Transcript & Slides: Intellectual Fitness

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Intellectual Fitness
By David Feddes

This talk is about intellectual fitness. Before I get into the topic much further, let me just remind you of something I’ve said in a previous talk: all areas of fitness affect each other. And so I want to emphasize, first of all, that intellectual fitness has an impact on all the other areas of fitness.

We’ve talked about spiritual fitness, and certainly your intellectual fitness has an impact on your spiritual life. The Bible talks very often about renewing your mind and knowing truth as a key to spiritual growth and progress (Romans 12:2; John 8:32). And so we certainly can’t say that you can ignore intellectual fitness and what you’re thinking about and becoming a clear, sharp thinker when it comes to your spiritual well-being.

You also need to have a healthy intellect for your body to be healthy. Researchers find that people who are reading and thinking and pursuing intellectual things often have less vulnerability to a failing mind as they get older. Now some things you can’t completely undo, but a mind that is used a lot maintains a healthier brain.

Also, intellectual fitness is very important that you read up and stay on top of things in the whole world of health and medicine and exercise and the things that are good for you. If you remain totally ignorant in your mind about what’s good for your body, then your body will often suffer for it.

Intellectual fitness has a huge impact on financial fitness because planning and knowledge and good decisions are such a big part of it. And so your mind has to be well-informed on what’s involved in good finances.

When we start thinking about things such as emotional fitness and relational fitness, intellectual fitness is very important, because a sharp mind that understands will also be able to sort out things in the emotional realm a bit better, will be very alert to things that are going on in your relationships, in your marriage. And if you read books and study—especially the Scriptures—on matters of relationship and on expressing your emotions in a constructive way, then you’re going to be a lot healthier.

And obviously in the area of vocational fitness—on doing your job and handling your callings—intellectual fitness is extremely important. You need a good education to be able to take on some kinds of work. And whatever kind of work, you need to understand how it’s done and how it’s done well. And so your mind has to be sharp. You've got to be thinking, you’ve got to be alert, you’ve got to keep on gathering more and more information to get really, really skilled at the things you do.

So I trust that you get the main point: intellectual fitness matters not just because your mind ought to be kept in tip-top shape, but because your mind is so key for every other area of health and fitness.

Well, let’s get into what’s involved in intellectual fitness. I want to emphasize some things from a Christian point of view. Seven things stand out.

• Christ is king.
• Bible is basic.
• Falsehood is fought.
• Companions help character.
• Excellence is expected.
• Life is learning.
• Reality matches rhetoric.

Christ is King

This is so important in your own intellectual fitness as well as in the education that you may receive or pursue, or the education you provide to children or to others who are under your influence. Christ is King. And I want to emphasize that Christ is King of everything—not just King of your heart or your soul, not just King of where you might go when you die, but he is King right now, and he is King of all things. "All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:16–17). "In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3).

So you don’t understand things if you don’t understand how they hold together in Christ. You may understand tidbits of this and that, but to really understand them, you need to understand them in relation to the one who created them, to the one they were made for—because you know their purpose when you understand more about Christ.

Things tend to fall apart without Christ; they hold together in him. If you want your thinking to be cohesive, to be united rather than just a fact here, a factoid there, a little something there, then a comprehensive understanding is that it all holds together in Christ. And he’s the source of all wisdom and of all knowledge in the created world, in the world that’s visible as well as in the invisible world.

So a sharp mind recognizes the kingship of Christ and then seeks to apply that kingship to all areas and understand all of life with a Christian worldview—a Christ-centered worldview. The Dutch statesman and scholar and pastor Abraham Kuyper said that there is not one square inch of creation of which Christ does not say, “Mine!”

This is the marching order for intellectual fitness that recognizes the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. "The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1).

Intellectual fitness recognizes that Christ is King of history. And so when you think about history or when you think about current developments in the news—and I say think about, use your head, be intellectually fit—but think about it and say, “What is Christ up to?” And don’t just think about it on your own, but study what others have said, study the Bible and others who have given some thought—Christian perspectives on history.

When you think about literature and storytelling, think about the impact that Christ has in the whole formation of language. "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1), in the way that we communicate. Speech is another area of study. Christ is the one who gave us the ability to hear, to speak, and we need to apply that.

When you think about psychology or sociology—the human sciences—you’ve got to think again about the fact that we’re made in the image of God and in the image of Christ, and that Christ is the supreme and the greatest and the wisest of all humans as well as truly God. And so you understand those realms of study in light of the kingship of Christ, the comprehensiveness of his kingship.

