We should take care not to make the intellect our god;
it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. -Albert Einstein

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden they enjoyed fellowship with their Creator. The Garden was a place of beauty, order, and intimacy. Adam was told to cultivate and keep the Garden. We might say that Adam’s charge was to guard this place of intimacy between man and God.

In the Garden, Yahweh walked in the cool of the evening (Gen. 3:8). We can assume that Adam and Eve were free to walk with Him, rejoicing in their position as children of God, asking their Father questions, and simply delighting in His presence. Adam was more than able to take care of this beautiful garden as long as fellowship with God was intact. Adam received instruction and wisdom from His Father on a daily basis.

Kingdom order was quite simple. If Adam obeyed God things would continue to go well: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely,” He was told, “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

We are all familiar with the sad turn of events. Through Adam’s disobedience sin entered the world and “death through sin” (Rom. 5:12). The law of sin and death became reality on planet Earth. Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden and from Yahweh’s presence.

When Adam chose to disobey God he was, in essence, exalting his own intellect above his Creator’s. He adopted the attitude that he knew better than God. Through his choice, Adam removed God as the supreme authority in his life and made his own intellect master instead. By exalting himself, Adam was humbled, and the result was curse.

In God’s plan of redemption, the solution to this rebellion is found in the last Adam. Yeshua came and did only what the Father told Him to do and He spoke only the words the Father told Him to speak (Jn. 6:38-40; 12:49). Unlike the first Adam, Yeshua humbled himself so that He, and all who abide in Him, might be exalted (see Lk. 14:11; 1 Cor. 15:45). Yeshua came to reestablish correct Kingdom order through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) is truly the implantation of God’s life in us, and when the Spirit indwells a person, it is now possible to once again experience that intimacy and fellowship which is the essence of worship (Jn. 4:24). It is now possible to receive instruction directly from the Father—what some call revelation^[1]. One of the names of the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of Truth”(Jn. 15:26; 16:13). A good definition for truth is “ultimate reality.” The Spirit leads us to walk in ultimate reality. This is the way things really are, whether seen or unseen.  

But as wonderful as the ministry of the Holy Spirit is, the intellect of man is reluctant to relinquish the throne. We want to run the show. We want to figure everything out. We want everything to make sense according to human logic and deductive reasoning.

This is why the gifts of the Holy Spirit are such a subject of contention. They are not of this world. They operate apart from natural understanding. They transcend the bounds of human thought and undermine the supremacy of human intellect. This unnerves some of us. So in order to keep intellect in its comfortable position of power, we analyze every move of the Spirit. And if we allow the gifts to operate at all, we keep them on a tight, intellectual leash. Then we wonder why miracles, signs, and wonders aren’t taking place in our midst.

Meanwhile, overseas “primitive” cultures are experiencing the power of God on the level of what the early Messianic community experienced. The blind see and the lame walk. People are raised from the dead. We hear these reports but we know these people don’t know what we know. Their theology is not as accurate as ours. So we filter the reports through our superior western intellect and dismiss them. 

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I am not anti-intellectual. C.S. Lewis wrote that “God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than any other slackers.” Yahweh gave us a mind and we should develop and use it to the best of our ability. And I do believe there is such a thing as being so open minded your brains can fall out. But we must understand that our minds were created to be in subjection to our spirits and to the Father of Spirits (Heb. 12:9). We might say we are to be ruled from the inside out, and the spirit is our innermost being (Jn. 7:38). True living water flows from the innermost being, not from anywhere else.

Rabbi Shaul wrote, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1 Cor. 2:12-13). Our intellect, powerful though it may be, has been programmed by the enemy and fallen creation. It makes a poor ruler. It must be restored in proper relationship to the Father’s superior understanding via the Holy Spirit. It must be renewed (Rom. 12:2). In Isaiah 55 we read, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).

The idol of intellectualism is sometimes manifested within the body of believers by those whom I call knowledge brokers. I don’t mean to be hyper-critical in saying this, but these are people with teaching gifts who are full of information and scholarly knowledge. Certainly, we need gifted teachers who unlock the meaning of the scriptures and illuminate the plan of God. But some have determined that the success of their ministry depends upon impressing people with the latest, most-profound, cutting-edge teaching. They feel pressure to push the envelope and deliver the message that will impress and astound. After all, it’s a competitive world out there. And so week after week they amaze us with information and pummel us with profundity.  

Yet, their teaching is not making many true disciples of Yeshua. In fact, at the end of the day, people seem to be more excited about the knowledge broker than they do about the God he represents. Meanwhile, our neighbor is dying of cancer, our best friend is getting a divorce, and our nephew is on drugs. And we haven’t been equipped to help them. We do have, however, a head full of information.

Yahweh said in Exodus 19, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself” (vs. 4). Let’s not miss the message of that simple statement. We were delivered from bondage in order to be brought to a person, and that person is our Heavenly Father. This is not just about gathering information about Him—this is about meeting Him, worshipping Him, serving Him, and loving Him. We must come to our Father every day and spend time with Him in prayer and praise. He will speak to us when we do.

As God’s children, we are to be like our Father. Shaul instructed us in Philippians 2 to be “like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Messiah Yeshua… He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” As we humble ourselves and seek our Father’s thoughts above our own ideas, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Messiah (2 Cor. 10:5), He’ll give us the anointing and revelation we need today.

Einstein was right. Take care not to make the intellect your god.

[1] I am using the word “revelation” in the sense of specific, supernatural information given by God, not in the general sense of anything that is discovered or revealed.