Quotes about Thinking

I definitely get where these questions are coming from, and remember: I don't think "knowing" or seeking to think "correctly" about God is wrong. Not at all. The problem is preoccupation with correct thinking—mistaking our thoughts about God with the real thing, and then to base our faith on holding on to that certainty.

Watching how the biblical writers looked at faith as trust rather than certainty helps us through our inevitable uh-oh moments from a different perspective. These moments are not proof that faith doesn't work, but only that a certain kind of faith doesn't work—one that needs correct thinking in order to survive (chapter 6).

More than anything, studying the Bible with Jews dislodged my parochial thinking about God, and it's had a lasting impact. Over time, I came to appreciate firsthand the richness and depth of that tradition. I also felt some shame for never really being exposed to it before,

We miss what the biblical writers were after if we think of belief and faith as "correct thinking" words. They are deep and hard words, more than we might have been led to expect. And they are beautiful words that move us deeper into the presence of God.

But if the Bible's main purpose is to form us, to grow us to maturity, to teach us the sacred responsibility of communing with the Spirit by walking the path of wisdom, it would leave plenty of room for pondering, debating, thinking, and the freedom to fail. And that is what it does.

The point is that Proverbs 26:4—5 doesn't tell me what to do. It wasn't designed to. It models something better: the permission to think it through, figure it out, and learn from experience for next time. In fact, more than just giving us permission, the contradiction sets up our expectation that we will have to think it through.

We have every reason today to think differently about the universe and our place in it. This doesn't disprove God, but it does challenge our thinking. For people of faith, bringing the ancient Bible and our lives together can be stressful and unnerving—which is a problem if faith and correct thinking are deemed inseparable. "What does it mean to be human?" does not have as clear a biblical answer as it once had.

But some of the scribes were sitting there and thinking in their hearts,

At once Jesus knew in His spirit that they were thinking this way within themselves. “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?” He asked.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

Have you been thinking all along that we were making a defense to you? We speak before God in Christ, and all of this, beloved, is to build you up.

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.