10
A Virtuous Mind ... continued ~
2| Virtuous minds are stable.
Minds that lack virtue often
surrender ground at the slightest
whiff of opposition. Other minds
that also lack virtue hold dog-
matically to their beliefs which
are erroneous. But a virtuous
mind will progressively gain a
further understanding of truth.
3| Virtuous minds are humble.
A virtuous mind is humble about
itself, and increasingly so as its
knowledge grows. A person with a
humble mind does not triumphantly pounce
upon errors it sees in other people’s thinking.
Instead, such a person is gentle unto all
men, apt to teach, patient (2 Timothy 2:24).
Oh to attain to a virtuous mind, but a virt-
uous mind is not attained by simply adopting
proper mental techniques. Why? Because the
attainment of a virtuous mind is a moral
enterprise, not merely a rational one. In
the final analysis, the attainment of a
virtuous mind is possible only by surrend-
ering our mind to the grace and work of God
upon our minds (word of God).
Our part, then, in maintaining a virtuous mind
includes constantly pushing back against the
grain of our human nature- against vanity,
against laziness, against pride, against rebel-
lion and against every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God (2
Corinthians 10:5). To maintain a virtuous mind
we must continually surrender our minds to
God’s word and submit our thoughts to His
rule. That is true virtue. “Be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind that ye may
prove what is that good and acceptable, and
perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).
From left: Bro Dafydd Jenkins, Bro Gaius Egwu and Bro Philip Oram
The Gospel in Eden and Today
| Bro Timothy Kaambeu (Kabombo, Zambia)
W
e need to know more about ourselves and
our human nature. From the time we
received the good news of the Kingdom of
God, we have been informed of many things
that are very different from what we believed
in before. For example, our gospel tells us that
there is no personal Satan that causes us to sin
or who tempts us to do sin, as it is recorded in
the Holy Bible especially in the book of James
1: 13-15.
Brothers and sisters, if there is no Satan and
if the sin that we do comes from our evil
desires, we need to dig further to find out
what brings those desires within us. Although
many people say that there is a Satan who
plants these desires in us, is it really true? The
answer is ‘No’. Read Mark 7:18-23. Having
read this, the Bible says that all kinds of evil
come from our heart (the first century term
for what we now know as the mind). Yes, it is
within our heart (mind) that evil originates.
Someone may ask, ‘How does the heart manu-
facture these evils within it?’ The Bible tells
us that the heart is deceitful above all things
(Jeremiah 17:9). But why is the heart so
deceitful? The answer is found in what
happened in the Garden of Eden back in the
time of Adam and Eve.
Remember, the Bible tells us that Adam and
Eve disobeyed God by eating from the
forbidden tree. What was the name of that
tree? It was the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. What does that mean to us? See
Genesis 2:15-17- the eyes of Adam and Eve
were opened so that they knew they were