The Rise of the Spiritual Order of Men and Women, and the Development of the

“Capable Mind”
From Galatians
© J. Michael Strawn

The book of Galatians describes serious problems in Christ’s church in Galatia. Many
people believe that this epistle is about the battle between the concepts of law and grace,
and although this is certainly an issue there is another, deeper issue that the epistle
addresses.

Everything points to a single weak spot: the condition of mind of the individual believers.
In writing this epistle, the apostle Paul wants the Galatian saints to recognize, address,
and resolve that weak spot. The only way they can do this is through putting a
discontinuity between the mind and the influence of the body, and developing a biblical
mindset that gives one a “capable” mind. The result will be the rising up of a particular
type, or spiritual order, of people that will bless the church in Galatia and its individual
members, and, by extension, the Lord’s Church today and its individual members.

Obviously, the church in Galatia manifests the following problems:

• Desertion of the Gospel 1:6
• Perversion of truth 1:8
• False teaching 1:9
• Unjust criticism of Paul himself 1:11-2:10
• The hypocrisy of two well-known leaders: Peter and Barnabus 2:11
• Problems with their faith in Christ 2:14-21
• Growing reliance on human effort 3:3
• Return to the Law 3:6-14
• Grace had diminished in importance. 5:1-6
• Sins of indulgence 5:16-21
• Avoidance by fear of commitment 6:12-18 (some were circumcised only to avoid
persecution)

These catastrophic problems show that the minds of some believers in Galatia weren’t
functioning on a spiritual basis. However, the Galatians had access to a resource to
combat these problems: In this book, there are at least 18 references to the Holy Spirit (as
well as an additional oblique reference.) All these references teach us that we are
expected to think, behave, and live in accordance with the will, the purpose and the
wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Here are the statements in Galatians related to the Holy Spirit:

1) He stands in contradiction to human effort as a foundation for pleasing God (3:3).

2) The Holy Spirit is a source of unearthly power; in fact, incalculable power (3:5).
3) He is sent into our hearts (4:6). He carries with Himself a sense of permanence He is
supposed to have in our live as an influence.
4) He is directly associated with revelation (3:2).
5) He is the subject of eternal promise (3:14).
6) He connects the believer to the Father (4:16).
7) He makes no distinctions based on flesh, only distinctions on faith (5:5). Nothing, He
shows, is of value except faith expressing itself in love.
8) We must live by the Spirit (5:16). This requires a discontinuity (represented by a large
“V”) placed between the mind and the body.

Mind V Body

If you live by the Spirit, you won’t gratify what the body precipitates. A discontinuity
must be placed between the two, or else you have them on the same axis:

Mind----Body
If they are on the same axis, a person will gratify sinful desires.

9) The Spirit acts as contrary to the sinful nature (5:17), which will do what you don’t
want to do. But the Holy Spirit shows us how to rise above the flesh and its demands.

10) We are to be led by the Holy Spirit (5:18). He shows the way, He is able to dominate
behavior.

11) The Holy Spirit creates distinctions grounded on eternal power and faith (4:29).
Isaac, for instance, was born by the power of the Spirit – that is the only way he could
have appeared on earth. But Ishmael was born, as the NIV puts it, “in the ordinary way.”
The ordinary way means doing things where there is no faith involved, no power of the
Spirit. Some Galatian believers had a preference for the ordinary way, a way that was
devoid of faith. Another example is the Israelites in the desert, who, as a general rule,
sought for the ordinary way. But Christian life doesn’t rest on the ordinary way. Abraham
and Sarah in Genesis 16 wanted to rely on the ordinary way, so Ishmael was conceived.
In the book of Galatians, there is no doubt that Paul tells us that to seek the ordinary is in
fact a dismissal of the Holy Spirit from the scene, in circumstances, in history. As a
result, the life He wants us to follow is similarly dismissed. And, unfortunately, in the
contemporary churches, many times preachers and elders only have interest—and
confidence – in the ordinary way.

