For Your Sunday Morning Drive

Episode 131: Open Minds or Empty Heads?

What can a church sign teach us about open minds? Let’s talk about that here in a sec.

Welcome to the show! I’m Daniel Dalp, and this is For Your Sunday Morning Drive. It’s a short podcast, and it has a simple goal. That goal is to provide you with some thoughts for your drive to church. Hopefully, they’ll take your mind off the worldly things and point it toward the spiritual. I sure hope we can do that for you this morning.

I appreciate you taking some time to ride along with us. If you enjoy the show today, please share it with a friend. And if I can ask you a small favor, as I usually do on these episodes: if you’re driving around or if your congregation posts a church sign with a particularly witty message that you find entertaining, and you have a second, send it my way. Snap a picture with your phone, and you can send it to me through email. Or you can check out the link in the show notes. And who knows? Maybe I’ll use it for an episode.

Thanks in advance!

Well, let’s go ahead and get the show on the road today. This is Episode 131: Open Minds or Empty Heads? Let’s go to church.

Are We There Yet?

Over a decade ago, when I was still blogging over on Common Sense and Providence, I had a post about a church sign that I saw that had the following message on its marquee:

“Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”

And it caused me to chuckle then. Even though it’s a little condescending for my tastes—or at least it is now—I’m going to count that as spiritual growth.

By the way, I’d like to think I’m a little wiser than I was over a decade ago when I first saw that sign. I sure feel a lot older. And I find that condescension is a little bit more grating to me now than it was back then.

Anyway, back on task.

The sign said, “Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” And I get it. Or at least I’d like to think that I understand what this particular church was trying to get at.

Something akin to the old adage, “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” The idea is that if someone lacks a moral compass, personal values, or core principles, then they can be easily manipulated, tricked, or swayed by any false idea, maybe a trend, or a persuasive-sounding argument tossed around by someone who’s wishy-washy.

And we certainly see plenty of that in the world we live in, don’t we?

Often, it’s positioned as enlightened thinking, progressive ideas, being cultured, or being tolerant. But often, it’s so far from the truth.

And that’s what I think is important here: truth.

The Bible has plenty to say on that matter. For instance, Ephesians 4:11–14:

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”

Notice in verse 14, Paul encourages the brethren not to be like children tossed back and forth, or, as some translations put it, “to and fro,” or carried away by every new teaching that comes along.

Listeners, I know you’ve seen this happen, and it’s happened to many a friend and, unfortunately, to many a Christian.

And like most things, it starts with the best of intentions. Wanting to be understanding, wanting to be open-minded, wanting to be well-rounded.

And believe me, I’m not saying we should trend away from any of those things. We should question, learn, hear perspectives, value those who are different, and understand that maybe we don’t know everything after all.

The very next verse is punctuated by the following statement:

“But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.”

It isn’t either-or. It isn’t truth or love, which, maybe if we’re honest, is how we tend to apply this idea.

And let’s continue on in honesty. We’ve all seen or heard people use the principle of standing in truth as some sort of loophole to be cruel or hateful.

And we see it in the other direction too, don’t we? Using love as a platform to discard truth and water down doctrine.

But again, it’s not one or the other. It’s both.

My encouragement to you is, yes, have an open mind. But maybe we don’t open our minds wider than we can open our Bibles, if that makes sense.

But don’t shut them tighter than what God intended. Let Him set the standard.

Keep an open mind, yes, but bring your Bible along with you. He set the standard by the example of His Son.

Don’t be tossed around. Know truth, show love, and don’t lose your brain—but have the mind of Christ.

Well, those are my thoughts for your Sunday morning drive.

Now it’s time to hear yours. Our discussion questions for this week are:

1. Why is it important to have a strong foundation while still being willing to listen to other perspectives?

2. How can we tell the difference between being open-minded and being easily influenced?

3. How can we have the mind of Christ?

And here’s Evelyn with this week’s kids’ question:

How can we tell someone the truth while still being kind to them?

Hey, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy the show. I enjoy making it.

If you do have a church sign you want to send on over to me, go to foryoursundaymorningdrive.com and check out the top banner. Or you can look in the show notes of today’s episode.

I hope you have an excellent day. Keep an open mind, keep an open Bible too. Keep pushing forward, and I’ll see you Sunday.