Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The third part of the soul that we will discuss is the mind of man, which is the subject of this series. The mind of man is where the reasoning, intellect, emotions and faith of man reside. Unlike the spirit of man which becomes a new creation when we are born-again, the mind of the believer remains unchanged when we come into the kingdom of God, which is why the Holy Spirit in the passage of scripture quoted above counsels believers to renew their minds. When we are born into the earth we come in with a clean slate, so to speak. In other words our minds are like a blank hard drive that still needs to be programmed. And so as we grow in life our minds become programmed to think as this world thinks, and by the time we come into the kingdom of God we have mindsets that the bible refers to as being carnal, which is a mindset that is completely against God (Romans 8:7). It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit counsels believers to transition their minds from carnal thinking to spiritual thinking, for the spiritual mind thinks in line with the kingdom of God (Romans 8:5). The process of renewing our minds begins when we come into the kingdom of God and continues throughout our time on the earth. Because of the role that the mind has to play in influencing the will of man, it is vital that all believers are diligent in the area of renewing their minds. Sadly because many believers are not diligent in this area they continue to live just as this world lives, for ultimately it is the way we think that determines the way we behave. The mind of man uses the physical organ of the brain to operate through and is therefore located in that part of man. Nevertheless the mind as part of the soul is not a physical component of the brain.
The Soul of Man
The above diagram is an illustration of the various parts of the soul of man and how they function in relation to each other. And so we see that the will, the conscience, and the mind make up the soul of man. This diagram shows the will of man above the conscience and mind of man. The reason we display the three components of the soul in that format is to illustrate the point that it is both the mind and the conscience of man that assert their influence on the decisions that men make as an act of their will.
Michael E.B. Maher
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