The Heart is Deceitful
Jeremiah 17:9 is one of the most curious verses in all of Scripture. It was given to Jeremiah during a time of great spiritual decline in Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel) and is likely in reference to Judah's idolatry (Jeremiah 17:1-3) and greed (Jeremiah 17:11).
Alongside and likely connected to Judah's sin was an equal measure of hardness of heart towards the prophet's (and subsequently God's) rebukes. As Jeremiah muses on this God speaks a statement to him that speaks to the sorrowful state of mankind since the Fall.
"The heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?"
-Jeremiah 17:9
What is the Heart?
In order to rightly understand the gravity of this statement we need to examine the Biblical definition of the word "heart" and distinguish how it is used in Scripture as compared with how it is understood in our modern context. This is important to do because meaning can be lost in language and its necessary to note when we are not using equitable terms.
The modern world makes a distinction between the heart and the mind. We generally view the heart as the place where emotions live and the mind as the place that thinks. In my view this is one of the real weaknesses of the modern Enlightenment worldview that we have all been raised with. Due to this disconnect we often exalt individuals like the Spock of Star Trek who aspire to completely leave emotion out of all of their thought processes and in so doing believe they are able to arrive at objective conclusions.
This is commendable in a certain regard because it seeks to be free of anger, bitterness, fear and all the other negative emotions that affect our thought processes. But while being admirable it is also in a particular sense naive and arrogant¹.
The haughtiness of this view of the internal atmosphere of a person is evidenced in the belief that the mind is an independent and reliable guide for what is best for us.
But what if the mind is neither independent nor reliable?
The Bible paints a very different picture of the inner person in that it makes no distinction between the heart and the mind. In fact many of the translators of Scripture have often placed the word "mind" when the Greek actually says "heart"². The explanation for this is that with our modern worldview it is easier to understand that the verses that apply to thinking likely apply to the rational processes of an individual and as such the word "mind" is used. Whereas if the modern reader sees the word "heart" they would naturally think it to involve emotions.
If this was the only difference then the Bible wouldn't necessarily disagree with the Spocks of the world. The real discord lays in the 3rd dimension of the heart. Whereas the world thinks that the inner person is purely mind and emotions - where feelings are logically discerned as reactions to one's experiences or surroundings - the Bible says something very different.
In contrast to that cut and dry two-dimensional view of the inner man, Scripture declares that the individual is comprised of multiple facets - many of which have mysterious origins - and some of which are not logical.
Those facets do include an individual's sense of reason and one's emotional response to life events but they also extend to the spiritual atmosphere of the place that person lives, the diet of one's intellectual and entertainment intake, one's upbringing and the sin³ present in one's heart.
Alongside and likely connected to Judah's sin was an equal measure of hardness of heart towards the prophet's (and subsequently God's) rebukes. As Jeremiah muses on this God speaks a statement to him that speaks to the sorrowful state of mankind since the Fall.
"The heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?"
-Jeremiah 17:9
What is the Heart?
In order to rightly understand the gravity of this statement we need to examine the Biblical definition of the word "heart" and distinguish how it is used in Scripture as compared with how it is understood in our modern context. This is important to do because meaning can be lost in language and its necessary to note when we are not using equitable terms.
The modern world makes a distinction between the heart and the mind. We generally view the heart as the place where emotions live and the mind as the place that thinks. In my view this is one of the real weaknesses of the modern Enlightenment worldview that we have all been raised with. Due to this disconnect we often exalt individuals like the Spock of Star Trek who aspire to completely leave emotion out of all of their thought processes and in so doing believe they are able to arrive at objective conclusions.
This is commendable in a certain regard because it seeks to be free of anger, bitterness, fear and all the other negative emotions that affect our thought processes. But while being admirable it is also in a particular sense naive and arrogant¹.
The haughtiness of this view of the internal atmosphere of a person is evidenced in the belief that the mind is an independent and reliable guide for what is best for us.
But what if the mind is neither independent nor reliable?
The Bible paints a very different picture of the inner person in that it makes no distinction between the heart and the mind. In fact many of the translators of Scripture have often placed the word "mind" when the Greek actually says "heart"². The explanation for this is that with our modern worldview it is easier to understand that the verses that apply to thinking likely apply to the rational processes of an individual and as such the word "mind" is used. Whereas if the modern reader sees the word "heart" they would naturally think it to involve emotions.
If this was the only difference then the Bible wouldn't necessarily disagree with the Spocks of the world. The real discord lays in the 3rd dimension of the heart. Whereas the world thinks that the inner person is purely mind and emotions - where feelings are logically discerned as reactions to one's experiences or surroundings - the Bible says something very different.
In contrast to that cut and dry two-dimensional view of the inner man, Scripture declares that the individual is comprised of multiple facets - many of which have mysterious origins - and some of which are not logical.
Those facets do include an individual's sense of reason and one's emotional response to life events but they also extend to the spiritual atmosphere of the place that person lives, the diet of one's intellectual and entertainment intake, one's upbringing and the sin³ present in one's heart.
¹This may sound harsh but I mean it in a literal sense. To be arrogant is to believe that you have the solutions and understanding to fix your problems when in reality we don't. Only God has the true solutions we need.
²A good listen about this can be found on the episode titled "With All Your Heart" from the Office Hours Podcast for Westminster Seminary
³I'm using sin in this sense as a noun. The word sin when used as a verb means an act that someone does that is displeasing to God - for example to steal a computer is to sin. But when it is used as a noun it indicates that sin is a spiritual substance that dwells in someone's soul. This comes from reflections on the book of Romans where Paul describes sin as a noun (an example of this is in Romans 6:12-14). My theory on this is that when sin (the verb) is committed it opens a door in our hearts for sin (the noun) to dwell. When sin the noun dwells in your heart then you find your self with a greater desire to commit sin the verb. When God gives you the strength to repent of your sins then the presence of sin the noun can be greatly diminished or even altogether removed. Thus many have experienced that the further removed they are from committing a particular sin (for example watching pornography) the less of a desire they have for it and subsequently the easier it is to resist it. This is because the presence of sin the noun has been reduced or removed from their heart. What I speak of here though is that the same substance - sin the noun - that gives you desire to do things that displease God also affects the way you think.
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