Changing Your Mind

When was the last time you changed your mind? Realized that you were holding to erroneous and unbiblical ideas about parenting or baptism or eschatology or God’s sovereignty or worship or finances?

The year is 425 A.D. As a Seventy year old man (and four years before his death) Augustine began to reread his works. He recognized the impact his thought was having on the church and what his critics were saying. At that point he did what few writers have done: he wrote the Retractions, a book that examined all his previous writings in chronological order. It is more than an index of his writings; it is an evaluation of his written thought at the end of his life. He systematically goes through and recants doctrinal errors and corrects language and emphases.

In 1840, the venerable Presbyterian minister and seminary professor Samuel Miller (writing 30 years after the fact ) said of his very vocal support for Thomas Jefferson’s presidential candidacy: There was a time when I was a warm partisan in favor of Mr. Jefferson’s politics…I now believe Mr. Jefferson to have been one of the meanest and basest of men. His own writings evince a hypocrisy…an intriguing, underhanded spirit, a contemptible envy of men better than himself, a blasphemous impiety and a moral profligacy. I renounce and wish unsaid and unwritten, everything that I ever said or wrote in his favor. I look back on that whole part of my life with entire disapprobation and deep regret.

Have YOU ever engaged in “Retractions”? Have you looked back at previously held ideas and regrettable actions and said, “I was wrong about that. I renounce this. I repent of that. I retract that”? When I think back over the last 30 years the retractions I need to make come fast and furious!

The erroneousness of some of the things I taught & preached. I hope my early sermon tapes have been destroyed! Oh, those poor people at Mt. Calvary Presbyterian Church in 1987…

As we grow in our sanctification we SHOULD change our minds. The Holy Spirit is transforming us by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). For fallen creatures to stubbornly insist that we will not change our minds, is to say “My immature, erroneous, sin-tainted way of thinking is just fine, thank you very much !”

Only the Living God can say, “I NEVER change” (Mal. 3:6, cf. 1 Samuel 15:29). He’s never changed His mind. Never has. Never will. This doctrine is known in theological parlance as “The Immutability of God”. He has no regrettable concepts, no embarrassing notions in His closet. He has no reason to change His mind – He is already perfect. He knows everything. He won’t get new and better information.

Unless you think that you’re omniscient and immutable, where does YOUR mind need to change? Are you ready to be instructed and taught? Begin by praying with the Psalmist, “Teach me Thy way” (which he pleads on nine occasions in Psalm 119 alone!). Then, as you come to worship and Sunday School each week, purpose to be teachable and ready to change. Maturing means changing.

– Still changing

Pastor Carl

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Carl Robbins

Carl is a native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a graduate of Crichton College and Covenant Theological Seminary. Pastor Robbins has served churches in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Nevada. In addition Carl has served on the board of crisis pregnancy centers, Christian schools and seminaries. He has spoken to college groups, medical school forums, state legislative groups, seminary chapels and church conferences. His special passion is training pastors in developing countries. Carl and wife Sandy have been married for 37 years(!) and are the parents of three believing, adult children: John and his wife DeAnna and their children (Bray, Emmie Ruth, and Maggie Grace), James and his wife Megen and their children (Jack and Lainey Janice), and Sarah and her husband Andrew Holmes. Carl and Sandy love OU football, big dogs, good Mexican food, and the beach—any beach, any time.

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