A standalone study on thinking well as an act of worship, and using the tools of philosophy to know, believe, and defend the faith with more than borrowed confidence.
The Big Question
A lot of Christians grow up believing that hard thinking and deep faith pull against each other, that questions are dangerous and doubt is the enemy. Dr. CJ Rhodes pushes back on that teaching directly. Loving God with your mind is a command, not a hobby reserved for academics. Clear thinking is part of how believers honor God and part of how they defend the faith to people who are genuinely asking hard questions. This study walks through what it means to know the actual content of Colossians 2:8, believe that thinking well is worship rather than a threat to it, and let that belief change how you engage your own doubts and other people's.
What You Will Know
You will know that Colossians 2:8 is not a blanket ban on thinking, even though it gets used that way constantly. “We've been taught in many of our churches that philosophy is not something Christians ought to study. As we look at Colossians two and eight, it becomes a proof text for that, where it says, be careful not to be captivated by philosophies,” Rhodes says. Read closely, the verse warns against philosophy that is hollow and deceptive, not according to Christ. The test in the text is the content of the thinking, not the category of thinking itself.
You will know why this matters practically, not just academically. If you are ever going to give a reason for your hope, as 1 Peter 3:15 calls every believer to do, the people you talk to will ask real philosophical questions about truth, suffering, and meaning. “If you're going to defend the faith, if you're going to give people a defense of the hope that is within you, there are those out there who are gonna ask philosophical kinds of questions, and you've gotta be ready to give an answer,” Rhodes says. Avoiding philosophy does not make those questions disappear. It just leaves you unprepared when someone you love finally asks one.
You will also know a practical skill philosophy hands you immediately: the ability to name a broken argument. “A straw man fallacy basically means you take the worst caricature of a person's argument or belief and use that to argue against all the people who agree with the best of that argument,” Rhodes says. This protects you from being fooled online, and it keeps you honest about how you argue toward other people too.
What You Are Asked to Believe
Knowing the content is not the same as believing the claim underneath it. Here is what this study asks you to actually hold. Believe that wisdom, not the bare accumulation of facts, is the actual goal of a thinking faith. “I like the word wisdom over knowledge, because wisdom is not just about the accumulation of data, facts and truths. Wisdom is about applying knowledge to life,” Rhodes says, drawing on his own story of holding real doubts as a teenager and finding that an encounter with Jesus settled the doubt without erasing the mind that carried it.
Believe that the tools of careful thinking and the tools of culture-making are not actually in competition, they are aimed at the same target from different directions. Sho Baraka, describing why he uses art rather than argument as his primary tool, says, “When you communicate countercultural views in a fresh way, and those things are repeated, that's a beautiful way to use art.” Whether your tool is a syllogism or a song, the believing move is the same: truth applied to a real life and communicated in a way that actually reaches someone, rather than truth stored away as private information.
Believe, finally, that avoiding hard questions has never actually protected anyone's faith, it has only delayed the moment those questions show up unprepared for. Most people who lose their faith under pressure were never taught to hold a hard question without panicking. This study asks you to believe the opposite is true: a faith that can sit with a real question, study it out, and still trust God on the other side of the studying, is sturdier than a faith that was never allowed to ask.
What This Calls You to Worship
Worship the God who gave you a mind and named loving him with it as part of the greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37 does not treat the mind as a lesser way to love God, tacked onto heart and soul as an afterthought. It names the mind directly, on purpose. Treating careful thought as spiritually risky is, in that light, treating part of how God designed you to love him as a liability instead of a gift.
Worship the God whose truth, goodness, and beauty all converge in one person rather than scattering into competing pursuits. Rhodes maps philosophy onto these three classical categories, truth, goodness, and beauty, and says, “One way that has come out of classical philosophy has been looking at philosophy as the search for truth, goodness, and beauty.” For the Christian, that search does not wander forever. It arrives at the one who called himself the way, the truth, and the life. Every honest philosophical pursuit, followed far enough, is a pursuit of Jesus whether the philosopher knows it or not.
Worship the God who is not afraid of your hardest question. If Colossians 2:8 only warned against hollow philosophy and never against thinking itself, then the questions you have been most afraid to ask out loud in church may be exactly the ones God is inviting you to study rather than suppress. Worship here looks like bringing the question into the light instead of burying it, trusting that the God who gave you the capacity to ask it is not threatened by you using it.
Scripture to Sit With
- Matthew 22:37. Jesus says to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. The mind is named on purpose. It is not a lesser way to love him.
- Colossians 2:8. The verse often used to ban philosophy actually warns against philosophy that is hollow deceit and not according to Christ. The test is the content, not the category.
- 1 Peter 3:15. Always be prepared to give an answer for your hope, with gentleness and respect. Preparation assumes study, not just sincerity.
- Acts 17:22-23. On Mars Hill, Paul knows the culture well enough to start at a point of agreement before moving to the difference. Good thinking made him a better witness, not a worse one.
- Proverbs 4:7. Wisdom is supreme, so get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. The text treats the pursuit of wisdom as worth real cost, not as an optional extra for the intellectually inclined.
Quotes Worth Discussing
“We've been taught in many of our churches that philosophy is not something Christians ought to study. As we look at Colossians two and eight, it becomes a proof text for that, where it says, be careful not to be captivated by philosophies.” (Dr. CJ Rhodes)
“The study of philosophy is much like that soul food line. There are a number of persons who would rather avoid the unappetizing greens and green beans and go straight to the meats and starches and even dessert.” (Dr. CJ Rhodes)
“I like the word wisdom over knowledge, because wisdom is not just about the accumulation of data, facts and truths. Wisdom is about applying knowledge to life.” (Dr. CJ Rhodes)
“A straw man fallacy basically means you take the worst caricature of a person's argument or belief and use that to argue against all the people who agree with the best of that argument.” (Dr. CJ Rhodes)
“One way that has come out of classical philosophy has been looking at philosophy as the search for truth, goodness, and beauty.” (Dr. CJ Rhodes)
“When you communicate countercultural views in a fresh way, and those things are repeated, that's a beautiful way to use art.” (Sho Baraka)
Discussion Questions
- Were you taught, directly or indirectly, that questions and faith do not mix? Where did that teaching come from, and has it actually protected your faith or just delayed your questions?
- Read Colossians 2:8 closely for yourself. What is the verse actually warning against, and how have you seen it misused as a blanket ban?
- When was the last time a hard question about your faith made you genuinely uncomfortable? Did you study it out, or set it aside and hope it would not come back?
- Think of a recent disagreement you witnessed or took part in. Did anyone argue against a straw man instead of the real view? Did you?
- Rhodes prefers wisdom to knowledge because wisdom applies truth to life. Where in your own faith do you have knowledge that has not yet become wisdom?
- What would it look like this month to love God with your mind in one concrete way, not as an abstract goal but as an actual practice?
Go Deeper
Listen to the source episode, "What's the Reason?" with Dr. CJ Rhodes, on the Jude 3 Project podcast. For a related conversation on using a different tool toward the same end, pair this study with Sho Baraka's episode on how Christians can use art to engage the culture.
A Closing Reflection
This week, pick one hard question about your faith that you have been avoiding, the kind you hope no one asks you at work or at the family dinner table. Spend thirty minutes actually studying it instead of dodging it. You are not betraying your faith by thinking hard about it. You are loving God with the mind he gave you, the same mind named on purpose in the greatest commandment.