12. The Holy Spirit produces fruit in those who obey Him (5:22).

Seen as a continuum, it would be:

Holy Spirit (delivers)Word of God (instructs)the mind (mediates)

the will, wisdom and purpose of the Holy Spirit 

the body  behavior

The composition or structure of this graphic above reveals critical proof about the rise of
what the Holy Spirit would engender: a unique class or order that we might call the
spiritual order of men and women. The goal of such an order, in each individual, is a
mind so developed that it actually is able to mediate, or function to directly connect, the
will of the Holy Spirit into one’s personal behavior. Although the human mind has many
capacities, certainly the ability to function as a mediator between the Spirit and one’s one
fleshly desires is certainly one of the most eternally helpful.

This changes the axis of behavior, where the mind and the body are on the same axis and
thus affect behavior by their unity.

However, it is important to note that the Holy Spirit does not in most cases work directly
onto our behavior. In other words, He doesn’t force people to behave a certain way.
There are some rare exceptions – Balaam’s being forced into prophesying a message
which he didn’t want to deliver, for example, but such instances are exceptions.

A primary issue in Galatians, we must conclude, is that of the role of the Holy Spirit on
the mind, through revelation (1:12). The desired end result was that the true Gospel
accomplish this effect, through the Holy Spirit, onto the minds of individual Galatian
believers.

It could be accurately said that a manifestation of the problems in the Galatian church
were due to their condition of mind. In fact, they manifest two such conditions which we
might call the capable mind and its antithesis, the incapable mind.

The capable mind is one that has developed the ability to mediate the will, wisdom, and
purpose of the Holy Spirit onto the body. The continuum would look like this:

The Holy Spirit the capable mind the body.

Such a capable mind is completely receptive to the Holy Spirit and works to develop the
ability to mediate the will, wisdom, and purpose of the Spirit to his or her body. As a
result, that person’s behavior is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (5:22-23). In fact,
this kind of behavior might even be termed a perfected behavior, becoming like the Lord.

The Holy Spirit, having personality and preferences, also has a will, and Galatians 5:25
tells us that He wants us to crucify the sinful nature, with its passions and desires. Such
passions and desires, of course, are body-driven motivations. These are the ruinous
motivations that serve the flesh, not the Spirit. And in Galatia, there are apparently few
people who have the ability to link the Spirit to their bodies by means of their minds.
Since they are unable to do so, such incapable minds which cannot mediate (5:17) show
this condition by the actions they take with their bodies, doing what the body desires and
drives. This goes far beyond the discussion of law versus grace. Such minds are, in effect,
as one piece with the body, unifying the two in an axis that shows the mind to be
incapable by the fact that the sinful nature – the body, the flesh-- is in charge.

And how powerful the acts that follow such a union! Paul list them, and calls them
“obvious”: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy;
drunkenness, orgies, and the like (5:19-21a.) And, they come with Paul’s most solemn
warning of ultimate ruin: Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

These characteristics of the mind-body union are characteristics of the world, and
Christians are not part of the world. The mind-body axis must be crucified. In Romans 12
Paul tells about how to do this: Willfully offer the body and its control over the mind on
an altar, through the renewing of the mind which is not driven by the flesh. by the flesh.

One avenue of to do this is through baptism, which is itself a death, a symbol of the
destruction of the mind-body axis. The only way this can be accomplished is through the
deliberate creation of a discontinuity between the mind and the body.

Mind V Body

The capable mind accomplishes two tasks:

1) It puts a sharp discontinuity (a gulf or a cleft) between the mind and the body.
2) It mediates the will, wisdom, and purposes of the Holy Spirit to the body.
It is just such a capable, mediating mind that changes our behavior. It puts into evidence
the spiritual order of men, something that rises to the surface and is as obvious as the
sinful works that are the evidence of the sinful nature that reflects the mind-body axis.

