Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
There is nothing in the Christian’s heart—whether in the mind, desires, or will—that is untouched by God’s grace. Our hearts are enlightened, made pure, and established in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know God truly, love Him sincerely, and follow Him resolutely.

We call those white flakes that appear in the winter snow. Whether the texture is flaky or crusted, thin or deep, fine or wet, soft or heavy, it’s simply “snow.” But the tribal Yup’ik people in northern Alaska and Canada employ many words to describe these different kinds of snow. Snow is one simple thing in English, and yet snow has different qualities (no matter what language you speak). The same is true of the word heart in Scripture. The heart reflects both the simplicity and the complexity of our inner self. It is one, and yet it has different functions.
Our Inner Unity
Put simply, the heart in Scripture conveys the totality of our inner self. We are governed from this one point of unity. From it “flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). It is the control center—the source of every thought, the seat of every passion, and the arbiter of every decision. All of it is generated from and governed by this one point of undivided unity. That is why everything vital to the Christian life—your speech, repentance, faith, service, obedience, worship, walk, and love —must be done with “all your heart” (Deut. 10:12; 30:2; 1 Sam. 7:3; Ps. 86:12; 119:34; Prov. 3:5–6; 4:23; Isa. 38:3; Jer. 24:7; Matt. 22:37). The heart is the helm of the ship. It takes a bearing and then sets the course of your life. As goes the heart, so goes the person.
Our Inner Complexity
Put comprehensively, the heart encompasses various functions, including the mind, the desires, and the will. The mind of the heart includes what we know: our thinking, ideas, memories, and imagination. The desires of the heart include what we love: what we want, seek, yearn for, and thus feel. The will of the heart refers to what we choose: whether we will resist or submit, whether we will say “yes” or “no,” and whether we are weak or strong in our resolve.
Mind. Although we moderns tend to think of the heart primarily in terms of our emotions, the Bible associates the heart with our ability to think. For example, Paul prayed “May [God] give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” (Eph. 1:17–18). Jesus said, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts” (Matt. 15:19). Psalm 139:23 draws the parallel:
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Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Monday, June 17, 2024
God’s priorities are different from the world’s. He encourages us to look and see the deeper undercurrents of beauty and the things that endure. It is there that one finds a prelude of the majesty to come. But marriage, Paul reminds us, is a picture of a far greater mystery—namely, the union between Christ and the “members of his body” (Eph. 5:30). The love that subsists between the heavenly Bridegroom and His bride is one that surpasses knowledge. No breadth or length or height or depth can comprehend it (Eph. 3:18–19). Nothing in all creation can separate us from it (Rom. 8:39). It was purchased at great cost and guaranteed by great conquest. 

What do you think of when you hear the word hybrid? For those looking to replace their current gas-guzzler, a hybrid car probably comes to mind. Those who were students a few years ago remember the frustrations of hybrid learning, seeing some friends in person and others online. Any farmer reading this article remembers that most of the corn planted now is a hybrid grain. But the most important example of a hybrid that you should consider is you. You are a hybrid.
You are a combination of body and soul, made of what is visible and invisible. You reconcile earth and heaven in yourself, sharing a kinship with both animals and angels. And yet none of the animal kingdom nor any of the heavenly hosts can lay claim to being both. Only humankind is composed of these distinct yet inseparable entities of clay and spirit. Only humankind is declared to be the image bearer of God: “‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26–27). Fundamental to understanding our personal identity is appreciating our human identity as made in God’s image, and that image refers to the whole person, both body and soul. To do full justice to the image of God, one must maintain this organic unity of human personhood. Nothing less will do.
Two in One: Body and Soul
On the one hand, this means that what was fearfully and wonderfully knit together in your mother’s womb must always be regarded as an essential and noble part of the image (Ps. 139:13–16). There are those who would denigrate the body by suggesting that it is inherently evil or that it is the source of sin. But Paul had strong words for those who slander God’s good creation, and he labeled such libel as “teachings of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1–5; see also Col. 2:23). Likewise, Christ affirmed the importance of the human body and its essential needs when He ministered to those who suffered from physical pain and to those who were blind, deaf, lame, or hungry. When Christ returns in glory, He will complete this work of full and final redemption in us, both outwardly and inwardly (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21; 1 John 3:2). The promise of our glorification provides hope as we experience the gradual decline of sight, hearing, taste, mobility, and strength (Eccl. 12:1–6). It provides even brighter hope for those who endure the challenges with greatly diminished physical or physiological abilities, knowing that the body that is “sown in weakness” will be “raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:43). The body is part of what it means to bear God’s image, no matter how fit or how needy it might be.
