We don’t have to look far to find examples of poor thinking. If social media is good for anything, it proves beyond any doubt that humans aren’t as smart as we think we are. Turns out we don’t really want to know what our friends and family think all the time about every issue. And if we’re honest, we might even be guilty of such poor thinking ourselves, at least at some point.
But what if most don’t actually want to think? As Alan Jacobs writes in his new book, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds:
Thinking troubles us; thinking tires us. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits; thinking can complicate our lives; thinking can set us at odds, or at least complicate our relationships, with those we admire or love or follow.
Why, then, would anyone dare to think? And how does thinking make us better disciples of Jesus Christ? I asked Jacobs those questions and more in this episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast. Jacobs teaches in the honors program at Baylor University. His many books include The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction and The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis.
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
