What Shapes the Way You Think About the World?

“A Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What shapes the way you think about the world?

Is it your news feed? Social media? The latest self-help book?

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For many, the influences that govern their worldview are a patchwork of opinions, emotions, and cultural trends. But when everything is shifting, where do we find an anchor strong enough to hold us steady?

The answer is as old as time, yet always new: God’s Word.

The way we think—our worldview, values, and perspective—determines and governs the direction of our lives. And yet, many of us struggle to prioritize Scripture as the foundation of our daily thoughts. Even Christians, who affirm that the Bible is God’s authoritative word, often find it difficult to live as if that were true. Why? Because in a world filled with distractions, entertainment, and endless information, it’s easy for the Bible to become just another voice in the mix rather than the definitive voice that shapes everything else.

Neuroscience and the Battle for Our Minds

Neuroscientists tell us that our brains are constantly rewiring themselves based on what we consume. Spend hours on social media, and your attention span shrinks. Read headlines designed to stir fear, and your anxiety grows. But spend time in Scripture—meditating on God’s truth—and your soul takes root in what is eternal, rather than being tossed by every cultural wave.

Paul tells us:

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

Our minds naturally conform to whatever saturates them. If shaped by entertainment, media, and opinions, our hearts will follow their instability. But when Scripture becomes the framework for our thinking, we stand firm—not because we have all the answers, but because we are held tightly by the One who does.

Consider Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee, which depicts Jesus and His disciples in a raging storm. Waves crash, the boat teeters, and panic fills the disciples’ faces—except for Jesus, who remains at peace. This scene mirrors our own experience of life. The storms of culture, suffering, and confusion rage, but if our minds are fixed on Christ, we find a calm amid the chaos.

Even so, the Bible is not always easy to engage with. Some parts uplift us, while others challenge or confuse us. But the true power of God’s Word isn’t found in picking and choosing what we like—it’s in surrendering to all of it.

The prophet Ezekiel discovered this when God commanded him to eat a scroll filled with "words of lamentation and mourning and woe" (Ezekiel 2:10). Yet after consuming it, he said, “It was in my mouth as sweet as honey” (Ezekiel 3:3).

Even the hard parts became sweet.

Why? Because of the source. The Word of God awakens our souls to what is truly good, even when it confronts and disturbs us.

The Holy Spirit’s Role in Renewing Our Minds

Reading Scripture isn’t merely an intellectual exercise—it’s a deeply spiritual one.

Jesus declared, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Just as food nourishes our bodies, God’s Word is essential for our souls as well as our very lives.

However, we don’t simply need to read the Bible; we need the Holy Spirit to illuminate it. This is why David prayed:

"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." (Psalm 119:18)

Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible remains to us words on a page. But when God Himself opens our hearts, Scripture becomes alive, revealing truth we would have otherwise missed.

A striking example of this transformation is seen in journalist-turned-Christian apologist Lee Strobel. A former atheist, Strobel set out to disprove Christianity, believing the Bible to be a collection of myths. But as he examined its historical accuracy, consistency, and impact, he found something he couldn’t explain: the words of Jesus carried a power unlike anything else. What began as an intellectual investigation ended with his conversion—because God’s Word isn’t just to be studied, but to be encountered.

The same is true today. Many who set out to critique the Bible end up being changed by it. In addition to Strobel, the same happened to Oxford Historian C.S. Lewis and Harvard Legal Scholar Simon Greenleaf. Why? Because it is living and active, cutting through our disbelief and defenses, and then leading us to the One who is the source of all truth.

A Transformed Mind Renews Our Strength

The more we immerse ourselves in the Bible, the more we are shaped by God’s fixed truth versus the world’s shifting opinions. But without this anchor, even the most successful and intelligent minds find themselves adrift.

Consider Tom Brady, one of the most accomplished athletes of all time. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Brady, then a three-time Super Bowl champion, posed a haunting question:

"Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey man, this is what it is.’ But me? I think: God, there’s gotta be more than this. I mean this can’t be all it’s cracked up to be."

Despite all his success, something was still missing for the famed athlete. His experience mirrors that of Nicodemus, the wealthy Jewish leader who came to Jesus at night, sensing that earthly accomplishments weren’t enough (John 3:1-21).