On the other hand, it is important to appreciate how man’s inner spiritual life relates to the image of God. Although it is true that the image refers to the whole person (including the body), it is also true, as John Calvin stated, that the “primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers” (Institutes, 1.15.3). This inner life is what distinguishes humanity from every other living thing on earth, just as our bodies distinguish us from the angels in heaven. Scripture uses a cluster of terms to refer to the inner person: “soul,” “spirit,” “conscience,” “inner self,” and, most often, “heart.” Our spiritual dimension is the fountain of what it means to be human. From it flow all our thoughts, desires, will, emotions, passions, choices, and love—everything that gives birth to song, poetry, courage, and tears. As Blaise Pascal wrote: “What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.” What’s more—without taking anything away from the body’s essential part of the image of God—our spiritual life must be given a place of preference.
The Noble Soul
The primacy of our invisible nature is seen in the fact that it can exist even without the body. Upon the death of a Christian, his or her soul leaves the body to be gathered before the Lord with the other “spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). Christ assured the thief on the cross of this reality when He said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus comforted Martha with the same truth: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–-26). The body may die, but the soul will live on.
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Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Thursday, May 2, 2024
To be born again means that God has given each of us a new heart. Just as every function and aspect of our old heart was perilously infected by sin, so also nothing in our new heart remains untouched by God’s grace—including our mind. God has graciously enlightened our understanding. Now we see our sin and we see its remedy in Christ so that we might call on the Lord with “a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). God’s grace and truth shine “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). This light does not bypass the mind. It opens the mind. 

Life is filled with choices. Some are as mundane as paper or plastic, while others are more serious, like the friend who insists, “You’re either with me or against me.” We are told that we must choose between success or happiness, hard work or a social life, science or art, being an extrovert or an introvert. It’s this or that. Some Christians would add that you must choose between your head and your heart. It reminds me of the Tin Man in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz who said to the Scarecrow, “But once I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.” The Tin Man apparently considered the head and the heart irreconcilable rivals. Perhaps you agree.
We moderns tend to associate the heart with feeling, not thinking. Naturally, this leads some to think that our knowledge of God and our love for God are two separate things. Or that it’s more spiritual to draw insight from inward intuition than theological reflection. Must a Christian, then, choose between a religion of the intellect and of the affections?
The Bible never asks us to choose between our heart and our thinking. It never encourages the impression that the heart’s mind is somehow less spiritual than the heart’s desires or will. The Bible holds these together, cordially. It might surprise many Christians to hear that according to Scripture, if your heart principally does one thing: it thinks. Let’s explore how Scripture regards the heart and its functions.
The Heart’s Unity and Its Complexity
The Bible uses the word heart more than any other word to describe our inner person (far more than words like soul and spirit). Summarizing the teaching of Scripture, we can say the heart governs the totality of our inner self—everything we think, desire, and choose flows from this one source. It is the fountainhead of every spiritual faculty within us—the spring of every motive, the seat of every passion, and the center of every thought. Your heart is the helm of your ship. The bearing it sets is the course your life will follow. That’s why the Bible interconnects your speech, repentance, faith, service, treasure, obedience, worship, walk, and love with “all your heart.” Put simply, the Bible speaks of your capacity to think, desire, feel, and choose as centered in your heart.
Within this central unity of the heart, however, the Bible also describes a threefold complexity of functions: the mind, the desires, and the will. To put this another way, the heart includes what we know (our intellect, knowledge, thought, intentions, ideas, meditation, memory, imagination), what we love (what we desire, want, seek, crave, yearn for, feel), and what we choose (whether we will resist or submit, whether we will say “yes” or “no”).
The biblical language of the heart, therefore, beautifully brings together this cooperative network of our intellect, affections, and will. This complex unity of the heart has been foundational to my own Reformed theological tradition in both its scholarly and popular forms. As a consistent biblical paradigm, it has also proven itself over time and has been confirmed by contemporary scholarship. Thus the word heart in Scripture is simple enough to reflect our inner unity and comprehensive enough to capture our inner threefold complexity.
