By: Obed Pineda
It is has been said that, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.” There is a very good chance that you heard this expression (or a slightly different version of it) when a parent or teacher was attempting to motive you from becoming lackadaisical. It was meant as a warning that doing nothing will lead to boredom, and boredom will breed mischief. In other words, to keep oneself occupied with work prevents him from being lured into temptation. The idea presented by this phrase does align with Holy Writ’s illustration of the dangerous, foolish woman as one who “sits at the door of her house, on a seat by the highest places of the city, to call those who pass by, who go straight on their way” (Proverbs 9:14-15, emphasis added). Paul’s instruction to Timothy about denying aid to the younger widows echoes the quoted proverb, stating that “they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not” (1st Timothy 5:19-13, emphasis added). The apostle’s council to the young evangelist provides additional strength to the concept that an indolent lifestyle paves the way to ungodly actions. Therefore, if idle hands are the devil’s playground, then an idle mind must be the devil’s garden. In His parable of the wheat and the tares, the Lord explains that “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way” (Matthew 13:24-25, emphasis added). Afterward, when His disciples asked for an explanation for this parable, the Master explained that “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil” (Matthew 13:36-39a, emphasis added). It is wise to notice the dual symbolism attached to the seed by the Lord Jesus. Within the parable, a literal seed is what depicts both the Word of God and the deviating words of Satan. However, when He answers His disciples’ query, it is revealed that the word “seed” is being employed to refer to offspring. The dual purpose of the emblem chosen by the Master in this parable is certainly precise when one considers Solomon’s exhortation, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, emphasis added). The rearing of children through education is commonly presented as the planting, watering, and nurturing of the child’s personality. Hence the reason a child’s behavior will generally reflect the home environment he is being raised in. He imitates the example that he is being taught and follows the path that he has been led on. For this reason, the Lord makes the same application, on numerous occasions, to identify the godly from the ungodly; the righteous from the unrighteous. The beloved apostle reiterates his Master’s instruction as proclaims, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother” (1st John 3:10, emphasis added). Paul undeniably concurred with John’s conclusion since he rebuked the obstructing sorcerer Elymas, “O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord” (Acts 13:10, emphasis added)? Behold why an idle mind is truly the devil’s garden! Elymas is quickly discovered to be an offspring of Satan because he was “full of all deceit and all fraud.” The apostle repeated the words uttered by the Lord Christ to those Jews who claimed “Abraham is our father” to which He replied, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father…You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:39-41a, 44, emphasis added). It is abundantly clear that an idle mind equates to a mind void, or empty, of understanding God’s Word. Remember that His Word is truth (Psalm 119:160, John 17:17) and thus to be “full of all deceit and all fraud” is to be empty of God, but full of Satan. Paul was concerned with the mental state of the brethren at Corinth, stating, “I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2nd Corinthians 11:3, emphasis added). In the original Greek koine, the word used in place of “deceived” is exapataō and is described by Strong’s lexicon as “to seduce wholly” (Strong, G1818). Thus, the concept presented by the apostle Paul is that Eve’s mind was fully taken over by the serpent at Eden, by substituting God’s truth with his enticing deception. He was able to infiltrate Eve’s mind because she was mesmerized by the forbidden fruit. Cunningly, the devil was able to take advantage of this tiny entrance of doubt in the mind of Eve to lull her into a spiritual sleep, and to plant his seed of discord in her heart. Let us bring to memory that “to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:4-7, emphasis added). Here is the reason why for the devil, a carnal mind becomes fertile ground to sow seeds of sin. Our adversary, the devil, transplants spiritual thoughts with carnal ones to a point where “their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names” (Psalm 49:11, emphasis added). Thus, the mind devoted more to the material things than the spiritual ones, is a mind that has been taken over by Satan’s seed. The longer this seed is nurtured by sin and indifference to learning God’s word, the more it will begin to mold the individual into the image and likeness of the devil. It will most assuredly cause that person to “walk, in the futility of their mind…being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them” (Ephesians 4:17b, 18b, emphasis added). Thankfully, “we have the mind of Christ” (1st Corinthians 2:16, emphasis added).