Both Brady and Nicodemus remind us that success without Christ is ultimately empty. No matter what we achieve, our souls were made for something greater:

God Himself.

C.S. Lewis described this universal human dynamic:

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

The world offers us mud pies—Scripture offers us an ocean of truth, beauty, goodness, and love.

The key to true strength, clarity, and lasting joy is not found in temporary treasures, but in training our minds with God’s truth. This is why Paul prayed:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Colossians 3:16)

When we welcome and receive God’s Word so it shapes our thinking, our lives will stand out—not as those tossed by every wind of culture, but as those anchored in the eternal, unchanging reality of the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.

So let me leave you with this challenge:

What is shaping your mind today?

If it’s anything less than God’s Word, you may be standing on shifting sand. But if you fill your mind with Scripture in the same way you fill your stomach every day, several times a day, with nourishing food—reading it, meditating on it, and asking the Holy Spirit to shape you through it—then your faith will not only stand strong, but will become irresistible to a world that is looking for hope in all the wrong places.

Scott Sauls - Christian, husband, girl dad, minister, writer, life and leadership coach, dog enthusiast, work in progress. I roast my own coffee. Scott Sauls

 

 

Men and Women: God’s Image Bearers, The Obvious and Subtle Differences

The Bible says we are made in God’s image, male and female (Genesis 1:27), fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 149:14).

God made men and women both with obvious and subtle differences and He delights in his good design and invites us to do the same.

Men and women are different on the outside but even more on the inside, the things you can’t see at a glance. God has sown complementary differences deep into our masculine and feminine souls.

There is God’s powerful dynamic in our human similarities and our male-female differences. As co-heirs in Christ, we stand, side by side, on equal footing before God and at the foot of the cross. Together, as man and wife, we are created, fallen, and redeemed. Oh, what glorious equalities we share as humans and Christians!

And we are clearly different — profoundly different — as male and female, as husband and wife, as head and helper. These differences are features, not bugs. They are not drawbacks to be covered over or collapsed into each other. There is the majesty of the sun and the splendor of the moon. One glory of day, another of night. We need both. Neither is better than the other; both are essential. And these differences — glorious complementary differences — go far beyond emotional intuition, native aggressiveness, how much sleep we need, and how long we can bear up under trying circumstances.

People know that men and women are different. All of us know. Sure, sinners suppress the truth (Romans 1:18–23). Doubtless, many have been deeply deceived, perhaps even choosing the deception one moment at a time for years on end. But we all know. Being male or female, like being made in God’s image, is basic enough, foundational enough, plain enough to the very nature of our world and our own human lives, that we know.

Still, as societal confusion and controversy continue to blur the sense of our God-given complementary differences as men and women, it can be helpful to point out, with the objectivity of Scripture, the traces of what’s been clear from the beginning.

God’s Creative Order

Genesis chapter 2 zooms in on day 6, that climactic day of the creation week, and we learn about how God made man, and find a two-stage sequence: God first forms the man from the ground, then distinctly, at a later time, he builds the woman from the man.

God chooses to create with a plain order. He calls our race “man.” He forms the man first and orients him toward the ground from which he came, to work the garden and keep it (2:15). And God gives him the ground rules:

“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (2:16–17)

At this point, then, God introduces man’s need for a “helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18) — and God apparently takes his time. Not only does this create anticipation in the man for this helper; it also teaches a lesson. Then God forms the woman second, orienting her toward the man from which she came (2:22), to help him in God’s calling. The man names her Woman (2:23). They stand equal before God as human (Genesis 1:27–28). And God orders them in marriage as head and helper (2:20).

In 1 Timothy 2:13, the apostle Paul points to this ordered sequence in Genesis 2 as the first half of his reason for why mature Christian men are to be the pastor-elders and authoritatively teach the gathered church: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” God created these equals with an order. They are not the same but different — and these differences are God-designed complements.

Here an exhaustive list of the differences between the man and the woman (and men and women in general) is not necessary or relevant. God has his reasons for these differences — many of which are obvious, many that become plainer the longer we live, and many that remain subconscious for most in this life. But God’s design is intentional, and his order endures. And when we follow his order, we find that a lifetime of happy, even thrilling, discoveries await us. When you walk in light of the truth, lights go on everywhere. But that’s only part of the story.