Galatians shows not only the necessity for a capable mind, but demonstrates how it can
be developed. In chapters 7,8, and 9, Paul uses an agricultural metaphor, that of sowing to
please that sinful nature, that which is grounded in the body and its desires. From that
sowing comes destruction, Paul says; from sowing to please the Spirit comes the harvest
of eternal life. This sowing metaphor implies many details, for sowing takes planning and
time and effort, and brings results. With such a timeline, we would have to conclude that
the capable mind and the incapable minds actually develop along different tracks, so to
speak.

In 6:1, we find the 13th reference to the Holy Spirit, but it is an oblique one. If the sinful
man is one who has no mediation of the Holy Spirit to his body, then such a one, once
caught in a sin, serves as an example to those who do live by the Spirit. This is a warning
so that others will exercise the capacity they have to link the will and purposes of the
Spirit to their own bodies.
The incapable mind doesn’t link the will of the Holy Spirit to his or her body. Such a one
doesn’t readily grasp revealed truth (nor may they want to.) They show their minds to be
incapable in the sense we are using the word by refusing to let their minds mediate the
Holy Spirit to their behavior.

One might pose the question: What is weak faith? There are examples of Jesus calling the
faith of some people weak: Matthew 14, when Peter thought he was drowing, in Matthew
8, when the disciples believed they were about to die. Similarly, Jesus congratulated
strong faith in the centurion in Matthew 8. Weak faith corresponds to the incapable mind,
which is gripped by the mind-body axis. Strong faith disrupts that unity, by putting a
discontinuity between the mind and the body.

There are many examples in Scripture of people with capable minds. In Daniel chaper 3,
the three Hebrew men demonstrated that they were perfectly willing to not let the needs
of their bodies –even for survival in the face of seemingly-inescapable death by fire –
drive their actions and behavior. Their friend Daniel in Daniel chapter 6 showed this
same capable mind as he answered the king concerning his own survival. All four of
these men put a deliberate discontinuity between their minds and their bodies. At Kadesh
Barnea in Numbers chapters 13 and 14, Joshua and Caleb showed their capable minds in
the way they discounted the apparent dangers and operated on what God had told them
about the situation. Meanwhile, the other ten spies and indeed the entire nation of Israel
showed the incapacity of their minds. As history ensued, the Israelites in the desert
always were body-driven. In Numbers 35, at Baal Peor they based their actions on their
needs: the food they craved.

Later in the New Testament, we see the abuse of spiritual gifts in 1 corinithians. Not only
that, the Corinthians with their incapable minds not only sinned, but took pride in the fact
that they were drawing tight the mind-body axis and actually congratulating one another
for such sins as a man living with his father’s wife, taking pride in the flesh.

In the world of the cognitive sciences, it is considered desirable to close the gap between
the mind and the brain by the contention that the mind is the brain. Such unities are
reflected in current assertions hat man and animals are equivalent because man is an
animal, or by asserting that man and the universe are one. All that the world would term
“progressivism” is predicated on the mind-body axis.

Any teaching to the contrary would have to be based on foundational knowledge that
there is an inherent, necessary, and beneficial discontinuity between the mind and the
body. Elders and other spiritual leaders must encourage and lead people based on such a
scriptural discontinuity. Their goal should never be that of creating consensus, which
smacks of the ills of political leadership in which the leaders seek to be liked.

In Galatians, Paul expressed his astonishment at the believers’ defection from their earlier
dependence upon the Holy Spirit to their own human efforts (1:6.) They resorted to the
ordinary way, devoid of faith, devoid of power. They demonstrated that the mind-body
axis determines one’s relationship to the Word of God, whose proper function is to
instruct the mind so that it can become capable of mediation.

Therefore the true spiritual order of men must be composed only of capable minds, or
perhaps those who are presently sowing toward the Holy Spirit, trying to grow. This
order rises up to the surface. It insists on the discontinuity between the mind and body,
with the ultimate goal of the redemption of the mindn.

This leads to an important acknowledgment. The true mission field is the mind-- and only
the mind. Mission work is not a matter of geography, culture, anthropology, nor
psychology. We have misunderstood the nature of mission work. In many churches we
have abandoned the mind to psychiatry and psychology. We turn to the mission field as if
it were a separate issue, with emphasis on such things as “cultural universals” and
language differences. These are not the important issues of mission work, for our goal is
not to overcome our differences in order to doctrinalize people. This is so evident in
mission work in Latin America, where problems recur like the dust on a table that you are
able to blow away, but it returns and settles again.

