Week 47 Philippians
I guess lots of people figure the bible is a book of Things-Not-To-Do so it’s a relief when Paul gives me a list of things I can do.
Here’s his eight Things-To-Do: fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise…
I think about this list and realize it’s not actually a list of Things-To-Do. It’s a list of Things-To-Think-About. So I’m not as relieved as I was.
I look at the eight items. None of the eight are material things. Paul is telling me to think about non-material abstractions. If a guy says “think about your dog” then I can think about my border collie – visualize him & have memories & think about taking him for a walk…like that. But if the guy says “think about beauty” that’s a different class of thinking-about. In the Dog Example I’m thinking about something that physically is but in the Beauty Example something that physically isn’t.
Personally I don’t have a huge problem accepting non-physicality. I figure I have some kind of selection-analysis-discrimination function in my brain to sort and manage different classes of things to think-about. But the bigger question & problem for me is how-do-I-do-that? What’s involved in thinking-about things that are non-materially real?
That’s the problem I’m left with right now.
Note: quote from Philippians 4:8-9 (NLT)