Spiritually Minded

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. ROMANS 8:6

Two years before his death, Owen published a book that grew, he explained, out of meditations he had first prepared for his own soul during a season of weakness, when he did not expect to live much longer. He called it The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded. It is one of the most personal of his writings, and one of the most searching. It asks a single question and presses it on every reader: what is your mind set on?

Its text is Romans 8:6. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Owen notes that Paul does not say that to be spiritually minded brings life and peace, as if it were a condition that earned a reward. He says it is life and peace. The spiritual mind is itself the life of the soul, and the peace it enjoys.

The test of the thoughts

How can a person know whether he is spiritually minded? Owen’s first answer is characteristically practical: look at your thoughts. Not at the thoughts you have when you are in church, or when you are praying, or when duty requires them, but at the thoughts that come of their own accord, when your mind is free. What does your mind run to when nothing is pressing on it? What do you think about while walking, or waiting, or lying awake?

Owen believed that these voluntary thoughts are among the surest indicators of the true state of the heart. We think most naturally about what we most love. A person whose free thoughts run constantly to money, to reputation, to grievances, to pleasures, is showing where his treasure is. A person whose free thoughts turn often and gladly to God, to Christ, to the things of the Spirit, is showing that his mind has been renewed.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. LUKE 12:34

He adds that spiritual thoughts must be habitual, not occasional; the question is what the mind returns to and feels at home with.

This is a hard test, and Owen knew it. Many sincere Christians, applying it honestly, will be dismayed. But his purpose is not to condemn them. It is to show them where to begin.

Things above

The positive counsel of the book is summed up in Paul’s command to the Colossians. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Owen spends much of the book on what it means to set the mind on heavenly things.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. COLOSSIANS 3:1–2

He urges meditation on the glory to come: on the presence of God, the sight of Christ, the company of the redeemed, the freedom from sin. He did not mean vague daydreams about heaven, but thoughtful reflection on what Scripture reveals. Such meditation, he says, puts the things of this world in their true proportions. The man who has thought seriously about eternity is less likely to be enslaved by the next promotion or the next pleasure.

He urges, above all, meditation on God Himself, and on Christ, which connects this book with his earlier work on communion with God and his later one on the glory of Christ. The spiritual mind is not simply a mind full of religious ideas; it is a mind turned towards a Person.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. PHILIPPIANS 4:8

Renewed affections

The second half of the book turns from thoughts to affections: our loves, desires, joys, fears and hopes. Owen argues that being spiritually minded means not only thinking about spiritual things but loving them. And here he makes an important distinction.

There is a difference, he says, between affections that are merely stirred and affections that are truly renewed. A moving sermon, a powerful piece of music, a crisis or a bereavement can stir strong religious feelings in anyone, converted or not. Such feelings may be real, but they are often short-lived and leave the heart unchanged. Renewed affections, by contrast, are the work of the Spirit, who changes what a person loves. They are steadier, humbler, and they bear fruit in obedience.

Owen gives several marks of renewed affections. They are set on God for His own sake, not only for His gifts. They delight in spiritual duties, not merely endure them. They are grieved by sin, and especially by the sin that dishonours God. They long for more of God and are never fully satisfied in this life.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. PSALM 42:1

Decline and fruit in old age

Owen wrote this book as an old man, and some of its most moving passages deal with the spiritual life in age. He was well aware that some Christians decline as they grow older: their zeal cools, their affections dry up, their thoughts become occupied with comfort and complaint. He had written about this in Indwelling Sin, and he returns to it here.

But he also sets before his readers the promise of the Psalm. The righteous shall still bring forth fruit in old age. Owen believed that the last years of a Christian’s life could be the most fruitful, if the mind were kept spiritual: if, as bodily strength failed, the soul grew in its sense of God and its longing for glory.

They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing. PSALM 92:14

It is hard to read these pages without remembering Owen’s own circumstances: ill, bereaved of nearly all his children, excluded from the ministry of the national Church, his great public career long over. He was not writing theory. He was describing what he was trying, by grace, to become.

A balancing word

Some readers have worried that this kind of spirituality might make Christians neglect their earthly duties, lost in thoughts of heaven while their neighbours go unhelped. Owen did not think so. He expected believers to work diligently at their callings and to love their neighbours in practical ways. What he opposed was not earthly business but earthly-mindedness: letting the things of this world fill the heart and crowd out God. A person can work hard at his trade with his mind set on things above. Indeed, Owen would say, that is the only way to work at it without being enslaved by it.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. MATTHEW 6:33

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. For three days, pay attention to where your mind goes when it is free: while walking, waiting, or lying awake. Write down what you notice, without excuses.

2. Choose one truth about God or about the glory to come, and make it the subject of your free thoughts for a week.

3. Ask whether your religious feelings are mostly stirred by outward things or steadily renewed by the Spirit. Pray for the second.

4. If you are older, read Psalm 92 and ask God to make your last years your most fruitful ones. If you are younger, pray for an older believer you know.

A PRAYER

Lord, You have said that to be spiritually minded is life and peace. You know how often my mind runs to other things.

Renew my thoughts, so that when my mind is free it turns to You. Renew my affections, so that I love You for Yourself and delight in the things of Your Spirit.

Set my heart on things above, where Christ is seated at Your right hand, and let that keep me free in the midst of my work and my cares.

Let me bring forth fruit even in old age, and let my last years be spent in growing nearer to You. Amen.