The Heart and The Scriptures

I have really been enjoying hearing what others have had to say about "the heart" lately. For example, understanding that in Christ we have been given a new heart. In the Old Testament, it was said that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." (Jer 17:9). But God's promise for the New Covenant was, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." We have a new heart that is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and that is not deceitful. Aida recently linked to a website that talks about the heart, and while I've yet to fully look it over I've at least found a few neat things on it. One thing is this post.

On that post, something very key stood out to me:

Contrary to popular culture’s view, the heart is not the emotional or feeling side of us. Popular culture tends to think of the heart as the sentimental part of us. (Think of Hallmark cards.) Biblically speaking, our feelings can express what is going on in our hearts, but the heart is much more than feelings.

I very much appreciate many of the teachings I've heard lately that talk about us being able to trust our hearts... because they're new hearts that are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. I think it's a good thing to understand this. However, I still think it's very possible (and sadly common) for Christians to mistake their feelings, emotions, logic, gut sense, etc, for the true heart. While our true heart (spirit) is fully in line with God, and can indeed express itself through our minds, feelings and emotions, at the same time our minds, feelings and emotions can express things that are not true... that are not of the Spirit... and I think it's very important to grow in our understanding of the difference. Otherwise, we may mistake anything we think or feel for truth, when really our minds, feelings and emotions can still deceive us and take us away from the truth.

This is why I'm thankful that we have the Scriptures. The sad thing is that I see many "heart" people getting defensive when the Bible is put on the table! To trust God with our new heart is a great and wonderful thing, but how do we even know about the old heart/new heart apart from what the Scriptures say? How do we know many, many wonderful truths apart from the Bible?

I'll be the first to say... because I've said it before... that most people who have ever lived have never had access to a Bible, and yet God's word has been true and has been revealed to mankind since the beginning. But here's the thing that I've seen, if only a little, in some of the "heart" teachings I've heard: A disregard for the truth that we do have in the Scriptures. Sometimes (although rarely) it's even been almost to the point of animosity against studying the Scriptures. And a little more often the teachings have, in my opinion, been contrary to what the Scriptures do reveal as New Covenant truth. I'll be honest and say all of this concerns me.

Truth be told, we don't all agree on the interpretation of all the Scriptures. That's not what I'm addressing here. I'm talking about people's feelings, logic, emotions, gut reactions, etc, that they regard as "truth" when the Scriptures reveal something to the contrary. Again, God does indeed reveal Himself to us in our spirits, often through the avenue of our minds, feelings and emotions. But also again, our thoughts, feelings and emotions can deceive us.

Here are a couple of examples.

1) A man comes to Jesus by faith alone, trusting solely in the truth of the gospel. Then his thoughts and feelings begin to make him wonder if the gospel is really that good, and if maybe God is angry with Him for falling short, and he begins struggling and striving to maintain his righteousness in an effort to stay right with God - all because his mind and emotions tell him something contrary to what the Scriptures really say.

2) A woman comes to Jesus by faith alone, and then becomes emotionally connected with a man who is not her husband. She begins having deep feelings for him, and in her "heart" she really feels that God wants her to be with this man, so she divorces her husband and marries the other man.

In both cases, the people really did believe something about God and about themselves that wasn't true. They believed their hearts were telling them something, but it wasn't really their new heart (spirit). It was their minds, feelings and emotions. They were truly deceived.

That's the point of all this. We can believe some really "good" stuff about who God is and who we are, or some really "legalistic" stuff about who God is and who we are - or anything inbetween - that may not really be the truth. The whole point here is that we can easily be led in our minds, thoughts and emotions by things that seem to be true, but yet the Scriptures tell us otherwise.

Some other examples include the ideas that hell is just a fictitious place, and that everybody is saved. I've heard people say, "how could a loving God put people in hell, never mind creating it?" (A recent comment by Matthew in another post reminded me of this). Or, "It's just not logical that God wouldn't save everyone." It's supposedly the new heart from which people have gotten these doctrines - but it's really their own thoughts, logic, emotions, feelings, etc. It doesn't line up with what the Scriptures say.

