I gave a lunchtime lecture today to the Apologetics Guild in Bend entitled “The Life of the Mind.” Below is the outline that I used…
The Life of the Mind leads to…
Wisdom in Decision Making and Leadership
Wisdom in Handling Truth
Wisdom in Discipleship and Mentoring
The Life of the Mind needs to Be Prioritized
The thought I had as I left was that I had probably missed the biggest factor in the life of the mind… encouragement.
It takes time, energy and patience to slowly pursue knowledge (just as it does for watering and tending a young plant). Mental pursuits are never urgent and, therefore, if a fire is burning elsewhere they are quickly left behind. In other words, if there is relational conflict in your life it is pretty hard to lose yourself in a book and if you are depressed it is pretty hard to focus. The life of the mind requires a certain amount of peace and happiness.
The point: the life of the mind requires peace and happiness, which, to my knowledge, comes best from encouragement (other people showing us tangible love through affirmation, acts of service, gifts or quality time).*
If this rambling is true, then to some degree we bear responsibility for the progress that others make in their pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:13
* I left off the love language “physical touch” because it didn’t seem that relevant to the kind of encouragement I had in mind above :)
I used to go to a church that had a “Barnabas” team who focused on anonymously encouraging people in the congregation. It was really quite effective and blessed a lot of people. Encouragement definitely seems like something that ought to stay on the front burner.