The arts and music and painting and film and all of those areas of human art and expression—they’re not just something that happens on its own. They hold together in Christ, and the wisdom comes from him.

You have a mind. It’s a gift—a precious gift from God. And it’s intended to reflect the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16). And more and more, that mind is to develop in us—to see Christ in all things and to bring Christ’s reign to bear in all things.

Seek that, then, for yourself in your own study and in your own education: to integrate faith and learning, to apply the reign of Jesus Christ to all things. Seek that when you’re teaching others or interacting with them—to try to relate just the things of common everyday life to the reality that Jesus is King. The education of your children in every subject area, the training of people in a congregation in various areas of study, when you do your business—everything—think about it in the light of Jesus Christ your King. Then your mind will truly be in tune with the mind that created the whole world. Your mind will be in tune with his purposes for all things.

Bible is basic

"Of the making of many books there is no end" (Ecclesiastes 12:12). There’s more and more books always being printed and put out. There’s more and more articles and ideas and research being posted on the internet. And a sharp mind will try to keep track of things, especially in the areas that are important for you to know in your work and in the ways you serve the Lord and serve other people.

But beneath all that must be the foundation. Evaluating all that must be the measuring stick: the Bible. The Bible’s basic. "Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105). "Every word of God proves true" (Proverbs 30:5). "Let God be true, and every man a liar" (Romans 3:4).

When you take statements like that, you see the Bible as the book that God has given—the book above all books—the collection of God-inspired books that help us to evaluate all things as to whether they’re true or not true.

The Bible is not a textbook on every topic. We shouldn’t treat it like that. We don’t say, “Oh, I want to know how to build a better car. The Bible will give me a blueprint for how to construct an engine,” or, “I want to know how to do brain surgery. The Bible will tell me how to use the scalpel.” No—the Bible doesn’t give us that kind of instruction. But the Bible gives us the overall orientation and the basic fundamental truths and principles on which the rest of our research and our discovery can be based.

This means that when it comes to the education of children, you can’t afford to give them a textbook in this and a book on that and a video on that and neglect the book above all books. I know some people who—even though they are Christian parents, some of them even homeschooling parents—have all kinds of curriculum, and they don’t actually teach much about the Bible. They don’t read the Bible with their children every day. And so they treat the Bible as though it’s optional, and all the other things are what count. “Oh, you’ve got to have a math book.” Well, who invented numbers in the first place?

We need the Bible as the most important book in our curriculum. And we need the Bible to know what is absolute truth as well as what is sometimes human failing. Sometimes you’ll find that the Bible disagrees with current trends—let’s say in psychology or current ideas in history or in biology. And we have to be careful that we understand the Bible accurately before we say, “Oh, the Bible disagrees with this or that idea.” But if we understand the Bible accurately and it’s at odds with something that’s taught in a different discipline, then we’ve got to let God be true and let that be considered a liar (Romans 3:4), because the Bible is basic and it helps us to sort things through.

You need to understand that when you’re studying psychology and sociology, you’re getting a lot of ideas from people who were atheists or anti-God. When you’re studying history, what angle is the historian seeing it from—if you’re reading a non-Christian historian at all? You need to have some perspective from the Bible to sort through some of the ideas.

When it comes to the arts, some ways of expressing art can be very anti-good. God and the Bible are key. Again, it’s not going to tell you how to move your paintbrush. It’s not going to tell you how to use proper camera angles when you’re doing film. That’s not what the Bible’s given for. But the Bible remains the foundation and the measuring stick for how we ought to think. Then we can broaden out and explore all of God’s creation.

John Calvin had a good word picture for that. He said the Bible is like spectacles. The Bible’s not the only thing you look at, but the Bible is the thing you use to look through when you see everything else. It brings everything else more and more into focus because it’s God’s book, and it’s the book that testifies to Christ.

So make your mind a Bible-saturated mind. If you want to be intellectually fit, the more you know of the Bible, the more fit you’ll be. I’ve talked about the importance of Bible intake in another talk, so I won’t belabor it anymore here. But don’t neglect the Bible when you’re trying to be intellectually on top of things and be intellectually fit.

Falsehood is fought

Now, in relation to that, I mentioned that “Let God be true, and every man a liar” is found in the Bible (Romans 3:4). We need to realize that we’re not only seeking truth, but we’ve got to be ready to fight falsehood.

Jesus is Lord of all, and Abraham Kuyper said that Jesus claims kingship over every square inch. But C.S. Lewis took that type of sentence and gave it a little different turn. He said, “There’s no square inch that is not claimed by Christ and counterclaimed by Satan.”

