Love God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul – J.P. Moreland

J.P. Moreland has done us all the favor of writing this wonderful, devotional read. This simple, readable volume is insightful, relevant, and quite thought provoking. Moreland develops his thesis that the mind is especially valuable and ESSENTIAL to the Christian life. His case is made rationally, and is thoroughly scriptural. The introductory notes of Dallas Willard make it clear that those who care the most about character development and our devotional life in Christ (i.e. – Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Donald Whitney, etc.) must give attention to the life of the mind.

As readers progress through this section, they will also note how carefully Moreland outlines the deterioration of intellectual Christianity in Western history – and the parallel between it and the deterioration of the Church and its influence both in society and the world. I agree with this assessment, and commend for further study Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind for a more detailed study of these issues. It seems that, for Moreland (and the biblical authors), development of an ability to think rationally and reason is vital to the health of individual Christians, and the life of the Church more generally. With him (and Paul), I heartily agree that genuine spiritual transformation takes place through the impartation of spiritual truths by the renewing of the MIND (Romans 12:1).

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