The Heart’s Desires
Whether pursued righteously or sinfully, the heart desires companionship, security, encouragement, happiness, comfort, and satisfaction. The word used throughout the Bible for lust, fleshly passion, and worldly desire is the same word Jesus uses to express his desire to eat the Passover with his disciples. The term Paul uses for the desires of the flesh is the same one he uses for the desires of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16–17). Desires become sinful only when their object is out of bounds or the desire itself is out of balance. But all desires are strong cravings—hungry and thirsty spiritual appetites. We desire not simply what we like but what we love—what Christ calls our treasure (Matt. 6:21). We get emotional about our treasure. That is why Scripture associates the heart with feelings like anger, joy, envy, rage, anxiety, longing, sorrow, lovesickness, anguish, despair, and many other emotions (depending on whether our desires are satisfied, frustrated, or denied). Our hearts go out to what we love, and in this way our desires bring out what lies at the core of who we are.
The Heart’s Will
Often when the word heart appears in Scripture, its volitional function is in view: not only what we want but what we choose. The will decides whether we resist or submit to what we desire. Will my heart say yes or no? The battle for control of the heart is fought in the will. Which way the battle goes corresponds with the will’s strength or weakness, its callousness or brokenness, its being hardened by sin or made new by grace. The unbelieving heart’s sinful will is a stubborn, unyielding “heart of stone”—like Pharaoh’s hardened heart that resists God in rebellion. At the same time, this will is weak, unable to resist temptation. It is enslaved, unstable, apathetic, and afraid. The Christian’s heart made new by the Spirit, in direct contrast, enjoys a will that is both surrendered and strengthened. While always imperfect in this life, it nevertheless increasingly bows before God, grieves over sin, and serves Christ with humility. That same renewed heart has resolved to obey the Lord and is emboldened to die to sin, defy the world, and resist the devil. Your heart does not simply know or desire; it decides.
The Heart’s Mind
Finally, according to the Bible, the third function or capacity of the heart is to think. Let’s spend a little more time on this one, since we’re so used to thinking about thinking with our heads. You will not find biblical references to your head as the locale for your thinking.
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Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Following our heart may mean that we hear the voice that steers us toward the easier path and not the ethical high road. It is true that the Spirit of God and the grace of God are at work in us “to will and to work” for our salvation (Phil. 2:13). But it is also true that we are prone to cave when we need more resolve and we tend to be bull-headed when we ought to be broken-hearted. If we merely “follow our heart” we may easily slide into the path of least resistance and refuse to take up the cross and follow Christ.

Man’s. . . wants are to be trusted. . . even when their gratification seems furthest off, the uneasiness they occasion is still the best guide of his life.—William James, “The Will to Believe”[1]
Listen to Your Heart
Whenever we are deliberating over a decision, it is not uncommon to hear a friend say, “You should listen to your heart.” Such a sentiment is not only common, but it has also been exalted to a sacrosanct place of moral authority in our culture. It is as if doing anything else would be a denial of your very self. And how could anyone do that? After all, a person must be true to who they are. Anything less would be inauthentic.
So what should we make of this?
What is the Heart?
It may be worth asking what we are listening to if we’re listening to our heart. According to the Bible, the word heart is one among several terms (like soul, spirit, and conscience) that refers to our inner life. But the word heart goes beyond these others. It is used with more frequency and it is used with more subtlety.
On the one hand, the heart communicates the unity of everything we are within. All of our thoughts, plans, wants, feelings, and decisions are generated from this one point, which functions as the governing center of our inner life. On the other hand, the heart comprehends a trinity of the heart’s spiritual functions: the mind (what we know), the desires (what we love) and the will (what we choose). Thus, the word heart in Scripture uniquely captures both the unity and the complexity of our inward life. So “following your heart” is listening, as it were, to your thoughts, longings, and choices. You may say, “So what could be so bad with that?”
Why Not Listen to the Heart?
The problem is one that runs in the family. Actually it arises from the very beginning of the human family. Adam’s and Eve’s sin in the garden of Eden did not begin with the first bite. It began with the first errant thought. Their conclusion that what God said was bad to eat was instead good to eat was a serious sin. It was also delusional, rebellious, twisted, and ruinous for them and for all of their children. Ever since then the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve have suffered in their heart’s mind from evil thoughts (Gen. 6:5). Because of sin, our foolish hearts struggle with proud and selfish ideas. Even Christians, who are delivered from sin’s condemning power and reigning power, still struggle against residual sin. Self-indulgence and self-importance continue to dog every Christian so that we are often unclear about the true motives that lie under our thoughts. Jeremiah spoke of this, when he wrote:
The heart is deceitful above all things,and desperately sick;who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9)
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