God has a good, pleasing, and perfect will for each of us. Otherwise, how would it be possible for us to test and approve what that will is? This requires some explanation. Today when Christians talk about discovering the will of God, what they usually have in mind is praying until God somehow discloses a specific direction for their lives - who they should marry, what job they should take, whether or not they should be missionaries, what house they should buy, and such things. This is not exactly what proving the will of God means, nor is it what Romans 12:2 is teaching. The will of God is far more important than that.
Our staff has prepared a brochure that compares the world's thinking and the Bible's teaching in six important areas: God, man, the Bible, money, sex, and success. The differences are striking, but what impresses me most as I read over the brochure is how right many of the world's ideas seem if we are not thinking critically and in a biblical way. It is because we hear the world's approach given out so often, so attractively and so persuasively, especially today on television.
Renewing our minds begins with understanding and applying the great Christian doctrines, and thus far we have at least touched on four of them: the doctrines of God, revelation, man, and the fall. These doctrines are not exhaustive, but they are important as well as being a proper starting place for our thinking if we are serious about what Paul is urging upon us in our text from Romans: "be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
If human beings are more important and more valuable than the humanists imagine, why is it that things are so bad? The answer is found in the Christian doctrine of sin, which tells us that although people are more valuable than secularists imagine, they are in worse trouble than the humanists can admit. We have been made in God’s image, but we have lost that image, which means that we are no longer fully human or as human as God intends us to be. We are fallen creatures.
If we are to have renewed minds, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and other people as the world thinks of itself and others, and instead begin operating within a biblical framework. But what does that mean? Well, when we turn to the Bible to see what it has to say about human beings, we find two surprising things. First, we find that, according to the Bible, man is far more important and more valuable than the humanists imagine him to be. But we also find that in his fallen condition he is much worse than the humanists suppose.