Satan makes his claims. And this means that we can’t just go through life saying, “Oh, all of creation is of Jesus, and all of it belongs to the Lord.” And so that just means we can baptize everything we see and consider everything to be under the lordship of Christ and nice and harmless. You’ve got to understand Christ claims it, but Satan often counterclaims it and has infected it.

This means that part of the discipline of being intellectually fit is discernment—figuring out what’s true and what’s a lie. What are the ways God designed things, and what are the distortions that Satan has introduced into things?

So our marching orders are found in the Bible when it says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). There is no neutral ground intellectually. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30).

This is true in the various areas of learning that we study and that we think about. And this can be a problem in higher education. For instance, a good many of the top scholars who are teaching—even in Christian colleges and universities—got their doctorates in non-Christian areas, and sometimes from scholars who didn’t think things through from a Christian perspective, but had more and more of maybe supposedly a “neutral” angle. But what’s a neutral angle? A neutral angle is leaving God out of the picture.

There’s a psalm that says, “In all his thoughts, there is no room for God” (Psalm 10:4). Now, does that make him neutral, when there’s no room for God? No. “He’s not with me; he’s against me” (Matthew 12:30).

So if we’re pretending that you can understand this and that and the other area of life without any reference to God, then we’re actually going against the God who made it all. We need to demolish the false arguments—the things that attack human dignity, the things that deny the role of the Creator, the things that deny our fallenness and our need for a Savior. We need to be ready to fight these things.

And anywhere else that we see lies coming up that poison ourselves—sometimes they’re just lies in practical life. Kids learn a lot of lies, like they’re going to be happy if they can go drink and get drunk, or they’re going to find happiness if they wear fancier clothes with designer labels. Just nonsense. I mean, just out-and-out lies that are not even very intellectual.

Part of our challenge is to get people to think in the first place. Okay? Just to think in the first place. And then we’ll worry about thinking right thoughts or wrong thoughts. But much of what we’re fed involves almost bypassing our thinking and appealing directly to our urges and our desires—like a lot of the images in advertising or the messages that are sent to kids. They’ve got to learn to think, and then think Christianly, and fight the falsehoods and realize that there is no neutral ground whatsoever.

Companions help character

Another thing to keep in mind in education is that it’s not just an intellectual pursuit—it’s a companionship pursuit, and it’s something to shape character, not just to fill your mind with facts. Proverbs says, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20). So be careful whom you associate with. If you want a wiser mind, hang out with people who have wise minds. If you want to be a dunce, hang out with dunces.

The apostle Paul said, “I urge you to imitate me” (1 Corinthians 4:16), and later on he says, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). In that context, he was talking about people who were questioning the resurrection. Paul doesn’t just say, “Oh, you’ve got the wrong doctrine.” He says, “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong people,” and it poisons your mind.

So choose your companions well. Sometimes for your intellectual fitness, hang out with people who make you think, who stimulate your mind, who are interesting—people that provoke your brain cells a little bit. And if you can’t find ones face-to-face, also be careful who else you hang out with. These days you can pick up on people you’ve never met and make them your companions by using online videos. Watch somebody who’s going to build you up and build up your mind and sharpen it—not somebody who’s going to make you more foolish.

Don’t spend all your time on your cell phone just checking the latest likes and the latest posts. Look at things that make you think and that make you smarter. Don’t just watch one TV show after another and go binge-watching. Watch things that stimulate your mind, that help you to see the world from a new angle—and just watch less TV, period. Read more books and think harder.

Choose good books. One of my favorite ways to get good companions is to find books of people who knew the Lord—people who lived, sometimes a long time ago, but walked closely with the Lord. The Bible supremely, but also some other great biographies and books by Christian authors who were masters of the spiritual life, or who thought long and hard and deeply. Find contemporary Christian scholars who’ve written good books, or find good classes. Your companions help your character.

When choosing education for your children, put them in a situation where their companions are going to be good for them—where their teachers are people that you want the kids to be like, where their fellow students are a good influence on them, not a negative influence.

I’ve known kids who went to a school and the kid was struggling with thoughts of God, with atheism and with suicide. And a geography teacher—a Christian geography teacher—helped that kid to come through that, to come to a faith in Christ and to be released from depression caused by their atheism. I’ve known school janitors who hosted little Bible studies and aided children in their walk with God. And certainly other teachers, coaches—good companions. And then your colleagues and peers—be careful, because your companions either help your character or they harm it.

