Media scholar John M. Culkin once famously said, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” This idea, that the tools we choose to use are extensions of our selves is fascinating. But God’s Word says an even more important thing about our thought life that dates back more than 28 centuries.
Proverbs 23:7a
“For as he thinks within himself, so is he.”
God has given us a mind, a brain, with remarkable ability to learn, think and reason, to meditate, imagine and visually create – and to choose, too. It is the very essence of what makes us human. However, the ability to think and reason is much more than this. As Proverbs 17 reminds us, our thoughts really are a manifestation of who we really are. Of course, this is no great revelation – and God knew this from the beginning when He created us. But getting back to Culkin, for a second, just as the tools we make shape us, so do the thoughts we create shape us, too. As a person thinks deep in their soul – that’s who they really become.
And so, our thought life and what we allow into that space is incredibly important. As the apostle Paul reminds us, we live in houses made of thoughts that we ourselves have constructed with materials (thoughts, ideas, imaginings) we have collected or scrounged. Look at what he said to the Corinthians …
2 Corinthians 10:4
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
See that word “strongholds” there? That’s the English translation of the original word “ochurōma” which means “castle or fortress”, but in the particular grammatical context here means “castle made of thoughts”, or “house made of thoughts”. That is, a dwelling place made of thoughts that has become so fortified that it keeps out all other contrary thoughts – even truth. Even God’s truth.
And Paul is writing to born again people – not unbelievers. So, it’s a thing, right?
That “house of thoughts” is something we, ourselves, construct, and then dwell within – and we become that person. We’re shaped by our “thinking house” for good or for bad … for life or for death, in the end. Every person lives in a house made of thoughts – a stronghold as presented here in the NIV translation. Every day, with every thought and choice we’re building a house in which to live, and for our kids, too. Even born agains can construct such a house with building materials that are fundamentally anti-Christ and anti-biblical. A lot of the time some of our most cherished thoughts, assumptions, speculations and reasonings are so far from God’s truth that we don’t even realise that we are repelling the truth of Scripture as some kind of automatic soulish defence reflex – we don’t even realise we’re doing it. Sometimes we do know, of course.
Why do we do this?
The ONLY reason is that our soul, unilaterally, independently, is deciding what is truth – what is best for us as influenced by flesh desires and so on, because of what we feed it. Unchallenged a lot of the time, our soul determines with what and how our “houses made of thoughts” are constructed – then we live in these thought houses and won’t let much disturbed our domiciled bliss. The apostle has picked up on this very issue in the Corinthian church and he not only challenges the “thought houses” of those believers but issues blunt practical wisdom about how to demolish them, and rebuild a sanctified thought life. This is what he says to the church …
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 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.”
So, two things need demolishing, two things to which our soul will cling if left unchallenged by God’s truth – arguments (i.e. calculated reasonings and human logic that doesn’t know any better), and pretensions (i.e. arrogant human wisdom that actually knows something of God’s truth, but doesn’t want to submit to it). Both these things are the product of soulishness – believers eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Many Christians live in such houses and their soulishness either unwittingly, or very knowingly, is the reason – and they think God will make allowances for them. He won’t!
These strongholds of anti-Christ thinking that are opposed to God’s holy wisdom must be demolished, or our regenerated spirit will struggle to function if at all. It will suffocate and we’ll be choked off from the life of Christ – there’s no life abundance there. The apostle urges that these be demolished with urgency, and the beginning of the demolition process is that we take captive EVERY thought. EVERY THOUGHT. If it won’t humbly bow the knee in obedience to Christ – it is soulish. If it is opposed to the wisdom of God in His Word – it is soulish. Simple. Clear. As we do this work of demolition, thought by thought, argument against God by argument against God, lie by lie, wrong assumption by wrong assumption, and we replace these with God’s truth and wisdom, we build the stronghold of Christ, and we live in that fortress repelling the lies and deceptions swarming in this world.
This is how we learn to function with the mind of Christ.
Romans 12:2
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
You are loved!
Ps Milton