A mind that so subordinates the body to the Holy Spirit becomes free of the demands of
the body, then free of culture. If we take a headhunter in New Guinea, a flower grower in
Harlem and a man in a 3 piece suit—all three must put a discontinuity between their
minds and bodies --regardless of culture and language. Each must decide to let the Holy
Spirit mediate. If each unique person can do this, behavior—fight against sin--will always
look the same. All will be coincidentally free of culture, and able to put a discontinuity
between the capable mind and one’s culture/world on the other side.

But a missionary or preacher cannot instruct others to do this unless he has himself
placed discontinuity between his mind and and his body. A woman who cannot do this
cannot consider herself really redeemed nor capable of teaching others.

However, that is not the emphasis in missiology. There students are told to use
intellectual models like postmodernism. On the contrary, we assert that there is no need
to put the Gospel in cultural terms, rather to seek a Spirit-induced use of the mind so that
a new axis takes shape—in the instructor and in the learner as well.

The discontinuity between mind and body has two dynamics:

1) The first is the recognition that there are two choices. One must choose between
the mind-body axis, or to deliberately rupture that axis.
2) This proposes a decision: Every situation necessitates the decision to follow the
Holy Spirit, or to follow the body with its supervising passions and desires. One
must say: I choose to train my mind in all situations to recognize that I must
deliberately put put a discontinuity between my mind and my body, and my mind
and culture, and to keep it there. Each must ask himself or herself the question:
Will I follow where my body leads, or will I see the will, the wisdom, and the
purposes of the Holy Spirit? I must then mediate that will to my body.
Observation: This tells us that learning comes from the Holy Spirit Himself, and must be
centered on Him. Thus that kind of learning, centered on the Holy Spirit, enters
immediately into conflict with what is known as the “politics of knowledge” as practiced
by those who would determine for us what knowledge is and is not. Many in the world
would like to say what a knower is and is not. They would say what it is possible to know
about abortion, homosexuality, national policy, education, even personal morality.

Such controversies existed among the Galatians, as we read in chapter 2. The influence of
the church on and by Gentiles was powerful. But Paul counters the idea of the politics of
knowledge with the startling statement that what he knew, he didn’t learn in any ordinary
way—he learned directly from God, in the desert of Arabia, and it made no difference
what others might say they “know” or want their listeners to “know.”

The way Paul got his knowledge would also have conflicted with what is called today
“positive knowledge,” which is based on the senses and the material world. But such
positive knowledge is what led Abraham and Sarah to their decision to bring Hagar—and
a literal world of warfare—to his camp. In Numbers 13 and 14, what Scripture calls “the
bad report” came not from God, but from such positive knowledge.

The truth is that he capable mind will always face disapproval, opprobrium and ridicule
from the incapable mind, its sources and its effects. This provides one of the clear lines of
separation between the two: The capable mind doesn’t try to win the approval of men, but
rather its teleology is to win the approval of God (1:10.) It is not possible to seek both.

In the rest of the book of Galatians, Paul lays out the basis of unity between Jews and
Gentiles, and it is not their rituals or other practices, but their commitment to the
development within each group of individuals of the capable mind. Out of that rises
unity, out of that rises the spiritual order of men.

He expands this thought in 2:6: “As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever
they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added
nothing to my message.” Other translations say that God does not judge by external
appearances. Such outward appearances – and this includes cultural trappings—are not
significant to Paul because they are not important to God. Paul’s judgment is by the Holy
Spirit.

Not just in Galatians, but throughout all of Scripture, it is obvious that God doesn’t
approve of those devoted to the ordinary way. His Church is to be composed of people
who have capable minds.

But how many churches today exalt the incapable mind, as we have defined it here? And
how many churches and individuals would be helped by the quest to refine their minds to
make them capable?