When helping Timothy to understand God and the gospel, Paul didn't tell Timothy, "just follow what your heart is telling you." He reminded him about the Scriptures, "which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." He told him, "All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness..." The Scriptures he was referring to were, of course, the Old Testament. How wonderful that we now also have all of the New Testament to learn from as well! There is a TON of truth about who God is (and who we are) that we can be assured of through our studying of the Scriptures. Life is most certainly not about living by doctrines and theology. But if we're going to teach or share with each other things about who God is and who we are, and since we do have the Scriptures, which do indeed contain the truth about God and us, then let's not disregard the them as we learn to walk according to our hearts.

More on "the heart"

Once again I was responding to someone's comments (this time Aida's comments on The heart post from earlier today), and I found my comments becoming longer than what I had planned. :) And that's a good thing, because this is some good stuff to be discussing. So anyway, again instead of typing it all in the comments of that post, my comments have become this new post.

Without getting too deep into definitions, I'll just say that my understanding is that "heart" can have more than one meaning, and our one word in English can come from more than one Hebrew word or Greek word.

But apart from looking at the original language, we can also see the meaning of each instance of the English word according to its context. I'm by no means an expert here, but I'll just break down two particular meanings of the word. One is "spiritual" and one is "soulful."

Spiritual
God says in Ezekiel 36:26, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Also, both Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16 quote from Jeremiah 31, in which God says, "I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts..."

In these cases, my understanding is that the "heart" here has to do with our spirits. One reason I think that is because Rom 2:29 says that "circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter" and 2 Cor 3:3 says, "clearly you are an epistle of Christ...written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart."

We have been given a new heart (in our spirit) that is a heart of flesh and not stone, and that has the law of God written on it. This is God's doing, obviously not a result of anything we've done, or do, or will do or not do. This "heart" doesn't fluctuate, but has the requirements of the law fulfilled in it, and loves the law of God, because this heart is holy and the law is holy. As opposed to the deceitfully wicked heart that we once had, this heart is pure and clean.

Soulful
There are many, many scriptures that speak of the "heart" in a different way than the above scriptures. I believe the above scriptures represent an entirely different meaning than the following instances of the word "heart."

Rom 9:2 "I tell the truth in Christ... that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart..." (Paul was grieving for his brethren, the Israelites).

2 Cor 4:16 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day."

2 Cor 9:7 "So let each on give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver."

One of my favorites, Heb 13:9 "For it is good that the heart be established by grace."

Do you notice the difference between the "spiritual" heart that is fully and completely established in God's Spirit (the heart referred to by "I will give you a new heart"), and the "soulful" heart that has feelings, thoughts and emotions that fluctuate and that needs to grow and become established in grace?

I hope this provides food for thought, and I know the process of processing the truth always continues in each of us! Thoughts anyone?

The heart

This blog post is by no means a deep, exegetical explanation of "the heart." I was responding to a comment made by Lydia in my last post (All of life is spiritual - Video blog), and I found my comment was getting longer than I thought it would, so I decided to just make it into its own blog post. This way, too, if anyone happens to have any comments on this particular issue, it can sort of have it's own section on this blog.

I think the heart is one of the many parts, or "attributes," of our soul. Speaking in generalities, we would say that the soul is made up of the mind, will and emotions. I would say that "the heart" is included in this. "Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead... for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified..." (from Rom 10:9-10).

So one thing the heart does is to believe. For example, with the heart we either believe or reject the truth. The heart can trust, or not trust. It is with the heart that we believe, and it is our spirit that then becomes a new creation.

The heart is the place where we as Christians need to be settled in truth that we are not condemned. The truth is that we are not condemned. However, look at what John says. "For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart , and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God." (1 John 3:20-21).

We can intellectually (with our mind) know what the Bible says ("there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"), but yet in our hearts, even though we intellectually know the truth, we may still wrestle with that truth. Our hearts may condemn us if our hearts are not settled in the truth of who we truly are in our spirits - born again, a new creation, one spirit with God, the righteousness of God, etc. Even though God does not condemn us at all, not even an ounce, if our confidence is not "toward God," then we may feel condemned in our hearts.

Again, this is not a deep study by any means. It's simply the thoughts that came to mind as I thought about Lydia's comments, and I welcome your thoughts!