Audio Transcript

Pop the streamers and drop some confetti because today, Pastor John, is episode #900! And of course that means we have taken up 900 various themes in this podcast — and relied on a bunch of really great guests over the years to help pull this off. And in the course of producing this podcast day in and day out, it is not uncommon in social media, like Facebook, to read occasional comments from people who claim that in this podcast, we are overthinking the Christian life. So daring to risk a potentially ironic episode, yes, the question for today is this: Can we overthink the Christian life? And isn’t life more about embracing the moment rather than thinking through every life situation? What would you say are biblical validations for why it’s important for Christians to think carefully about all these various ethical situations that we address?

I have three responses to that question. Two of them, I think, are basically affirmations of the concern that is being expressed. And the other one is perhaps more critical: a little pushback or caution.

1) So first, I would say yes, it is possible to overthink the Christian life. And I can think of maybe three ways to talk about that where a person might overthink the Christian life. And, of course, the word over, overthink, obviously implies something is being done disproportionately. And so, yeah, we want to get our lives in proportion here and not do anything disproportionately. Here are those three things that I think would say yes to this criticism.

i) One is, even if any of us is thinking too much about the Christian life, it might be because he is just thinking poorly or incorrectly or wrongheadedly. And the issue is not quantity, but that person is just not thinking well, not thinking right. So clearly there is bad thinking about the Christian life.

ii) But if I use the word overthinking, not just “bad thinking,” the first thing that comes to my mind is that it would be overthinking about issues if we think so much that our thinking excludes other important things that we should be doing instead.

“Most people are wired for a kind of coasting in life without thinking.”

For example: I am overthinking if I am thinking when I ought to be praying. I am overthinking if I am thinking when I ought to be trusting. I am overthinking if I am thinking when I ought to be resting or sleeping or relaxing with my wife or playing with my children or enjoying a poem or singing a song.

We overdo anything, including thinking, if that thing is keeping us from doing something else that we ought to be doing. And, of course, it is a great challenge in the Christian life to keep our many activities and responsibilities in a healthy proportion. So yes, there is such a thing as overthinking when you ought to be doing something else besides thinking.

iii) Another way to think about overthinking in the Christian life is to say: I am overthinking when I am thinking motivated by fear or driven by some unhealthy controlling compulsion. If I feel insecure in my acceptance with God and I believe that thinking more clearly about the Christian life will make me more acceptable, I am definitely overthinking. I need a good dose of the gospel of grace. Or, if I find myself — and I have known a couple of people like this — if I find myself driven in a kind of obsessive-compulsive way to meticulously think through every little choice in my life, I am clearly in the grip of something very unhealthy and I am overthinking. Thinking needs to flow from the heart of a restful reliance upon the mercy of God in Christ so that we are not trying to justify ourselves by thinking, but rather, with the peaceful outworking of a heart that is fixed on Christ, we are doing what love calls for.

So at least those three things should be said by way of affirmation. Yes, there is wrong thinking and overthinking in those ways.

2) My second response is a pushback a little bit. Because I want to say to those whose personalities just incline them to be not a thinker at all, but just act spontaneously, I want to say to those people: At least come to terms with biblical texts like this: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). So, Paul says to think over what he says. And 1 Corinthians 14:20 says, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in y our thinking be mature.”

Now, besides those particular texts, consider that the Bible is a book and, being a book, it requires reading. And what is reading besides using the mind to construe how words relate to each other and how phrases relate to each other and how clauses relate to each other and propositions relate to each other and paragraphs relate to each other? Which is just another way of saying that the fact that the Bible is a book means that God intends for us to think some pretty serious thoughts about his revelation concerning himself and his ways in the world. He wouldn’t have given us a book if he didn’t expect that thinking would be necessary.

“The Bible is not just a string of pearls to be admired, but a chain of arguments to be followed.”

It was a huge moment in my life when I woke up to the fact that the Bible is not just a string of pearls to be admired one at a time, or a package of lifesavers to be dissolved on the tongue of my soul one at a time. Rather, the Bible, in most of its writings, forges a chain of arguments connected by words like because and therefore and although and in order that. And he expects us to do the reading and the reasoning. So, for example,

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18–20)

Now, those are five arguments for why you shouldn’t have sex before marriage.

a) It is a sin against your own body. b) Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. c) You are bought with a price. d) Therefore, you are not your own. e) So, glorify God in your body.

So, when the listener who wrote that question says, Isn’t life more about embracing the moment rather than thinking through every life situation? my answer is that if you embrace the moment of temptation to fornication without having thought with deep conviction about these arguments that God has given us, it may not just be the moment that you embrace.

3) Here is my third response. And this, again, is by way of affirmation. Most of life not only should be spontaneous, it has to be. We cannot stop every five or ten seconds and come up with three or four arguments like John Piper does on Ask Pastor John for whether the next word coming out of my mouth is going to be a harsh word or a gentle word.

My arms and my legs and my facial expressions and the words coming out of my mouth, they flow like a river. They don’t flow in little chunks with nice thinking in between them. Life simply doesn’t work that way. Life is a spontaneous, reflexive action to what is happening around us. It is probably an exaggeration to say, but maybe 10% of our life is seriously reflected over in the moment before we do it to try to come up with the ideal behavior that is going to come.

So yes, you would go insane trying to argue yourself into every next step that you take. You’d turn into some kind of impersonal robot, and you would alienate everybody around you by acting in an idiotic way. And, besides, it is impossible. So yes, yes, yes. If you try to turn all of life into an Ask Pastor John moment, you will go insane. You will go crazy. I would, too. Goodness, we don’t need to do these every week or two. And record them.

“Periodic, disciplined thinking is for the 90% of life that is reflexive and spontaneous.”

But here is my argument. My argument is that regular periodic disciplined thinking like John and Tony do every now and then, and people do maybe once a day with us, that periodic disciplined effort to think about an issue is all for the sake of the 90% of life when you are not doing that. It is building a structure of biblical thought into your mind. It is building structures of right affections into your mind so that, when the 90% of your life that has to be lived unreflectingly, that is, without any long effort to think through reasons, you will act more spontaneously in accord with God’s Word.

And maybe the least thing I should say is that there are a few people who are given to overthinking life. My guess is that 99% of the people in the world — and Christians included — are not guilty of that problem. You may have met two or three of them, but my far greater concern is that most people are wired for a kind of coasting in life without thinking. And what it produces is not authentic freedom and spontaneity. It produces going with the flow of the culture.

So, Tony and I will press on in our little effort to grow in grace and in thinking clearly about the Christian life. Come along if it seems helpful.