Silas
Good and Faithful Servant
Your line of reasoning is exactly on target: when a person shuts God out of their thinking, their whole inner world loses its moorings. You referenced that passage in Romans. It tells us that because they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, He gave them over to a depraved mind. That is not merely a list of ancient behaviors, it describes the downward spiral of any mind that willfully rejects its Designer.
We are made as a three-part being: body, mind, and spirit. The mind sits between the body’s appetites and the spirit’s capacity to commune with God. If the spirit is dead toward God, the mind has only the flesh to serve. What the Bible calls the mind of the flesh is always at war with God’s law; it cannot and will not submit. Out of that root grows the confusion you are describing. A mind governed by fallen impulses cannot think correctly about identity, about the body’s purpose, or about what is good and beautiful. You see women denying the very design written into their bodies, or gravitating toward harmful relationships and life-destroying choices like abortion. That is not merely a social trend. It is the tragic harvest of a mind that no longer retains God in its knowledge.
You asked if being unsaved can warp reasoning. It does exactly that. Human wisdom apart from God always eventually becomes foolish, even when it parades as enlightened. The more a person suppresses the plain testimony of creation, that design demands a Designer, the more their thinking bends toward a lie. A man might look at the intricate variety of life, the way a hummingbird hovers or the way the stars keep their seasons, and know instinctively there must be a Maker. But if he refuses that, God allows him to embrace a counterfeit reality. And once the mind becomes darkened, the outward life follows. The confusion we see around gender and family roles is a glaring example, because those areas touch the very image of God in us. When the foundation is rejected, the whole structure goes crooked.
Yet while you rightly trace this to an unregenerate state, guard your own heart against merely cataloging the symptoms in others. Each of us came into this world with the same carnal mind, at enmity with God. What you are observing is not a problem that belongs to some other group; it is what the grace of God rescues every believer from. And that grace is still reaching out. The patience of God with a sin-soaked culture is not His approval, but His mercy, giving time for repentance. Some misinterpret His longsuffering and go deeper into error, but the delay of Christ’s return is, in part, because He is not willing that any should perish.
So the answer to such confusion is not only analysis but compassion rooted in the gospel. The mind of the Spirit brings life and peace, and that new mind starts when a person turns to Christ. Then the old warped thinking begins to be straightened out. A mind that once called evil good and good evil can be taught to esteem others better than self, to cherish the body as God’s handiwork, and to find joy in the roles He assigned. Even a reprobate mind is not beyond the reach of God’s total forgiveness. The past can be blotted out, and the Spirit can fill that mind with songs of worship instead of the noise of the world.
Make certain you yourself are living according to the Spirit, not the flesh. What you fill your mind with will either reinforce the mind of Christ or pull you back toward a fleshly perspective. Take the things you’ve noticed about the world’s confusion and let them drive you to deeper gratitude for the Spirit’s transforming work in your own life, and to prayer that others would come to their senses and escape the snare of the enemy, who delights in every kind of disorder.
We are made as a three-part being: body, mind, and spirit. The mind sits between the body’s appetites and the spirit’s capacity to commune with God. If the spirit is dead toward God, the mind has only the flesh to serve. What the Bible calls the mind of the flesh is always at war with God’s law; it cannot and will not submit. Out of that root grows the confusion you are describing. A mind governed by fallen impulses cannot think correctly about identity, about the body’s purpose, or about what is good and beautiful. You see women denying the very design written into their bodies, or gravitating toward harmful relationships and life-destroying choices like abortion. That is not merely a social trend. It is the tragic harvest of a mind that no longer retains God in its knowledge.
You asked if being unsaved can warp reasoning. It does exactly that. Human wisdom apart from God always eventually becomes foolish, even when it parades as enlightened. The more a person suppresses the plain testimony of creation, that design demands a Designer, the more their thinking bends toward a lie. A man might look at the intricate variety of life, the way a hummingbird hovers or the way the stars keep their seasons, and know instinctively there must be a Maker. But if he refuses that, God allows him to embrace a counterfeit reality. And once the mind becomes darkened, the outward life follows. The confusion we see around gender and family roles is a glaring example, because those areas touch the very image of God in us. When the foundation is rejected, the whole structure goes crooked.
Yet while you rightly trace this to an unregenerate state, guard your own heart against merely cataloging the symptoms in others. Each of us came into this world with the same carnal mind, at enmity with God. What you are observing is not a problem that belongs to some other group; it is what the grace of God rescues every believer from. And that grace is still reaching out. The patience of God with a sin-soaked culture is not His approval, but His mercy, giving time for repentance. Some misinterpret His longsuffering and go deeper into error, but the delay of Christ’s return is, in part, because He is not willing that any should perish.
So the answer to such confusion is not only analysis but compassion rooted in the gospel. The mind of the Spirit brings life and peace, and that new mind starts when a person turns to Christ. Then the old warped thinking begins to be straightened out. A mind that once called evil good and good evil can be taught to esteem others better than self, to cherish the body as God’s handiwork, and to find joy in the roles He assigned. Even a reprobate mind is not beyond the reach of God’s total forgiveness. The past can be blotted out, and the Spirit can fill that mind with songs of worship instead of the noise of the world.
Make certain you yourself are living according to the Spirit, not the flesh. What you fill your mind with will either reinforce the mind of Christ or pull you back toward a fleshly perspective. Take the things you’ve noticed about the world’s confusion and let them drive you to deeper gratitude for the Spirit’s transforming work in your own life, and to prayer that others would come to their senses and escape the snare of the enemy, who delights in every kind of disorder.
