Transformed Minds

Self-sacrificing service to God is the only truly rational way to live, the only course of life that makes sense. By contrast, self-seeking pursuit of the fulfillment of fleshly desires is sheer madness. So Paul taught us in Romans 12:1. But because we live in a world that is largely afflicted with this sort of madness (also known as sin), we must be on constant guard against being swept away in it. In Romans 12:2, Paul instructs us as to how to achieve rationality and maintain it while the world screams that we are deluded for following Christ.

Paul’s exhortation is simple: “Do not be conformed to this world. . .” The word conform, of course, means “to join with” or “to emulate.” At first glance, it seems that Paul is simply urging the Romans not to behave like unbelievers. But then he writes, “ . . . but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” If transformation of the mind is the positive alternative to conformity to unbelievers, Paul is not so much warning us against behaving like them as thinking like them. Dr. James M. Boice writes that unbelievers’ typical way of thinking amounts to “a philosophy that does not look beyond this world but instead operates as if this age is all there is . . . If we think in terms of our existence here, it means operating within the limits of life on earth. If we are thinking of time, it means disregarding the eternal and thinking only of the now.” Christians are not to think in such limited ways, he adds: “Instead of being conformed to this world, as if that is all there is, we are to see all things as relating to God and to eternity.”

To do that, we need minds that are transformed and are being transformed. Simply put, we need to hear the only point of view that runs counter to the philosophy of unbelief—God’s. We find it in Scripture. “Without that study we will remain in the world’s mold, unable to think and therefore also unable to act as Christians,” Boice writes. “With that study, blessed and empowered as it will be by the Holy Spirit, we will begin to take on something of the glorious luster of the Lord Jesus Christ and become increasingly like Him.” As we study the Bible, we learn God’s viewpoint on matters pertaining to life and eternity. If we have the faith to believe His truth, the unbelieving world’s philosophy will be revealed to us as the madness that it is, and God’s ways will seem increasingly reasonable and even delightful.