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 Carl R. Trueman |
Friday, September 10, 2021
Being overwhelmed by a vision of a great God at the center of all things is ultimately the only antidote to confusing the needs of ourselves as creatures with the meaning of life. While the pathologies of our culture—from materialism to sexual confusion—each have their own distinctives, the solution is ultimately the same: a vision of God that makes every problem, challenge, or question seem like a passing momentary affliction compared to the eternal weight of glory that is to come.

There can be little doubt that we live in an age where the individual is sovereign. Whether it is commercials selling products on the basis of how they will make us feel or parents suing schools for refusing to allow their children to attend class dressed in any way they choose, ours is a world where individual rights and demands carry a peculiar weight. And the result is that our institutions, particularly our voluntary institutions, are more like boutiques competing for customers in the marketplace of self-fulfillment. Colleges sell themselves on the basis of allowing students to find themselves and reach their potential. And churches promote their programs as sources of personal happiness and well-being. Religious and irreligious, we are all expressive individuals now, seeing the purpose of life as feeling good and anything that hinders that as being evil.
The question of how to counter this and to recapture the New Testament’s vision of the Church as a body of believers who find their identity not in themselves but in love of God and of each other is a pressing but difficult one, made more so by the fact that our problem is in part the result of something we all consider good. Freedom of religion is a wonderful thing. Who wants to live under a regime where simply gathering together in the Lord’s name might merit prosecution, incarceration, or even death? It is good to worship without fear of reprisals.
Yet, when there is religious freedom, there is religious choice; and where there is religious choice, congregants are always in danger of tilting towards being customers, and churches towards being spiritual boutiques, presenting themselves as the answer to particular needs or desires. Add to that mix a normative notion of selfhood that places the individual and his or her needs—”felt” needs, to use the modern phrase—at the center of life, and the stage is set for precisely the kind of religion we have today.
A Vision of God in His Glory
If the problems of consumerist Christianity are so deeply entwined with the pathologies of the wider culture, from its cult of the independent self to its imperious belief that personal happiness is the great criterion of truth, then it is easy to despair. How, as Christians, do we break from this seductive cage in which we find ourselves and in which too often we enjoy being confined? And how do we persuade the rising generation that Christianity is not simply one possible option available for finding happiness and satisfaction in this life but rather is the very meaning of life itself?
I would like to suggest that one vital part of the answer is to be found in that most difficult and yet glorious of Christian teachings, the doctrine of God, particularly the doctrine of God as he is in himself. If patriotism leads individuals to see themselves (and if necessary, sacrifice themselves) in light of a larger, greater reality, that of the nation, so Christians stand or fall by whether they see the God they worship as truly greater than themselves. A God who is simply man writ large is no more worthy of devotion, and no more captivating to the imagination, than a sports hero or a movie star. Only as our imaginations are taken captive by a vision of God in his glory will we see any change in the wider malaise of modernity which afflicts our religious institutions.
I have some personal grounds for believing this can be done. Each year I teach an undergraduate course on the doctrine of God, and each year I am delightfully surprised by the effect it has on many students.
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A book can almost have a personality. It was written by somebody, and it is about something. Neither of these things can be said of a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad. They are not written at all and are not about anything. After libraries have all closed down or become free computer centers, there will still be people like me, feeling like monks in monasteries preserving books in their own private libraries.

There was the Great Flood. There were the Ten Plagues of Egypt. There was the Fall of Rome. There was the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem and the Fall of Constantinople. And then this: The Encyclopedia Britannica went out of print.
While the Simpsons just celebrated its 500th show, the world’s greatest learned publication couldn’t even make it to its 250th anniversary. Will the last person who even knows what Western civilization is please turn out the lights?
I submit that this is the most significant cultural event of the last fifty years. No. Make that a hundred. The New Dark Ages are upon us.
T. S. Eliot ended his poem, “The Hollow Men,” with the words:
This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang, but with a whimper.
The sing-song rhythm of the first three lines evokes a child’s careless playground chant, as if Eliot meant to say that the end of the world would be attended with a general lack of awareness that anything significant was really happening–and that, when it did happen, it might go unremarked or even unnoticed.
If you want proof that our own culture is experiencing this very kind of end, just look at the malaise with which we have greeted the Britannica announcement. Note the general cultural yawn directed toward the announcement that they will be suspending their print edition.
The best anyone could do was to give the glib assurance that there was nothing to worry about, since Britannica will continue in an electronic edition.
If someone important to you died, would you find comfort from being told that he or she would continue on in a digital form? No. Encyclopedia Britannica is dead. We now have only its electronic ghost.
Our cultural landscape is fast becoming welter and waste. Before the barbarian onslaught of the computer, one would go to a place and read a thing. There was a library, and it had books, and one went there to read them. Go into a library now, and look to the right, where there are rows of shelves of books, but no people. Then look to the left, where there are rows and rows of people–sitting at computers.
Soon the shelves will be gone, the books sold, leaving only the people, staring mesmerized at their screens. They won’t even notice that the books have been taken away.
Every technological revolution has its benefits—and its casualties. The invention of writing was itself a technological revolution. In his dialogue Phaedrus, Plato tells a story about the old god Theuth, the inventor of many arts, including arithmetic and geometry. But his greatest discovery, said Plato, “was the use of letters.” He came one day to Thamus, the Egyptian god-king, who dwelt in Thebes. Theuth presented his great invention, writing, to the king. “This,” said Theuth,”will make the Egyptians wiser. It will increase their memory and improve their wit.” But the Egyptian king was not impressed.
“Because these letters are like your own offspring,” he said, “you are blind to their faults. This discovery of yours will only create forgetfulness in the learner’s soul because he will no longer need to use his memory. He will trust to the written characters instead of his memory, and will not remember them himself. These letters of yours may help in reminiscence, but they are not an aid to memory. Your hearers will become, not disciples of the truth, but of a semblance of truth only. They will be hearers of many things, but they will learn nothing.”
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