Disorder in the Fall

Paul gives the second half of his answer (for why pastor-elders should be qualified men) in 1 Timothy 2:14: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” Now sin and Genesis 3 come into view.

Paul’s full explanation includes not just the order of creation, but also the (dis)order of the fall. God laid down an order; the serpent subverted it. The word deceive draws in the language of Genesis 3:13, where the woman says, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Paul’s point is not that women are more gullible than men, or more prone to deception. The point is the order: The serpent did not deceive the man. He went to the woman. Satan intentionally undermined God’s order, and the fall was the direct result.

Yet even though the fall of man (and woman) brought God’s righteous curse upon the world, it did not overturn his order. After Adam too has eaten, God comes knocking and asks for the man (3:9), not for his wife, who handed him the fruit (3:6). God again operates according to his order, not according to the serpent’s scheme.

Even through the curse itself, God’s order persists. His curse directed toward the man relates to the ground and his labor. It will take his sweat and overcoming many barriers to be fruitful. Meanwhile, the curse directed toward the woman relates to childbearing and childrearing, to the domestic sphere and the labor of multiplying the race to fulfill God’s mandate. Greater still, the curse will include the sinful desire in woman to control the man, and that he will, in turn, be sinfully domineering toward her (this is the meaning of “desire” and “rule over” in Genesis 3:16; compare with Genesis 4:7). Sin always seeks to destroy God’s order.

Order Restored and Glorified

Remarkably, when we rush forward to the coming redemption — to God himself coming to rescue his people in Christ — his created order is not abandoned in the church age but endures. Not only is the original order restored through Christ’s redemptive work in the church, but now it is glorified, exalted to a new register through life in Christ by his indwelling Spirit.

As man and wife stood before God as equals in Eden, so we stand together, side by side, at Calvary and in the congregation of the church. Among those who have “put on Christ” through faith, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Men and women stand together before Christ, as co-heirs of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7) — glorious equals. Neither man nor woman has any inside track with Jesus.

Yet that does not mean that our God-designed differences go away in Christ. Rather, they are rescued, restored, and glorified. “The husband is the head of the wife,” as he always has been, yet now, he finds his model in Christ: “. . . even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Ephesians 5:23). Whereas sin may lead a husband to lord his authority over his wife, husbands in Christ love their wives and are not harsh with them (Colossians 3:19). As household head, a man owes his wife a special kind of care. Wives, in Christ, take the part of the church: “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:24; Colossians 3:18).

This brings us back to Paul’s authoritative commentary on Genesis 2–3 for the church age. A team of mature Christian men serve the whole congregation as its pastor-teachers, according to God’s order in creation, now restored in Christ. And the glorious dance of our equality as humans and our differences as men and women, now rescued in Christ, not only gives order to our households and God’s household but also gives life and energy, beauty and power, to all of life, wherever we go and grow as those who image Christ in his world.

As my wife and I, and countless others, have discovered, our differences as man and woman are not less than they appear; they are even deeper. And that’s good. The more we are the same, the less rich an arrangement marriage is. But the more complementary we are, the more marriage becomes a strong and beautiful dance for making much of our God and his Son.

What’s the Difference?

This month at Desiring God, we are celebrating afresh the beauty and power of God’s design for men and women. We believe that sexual complementarity influences every realm of our lives — and we’re happy about how God chose to do it. Thin, narrow, and minimalist are not the adjectives for our complementarity at Desiring God. We love the God-designed differences in men and women, from the beginning, found in our households, celebrated in our churches, and displayed as a diamond next to the dull monotony of the world. We are thick, broad, and maximalist. We don’t stomach God’s design. We delight in it and hope you will too.

To that end, we’ve developed a new series of articles under the banner “What’s the Difference?” In this series, we’ll move through a sequence from our households, to our churches, to society, as we seek to celebrate God’s good design by pointing out what’s the difference — or more precisely, what are some of the countless differences we discern in our world and in ourselves and in Scripture.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for Desiring God and pastor at Cities Church. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Workers for Your Joy: The Call of Christ on Christian Leaders (2022).