example, happened in 1995 after many of us grew up hearing that drinking milk was the best way to soothe an ulcer in the stomach, until 1982 when Australian researchers discovered that a bacteria was the primary cause of peptic ulcers and they could be treated with antibiotics.

The list of recent discoveries is continuous, showing that man’s intellect is still lagging. The Lord wants to share His intellect with us. In Isaiah 1:18 He says, “Come now and let us reason together.” God defines what logic is, and many issues of faith can be understood and even be explored by using the reason that God has given us because God is a God of reason. God created us in His image; so, if God is a God of reason, He also made us reasonable creatures.

One of God’s greatest gifts to man is our intellect or understanding. Understanding is the means by which we acquire knowledge, and we have intellect because we were created in the image of God. Our intellect separates us from the animals. Many Christians incorrectly discount the mind, thinking it is irredeemable and corrupt, but God designed our intellect for His glory.

When we use our minds to do what God created it to do, it’s an act of worship. God designed our minds to be one of the most powerful tools in the universe. Solomon’s mind (intellect and wisdom) made him great and known as the wisest man who ever lived. Christians are called to use their minds to run businesses, invent things, solve problems, help others, and make a difference in the world. It’s an act of worship that honours our Creator who made us in His image. “…You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind” Luke 10:27 (NIV).