So if you want to be intellectually sharp yourself, or for your children, be careful what you choose. If you go to a university or if you’re in a study program that happens to be one that is not fully Christian, then you need to be very careful who you associate with. Sometimes, even on public campuses, there are clusters of Christians who can help you think things through from a Christian perspective, where there are Christian professors. And when you find people who are going to be good companions for you, latch on to them and make them people who are going to sharpen your mind.

Excellence is expected

And in all of that, excellence is expected. I know that for some Christian people, they emphasize character, they emphasize knowing God, they emphasize the rule of Jesus, and they say, “Well, if character and all of that is so important, then we’re not going to worry too much about academics. Academics is worldly.” Oh, what a big mistake.

The Bible says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Put your whole mind into it. Be excellent. Let your mind be stretched and strong and grow in everything you do.

In Daniel chapter 1, it speaks of some young men who were seized and captured and hauled off to Babylon and made captive. But God gave these young men faith in him—Daniel and his three friends—and he gave these young men the ability to understand knowledge and literature (Daniel 1:17). They stood up for what they believed. They didn’t go along with everything that the Babylonian system imposed on them, but they did understand as much Babylonian learning as was thrown at them—and they understood a good deal more. And so at the end of things, when the king interviewed them, “In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom” (Daniel 1:20).

That’s something to aim for: ten times better.

Now, not all of us are given a greater mind or intellect than others. Some are exceptionally brilliant, some are pretty smart, some are average, and some may be a little bit below average. Whatever your circumstance, I’ll tell you this: be as excellent as you can be. Sharpen your mind as much as God gives you the ability to sharpen it. Maybe at your sharpest you’re still not going to be some great genius, but you’ll be a lot sharper than you were, and you’ll be a sharp tool in God’s hand when you love God with your whole mind.

The same holds true when you’re educating others. Expect a lot. Expect them to grow and to learn. When I’m a teacher and a professor, I want my students to become sharper. I want them to become more knowledgeable—because God wants them to. God wants to be loved with our minds, and God wants to make them skilled in the things that they pursue.

Especially in ministry—those of us who are involved in ministry, of all people, how can we get sloppy? Do people want a sloppy surgeon who says, “Well, you know, I don’t care how good he did in medical school, and I don’t care how steady his hand is, and I don’t care if he knows which organs are where. I want him to have good character.” Well, I think we want a good, skilled surgeon.

When people are looking for someone to help them in their walk with God, certainly they want someone of stellar character. But don’t they also want someone who understands the Scriptures? Someone of a sharp mind, who understands people and understands this world just as well as they can, and then is able to apply the Word of God?

Excellence—pursue it in everything you do. And expect excellence from those around you. Don’t be such an over-expector on kids that you blast a person of medium ability for not getting an A in everything. Don’t go down the wrong path there. But help them to be as excellent as they possibly can be.

Life is learning

Here’s another guideline for intellectual fitness: life is learning. Deuteronomy says, “Impress these commands on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Where’s your classroom? Your classroom is everywhere. Everywhere you go, everything you do is a chance to learn and a chance to talk about the Word of God. It’s a lifelong process and also an all-of-life process.

So when you’re together with your children, when you’re talking with other people, you can learn and you can share what you learn. And life is learning in another sense: you never stop learning. You don’t stop learning when you graduate from school. You don’t stop learning when you get done with university. You don’t stop learning when you get a doctorate degree. You learn and you learn and you keep learning. Life is learning.

“Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning” (Proverbs 9:9). That’s what it means to be intellectually fit. Maybe you’ve reached the point even where it could be said of you that you’re kind of wise. Well—get wiser. Maybe you could be called learned. Well—add to your learning. Intellectual fitness is learning throughout all of life.

It’s a sad thing when somebody gets their degree and says, “Now I am a learned person. I know what I need to know.” Well, let me just say this: I don’t know everything I need to know. I’m still studying, and I’m still learning, and I’m still thinking a lot—because there’s so much that I don’t know, and there are so many things that I do know that I don’t understand as deeply as I ought to. So I want to keep learning, and I hope you will too. Life is learning.

So whatever you do, wherever you go, just stay alert, pay attention, learn wherever you go, and don’t retire from learning. One of my favorite guys that I had to study for my PhD was Lesslie Newbigin. He was a lifelong missionary. He came home from India to Britain, and in his retirement, he started writing about the situation that he saw in Britain. Many of his best books were written when he was actually in his 70s and 80s. He didn’t say, “Oh, I’m done. I’m retired. I’ve learned as much as I can.” He kept on learning. He read a lot, he studied a lot, and he kept on going to the very end of his life.

