Word Study: Dianoia. How's Your Understanding?

BYTES: Word Study: Dianoia. How's Your Understanding?

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
I John 5:20 

Dianoia 

Dianoia is Greek for understanding. Dianoia is a compound of two words, Dia + nous denoting the mind as a faculty of understanding, thinking, feeling and desiring. 

Plato defined Dianoia as knowledge of the kind that falls short of the highest kind, that is noesis. He believed that nous was a higher mental faculty associated with the apprehension of unchanging, eternal truths. Whereas Dianoia was a lower mental faculty associated with fallible belief and the sensory world. 

Aristotle divided Dianoia further into techné, or theoretical knowledge, and phronesis, or knowhow: practical and moral wisdom. Thus Dianoia is the human cognitive capacity for, process of, or result of discursive thinking in contrast to noesis, intuitive apprehension. 

Dianoia and You

Holy Spirit makes it very clear in 1 John 5:20 that Jesus has given us (those who believe in the name of the Son of God) a supernatural understanding, a Dianoia, of the True God and Eternal Life, that we may know Him who is True, and that we are In Him who is True, in His Son Jesus Christ. 

This means that God has given us the ability to understand, to use our minds, to think about an issue from all sides, to thoroughly reason out and reach a meaningful conclusion in a matter. If Jesus has given us this ability to see a matter from all sides then we have no excuse to be narrow-minded or lazy in our thinking! We cannot claim that God has failed us, or that we have limited insight into a situation when Holy Spirit has clearly stated in His Word that God has given us an understanding, Dianoia, to know Him and to have moral and practical wisdom in the affairs of life. 

Thing is, it is in your hands whether you will use what God has given you in faith, or if you will continue to follow the idolatrous opinions of this world. 

How's Your Understanding? 

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;

Ephesians 4:17‭-‬18

How's your Dianoia, your understanding? Is your Dianoia, your understanding, fit and healthy, lit up with the light of Christ? Or is it darkened, not in-sync with or reflecting the life of God, but rather reflective of the world around you, full of fear, defeat and doubt? 

How we use what has been given to us will shine forth in our lives. When we know what God has given us in Christ Jesus then we will be able to live the victorious, abundant life Christ came to give us. But we need a little help to walk away from the futility of the mind, from a darkened understanding, and into the light and life of God in Christ Jesus. 

God and Your Dianoia

God is deeply involved with your Dianoia, your understanding, so much so that He has made a way for you to live fully in the understanding the Son of God has given you. 

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Ephesians 1:17‭-‬18 

God has made a way for our understanding to be enlightened. Through His Holy Spirit, we have access to God's wisdom and revelation at all times! But we need to spend more time with Him, in His Presence, reading, studying  and meditating His Word, and listening to His Holy Spirit in our spirits. 

Ephesians 1:17-23 is a very powerful prayer we should be praying daily for ourselves, our children, and for others. We need what God has so freely given us in Christ Jesus, His wisdom, His Revelation and His Dianoia, His understanding, in all things. 

Let us not neglect what God has given us. Rather let us learn to be led by His Spirit in our Dianoia, in our understanding, so that we can walk in the light as He is in the Light. 

Meaghan Spies © 2022