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TALKING BACK

Late in the fourth century AD, a young intellectual named Evagrius Ponticus penned a short book called Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons. 

Best subtitle ever. 

Evagrius claims that the fight against demonic temptation is a fight against what he called logismoi—a Greek word that can be translated as “thoughts,” “thought patterns,” your “internal narratives,” or “internal belief structures.” 

For Evagrius, these logismoi weren’t just thoughts; they were thoughts with a malignant will behind them—a dark, animating force of evil. 

That might sound far-fetched to our skeptical Western ears, but think about it: Have you ever had a thought (or feeling or desire) that seemed to have a will to it? It seemed to have a weight or power over you that was beyond your ability to resist? 

Could it be that the lies that assault your mind’s peace aren’t just thoughts? Could it be that a dark, spiritual force is behind them?

As the writer, Paul put it, "The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).

If we give in to the logosmoi, the thoughts at war with life and peace become strongholds in our minds and hold us in captivity. But we can break free if we set our minds on scripture. 

You fight the devil’s lies by simply choosing to not think about them. But as we all know, you can’t think about nothing. So you give your mind something else to think about: scripture. You replace the devil’s lies with God’s truth. You cut new neural pathways that eventually take root in the neurobiology of your body itself. You become what you give your mind to. 

This is right in line with thousands of years of Christian tradition. For millennia, followers of Jesus have immersed their minds in scripture, not just to gather data. The goal of reading scripture is not information but spiritual formation. The goal of reading scripture is to take on the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16), to actually think as Jesus thinks, to fill your mind with the thoughts of God so regularly and deeply that it literally rewires your brain, and from there, your whole person. 

What is one way you could fill your mind with thoughts of God more regularly?