Life is learning. Intellectual fitness—I don’t care how old you are, just keep on learning.

Reality matches rhetoric

And here’s the final principle: reality matches rhetoric. I have to add this one because many schools talk the talk of Christian education, but they aren’t practicing it anymore very well. Many homeschoolers that I know may talk about serving the Lord and shaping the character of their kids, but in practice, some of them—well, they aren’t spending enough time on teaching, or their own life isn’t providing good enough character for their kids to emulate. But they think it’s all going to go well because homeschooling is going to guarantee a good product, or Christian schooling is going to guarantee a good product, or this seminary is going to guarantee a great preacher comes out. No, no, no, no, no. Just having the right ideals doesn’t cut it. You have to be constantly striving and having God’s help in meeting those ideals.

Jesus said of hypocrites, “They preach, but do not practice” (Matthew 23:3). Jesus said, “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light” (John 3:21). Our actions reflect our thoughts. And if after a while we’re doing the wrong things, we start thinking the wrong things and teaching the wrong things.

Many a college that started out on the right track has headed down the wrong track after a while because it was making room for various kinds of immorality. And then after a while, this part of the Bible, and then that part of the Bible, and then that part of the Bible gets neglected. They still may have Bible verses inscribed on the buildings, but they became bastions of secularism. Some of the most secular universities in the world today were started by Christian believers.

So beware. That process can happen if you’re not vigilant. Jesus said to a church, “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains” (Revelation 3:1–2). That can be said not just of churches but of schools. It could be said—I mean, I teach in Christian Leaders. In Christian Leaders, we’re trying to teach things, but we can’t just talk about it and have it as an ideal. We have to keep doing it. We need to be alive, not just have a reputation for being alive.

In your own home, when you’re educating your children or when they’re being educated in school, don’t just rest on your laurels and say, “Oh, we’re following the correct approach or the right ideals.” It’s a day-to-day practice of thinking, of teaching, of learning, of discovering, of walking with God. So the reality has got to match the rhetoric.

Don’t rest on what a school was alleged to be 50 years ago, or 75 years ago, or 10 years ago. It needs to be that now. Don’t rest on saying, “Well, you know, I studied. I learned. I like to think of myself as a thinking person with a sharp intellect.” Well, maybe you were that once—but you can get slow and sloppy if you don’t watch it. So make sure your reality matches your rhetoric. Don’t just rest on your reputation. Strengthen what remains.

So, intellectual fitness—keep your mind sharp. It affects every area of your life. And keep your mind in such a way that it sees the comprehensive rule of Jesus Christ over all things. Christ is King. Use the Bible as your basic book, and then be ready to learn from a lot of other books as well.

Be ready not only to see Christ in all things and ruling over all things, but also to recognize the ways in which falsehood needs to be fought, with every thought taken captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Make companionship a positive part of the learning experience. Expect excellence. Seek greatness. Seek to be just as smart and as well-informed as you can possibly be, with the help of God.

And keep it up—life is learning. Be alert wherever you go. Keep learning whatever you do. Stay on top of things and never be too old to learn some more. And then make sure that you don’t just talk about these ideals but that you practice them, that you really are what you claim to be.

May God give each of us the ability to shape our minds according to the Word of God through the Spirit of God so that we can truly be intellectually fit.

 

Intellectual Fitness
By David Feddes

Intellectual Fitness

• Christ is king.
• Bible is basic.
• Falsehood is fought.
• Companions help character.
• Excellence is expected.
• Life is learning.
• Reality matches rhetoric.

Christ is king.

All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together… In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 1:16-17)

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. (Psalm 24:1)

Bible is basic.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119:105)

Every word of God proves true. (Proverbs 30:5)

Let God be true though every one were a liar. (Romans 3:4)

Falsehood is fought.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5).

No neutral ground: He who is not with me is against me. (Luke 11:23)

Companions 
help character.

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. (Proverbs 13:20)

I urge you to imitate me… Bad company corrupts good character. (1 Corinthians 4:16; 15:33).

Excellence is expected.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)

In every matter of wisdom and under-standing… he found them ten times better. (Daniel 1:20)

Life is learning.

Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deut 6:7)

Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. (Proverbs 9:9)

Reality matches rhetoric.

They preach, but do not practice. (Matthew 23:3)

Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. (John 3:21)

You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains. (Rev 3:1-2)

Intellectual Fitness

• Christ is king.
• Bible is basic.
• Falsehood is fought.
• Companions help character.
• Excellence is expected.
• Life is learning.
• Reality matches rhetoric.