How To Tell If Someone Has A Closed Mind?

Matt 13:15 is talking about a closed mind when it reads “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” But how do you tell if someone has such a closed mind? My answer is – you don’t know for sure (and therefore can’t make such accusation) since we can’t read someone else’s mind (I Cor 2:11), but there are some indicators …

The best way to tell if a person’s mind is open to new or different religious truth is by how many issues (big or small) they have changed on through the years – obviously when a person almost never modifies his views on anything, he most likely has a closed mind. This is a two-edged sword because there are some people that are too easily swayed; they are “carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14); they constantly change their mind without sufficient evidence to warrant such.

We’ve all heard the saying, something like “I was born a Baptist and I will die a Baptist.” That is an open admission that one has a closed mind. A number of times when I’ve knocked on doors asking for Bible studies, the response has been – “no, I’m Catholic.” That’s a sign of a closed mind – if I am Catholic, you shouldn’t expect me to be willing to study God’s word. So did you just follow the same way of looking at things (in religion) as your parents? – can sometimes (but not always) be another important telltale sign.

Many years ago, I was eating at Shoney’s with a new acquaintance (Jim), and he in effect told me a friend of mine (Carrol) had a closed mind. But I had known Carrol for five years and knew better than that. My point?: Just because a person Jim says another person Carrol has a closed mind, that doesn’t make it true. It could be that Jim is really just upset because Carrol doesn’t think Jim has given sufficient reason for a position Jim is trying to convince Carrol of.

Usually a person with an open mind is wanting to hear what others say on different questions, asking for more information, listening to others’ sermons, asking questions, etc., while the person with a closed mind feels hardly any need for doing such things. A person with a closed mind sometimes might see justification for another side, but can’t or won’t admit that to others (John 12:42-43), or many times even to themselves.

Only God knows for sure if my mind is really open to God’s truth, or I am just always intent on defending what I already believe. Let’s examine our hearts and determine from here on out we are going to “prepare our heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it” (Ezra 7:10).

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