Everybody has an opinion. That’s the thing about opinions: We carry them with us whether we like it or not. There are good and decent people out there who make it a point NOT to tell everyone what they’re thinking at all times. They bite their tongue when a group of people are expressing their love of a particular food. They keep their mouths closed when others start discussing political sensibilities. They refrain themselves. It’s not easy, but they do so.
God bless them.
Here’s the thing: Your opinions are already in your mind. Whether you share them or not, they’re there. You have preferences. There are foods you don’t like to eat. There is music you don’t like to hear. Those opinions have formed, consciously and unconsciously, over the course of your life. They have helped to shape you into the kind of person you are. Your opinions live in your head…
You have to PUT the Word of God in there.
Having opinions is involuntary. Having a mind that is set on the Word of God takes deliberate action. I suppose that’s why it’s often so easy for us to make our opinions into laws. Since we’re always in possession of our opinions, we tend to give them “favored nation” status. If we’re in a conversation about the Bible, and we don’t know the Bible, we will eventually run out of things to say. Then what? Then people will often supplement the Bible they don’t know with the opinions they do. When that happens, “law” and “opinions” mingle and, often, become indistinguishable. That’s a dangerous mindset to have.
The solution is to be engrossed in the Word to such an extent that it becomes the central mechanism of your mind. Be so inundated with what the Bible says that your first reflex will be to answer Bible questions with Bible answers, and not with your opinions. I believe that’s what David meant…
Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee
(Psalm 119:11)
Put the Word in your heart (mind), and what comes out of your mouth will not be your opinions, but God’s decrees.
~Matthew