Hyper-active Thinking

I am returning to my previously suspended study through the book of Romans to pick up where I left off a couple months ago. I have spent about two months unpacking Hebrews 12 in my quest to expose the roots of bitterness in myself and I have learned a great deal both in mind and heart. That will continue to be an ongoing dialog between my heart and God but I feel that I have mined that passage long enough to satisfy my need to clarify much of it and I want to return to finish my journey through the rest of Romans.

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

For I say, through the grace that was given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think above what it behoveth to think; but to think so as to think wisely, as to each God did deal a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3 YLT)

When I looked up the words for this text in the Greek I noticed that the reference to himself is not in the original as reflected in the second translation given here. What it seems to indicate more in the original is that a person is not to have a hyper-active mind, to think excessively more than he should use his mind in contrast to having sound judgment. The Greek word used for think more highly here literally means to hyper-think.

I believe this insight could be very helpful because it has broader application than just someone feeling too proud about themselves or being arrogant. It could also apply to those who allow their problem-solving, solution-seeking obsessions get out of control and become unbalanced in their thinking. This can happen in either direction with an imbalance between the left-brain logical, intellectual formula part of the mind taking over and ignoring or suppressing the other side, or the right-brain, emotionally driven, pleasure seeking obsessiveness that ignores the words and guidelines of the Bible in favor of preference for whatever makes me feel good.

Looking again at this verse I see other clues that may lend themselves to this proposition. In some respects the reference to sound judgment could refer to the careful, deliberate, logical reasoning that is led by a well-trained left brain and the reference to a measure of faith could refer more to the deeper experiential areas found primarily in the right brain where I believe more activity of the spirit takes place. If this is the case, and it certainly is plausible I believe, then this passage is promoting our need to have a respect for the need of balance and cooperation between these two very different areas of our brain.

through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you...

I find this preface to be a bit curious. Why does Paul feel the need to point out that it is from this basis that he is making the following statement about having balance? Why does Paul feel the need of talking about the grace for himself in this context?

I don't think I have very good explanations for this off the top of my head. (Most satisfying explanations never come from there anyway) The only thing that comes to mind right now is that Paul's own experience of coming into balance himself from being a person heavy on the intellectual and out of touch with his own heart for many years was due to the grace he had experienced from the personal visit from Jesus on the Damascus road. But that grace did not just happen in that one event but was the active force in his life as he retrained the whole way he viewed life over the next few years and then became the highly effective missionary that his later life demonstrated. The reason he was so effective was because he was able to be used by God as one who knew how to reach out to the hearts of his hearers as well as how to dialog with them at the intellectual level.

Paul was all too familiar with the reality of the problem of thinking hyper-actively without being guided by a heart warmed with the love of God. He was one who could be the first to say, “Been there- done that – bought the T-shirt!” Because of his own experience and the many people that he struggled to reach with God's grace who also resisted it because of their intellectual interference, he realized the importance of keeping a mind in proper balance as it was designed by God to function.

In addition to having balance he also notes that this balance is to be measured by the amount of faith within a person's life. This faith that he talks about is not how self-convinced a person can make themselves that God might do something for them, which is often our concept of faith. But true faith is a child-like trust in a person whom they have known by personal experience to be worthy of trust. Real faith is spontaneous in nature and is not something we have to work hard at producing. Faith is more a result than it is a choice though its exercise often involves a choice to remember the worthiness of the One we need to trust.

So the measure of faith is really a measure of the amount of experience and interaction with God along with the amount of real truth about Him that makes up our knowledge of God. According to the degree that we believe the truth about God's goodness and grace will be the capacity that we will have for faith in Him. And to the measure of that capacity we need to be careful to keep both sides of our brain engaged in a balanced way so that we will be wise and sound of mind.

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