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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the NT: Mind
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1. The noun.-While in the OT ‘heart’ is used to represent man’s whole mental and moral activity (cf. Gen_6:5 ‘every imagination of the thoughts of his heart’), psychological terms begin to be employed in the NT with more discrimination and precision, and ‘mind’ comes into use to denote the faculty of thinking, and especially the organ of moral consciousness; the fundamental Gr. word being íïῦò , with which must be associated its derivatives íüçìá , äéÜíïéá , ἔííïéá . It is suggestive, however, of the persistence of the OT psychology and terminology in the early Apostolic Church that, outside of the Pauline Epistles, íïῦò , the specific word for ‘mind,’ occurs only in Luk_24:45, Rev_13:18; Rev_17:9, though äéÜíïéá and ἔííïéá are occasionally found. In the Authorized Version of Act_14:2, Php_1:27, Heb_12:3 ‘mind’ represents øõ÷Þ , which in the Revised Version is properly rendered ‘soul’; in Phm_1:14, Rev_17:13 it stands for ãíþìç , ‘judgment,’ ‘opinion’; in Rom_8:7; Rom_8:27 for öñüíçìá , which denotes not the mental faculty itself, but its thoughts and purposes.
As illustrating St. Paul’s use of íïῦò and helping us to appreciate the distinctive meaning he attaches to the word, it is important to notice two contrasts in which he sets it, in the one case with ‘flesh’ ( óÜñî ) and in the other with ‘spirit’ ( ðíåῦìá ). In Rom_7:23; Rom_7:25 he contrasts the mind with the flesh, i.e. with the sinful principle in human nature; and the law of his mind, which is also the law of God, with the law in his members or the law of sin. Here the mind is clearly the conscience or organ of moral knowledge, man’s highest faculty, by which he recognizes the will of God for his own life. And when in Rom_8:6 the Apostle speaks of ‘the mind of the flesh’ (cf. Col_2:18, ‘fleshly mind’), the suggestion is that man’s highest faculty has been debased to the service of what is lowest in his nature, so that the mind has itself become fleshly and sinful. In 1Co_14:14-15; 1Co_14:19, again, where íïῦò (which English Version renders here by ‘understanding’) is contrasted with ðíåῦìá , the antithesis is between man’s natural faculty of conscious knowledge and reflexion and that higher principle of the Christian life which is Divinely bestowed, and which, as in the case of the gift of tongues, may manifest itself in ways that lie beyond the reach of consciousness. The mind, as man’s highest natural faculty, thus stands between the flesh, as the lower and sinful principle in his nature, and the spirit, which is the distinctive principle of the Divinely given Christian life. And, as the mind may be dragged down by the flesh until it becomes a ‘mind of the flesh,’ so it may be upraised and informed by the spirit until it becomes a ‘mind of the spirit’ (Rom_8:6; cf. Rom_12:2, Eph_4:23). See articles Flesh, Soul, Spirit.
2. The verb.-The verb ‘to mind’ is used intransitively, in the sense of to intend or purpose, in Act_20:13 (Gr. ìÝëëïíôåò , Revised Version ‘intending’). With the same signification ‘to be minded’ occurs in Act_27:39 (Gr. âïýëåóèáé ), Act_27:17 (Textus Receptus âïõëåýåóèáé , WH [Note: H Westcott-Hort’s Greek Testament.] âïýëåóèáé ). More frequently ‘to mind’ (Gr. öñïíåῖí ) is found in the transitive sense of ‘to think about,’ ‘to direct one’s mind to’ (Rom_8:5, Php_3:16; Php_3:19). Sometimes öñïíåῖí is translated ‘to be minded,’ and in such cases the phrase is equivalent in meaning to the transitive verb (Gal_5:10, Php_3:15). The participle ‘minded’ is met with in the Authorized Version in a number of phrases-‘likeminded’ (Rom_15:5, Php_2:2), ‘feeble-minded’ (1Th_5:14), ‘doubleminded’ (Jam_1:8; Jam_4:8), ‘highminded’ (Rom_11:20, 1Ti_6:17, 2Ti_3:4), ‘soberminded’ (Tit_2:6), which are represented in the original by various verbs and adjectives. For ‘carnally minded’ and ‘spiritually minded’ in Rom_8:6 ( ôὸ öñüíçìá ôῆò óáñêüò … ôïῦ ðíåýìáôïò ) should be substituted as in the Revised Version ‘the mind of the flesh,’ ‘the mind of the spirit.’
Literature.-Thayer Grimm’s Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, Greek-Eng. Lex. of the NT2, 1890, s.v. íïῦò ; H. Cremer, Bib.-Theol. Lex. of NT Greek3, 1880, p. 435 ff.; J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, 1895, p. 123 ff.; B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, Eng. translation , 1882-83, i. 475 f.; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article ‘Mind.’
J. C. Lambert.