Matthew 22:37
A little knowledge of neurology goes a long way in explaining what it means to love God with “all your mind.”
In the 1970s, Nobel-prize winner Roger Sperry pioneered split-brain search. His work with epileptic paitents revealed that the right and left hemispheres of the brain serve very different cognitive functions. The left-brain is linear and logical. It is responsible for everything from mathematics to linguistics. Without it, life would be chaotic. The left-brain is the rational side of us. The right-brain is intuitive and creative. It is responsible for everything from humour to poetry. Without it, life would be robotic. The right-brain is the emotional side of us.
In between the right and left hemispheres is a cluster of neurons called the corpus callosum. It serves as our “dual-processor”. It allows us to access both sides of the brain. For what it’s worth, women have about 40% more corpus callosum than men which may be the neurological explanation for “a woman’s intuition”. But don’t feel bad guys, you have 20% more bone density!
Now allow me to challenge us to be a little more "intellectual"?
Webster defines “intellectual” as “given to study, reflection, and speculation.” Intellectuals aren’t necessarily “intelligent”, but they love to learn. I might consider myself an intellctual by Webster's definition because I simply love to learn. I believe it is the learning that will keep me young and my goal as I grow older is to die young at a ripe old age. To do that I must keep learning new things all the time. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape.” Intellectual types need to have their minds stretched. It keeps them growing. It keeps their minds from stagnating and that is how we love God with our minds - we use the mind He has given us intelectually, that is, given to study, reflection and speculation.
II Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show yourselves approved.” Study is a discipleship issue. The word “disciple” comes from the Greek word mathetes which means “learner.” By definition, a disciple is someone who never stops learning! And according to neurologists, the human mind has the capacity to learn something new every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the next 300 million years! I think it’s safe to say that all of us have some space left on our hard drives. Just use it!
