“that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ”
This verse offers four lines of defense against the attack upon the Christian faith. The first line of defense is encouragement.
“that their hearts”
This phrase can mislead us if we read it with the understanding of people in the twentieth century. Most of us interpret “heart” to mean emotions and “encouraged” to mean emotional support. Neither of these meanings conveys the idea of the first century.
During times of attack upon our faith, the stabilizing principle is that our “hearts may be encouraged.” The word “heart” does not refer simply to our emotions. It has nothing to do with the idea behind Valentine’s Day; it does not mean romantic and sentimental encouragement. We often hear the expression, “He means well; his heart is in the right place.” In other words, he bumbles through life, but he means well. He is sincere but wrong. The term “heart” is never used in this sense in the Bible.
When the Bible employs the word “heart,” it refers to the entire person. The heart is the mind, emotion, will, spirit, memories, attitudes — the complete person. When tragedy comes to our lives, generally, the first thing we do is stop thinking and operate emotionally. We throw tantrums and become hysterical. Hysteria means we stop using the thinking part of the heart.
Principle:
The Christian life involves the complete person — mind, emotion, and will.
Application:
A strong attitude or orientation is the result of strengthening the complete person. The Christian must draw upon the resources for the whole person to live the Christian life. Attitude sins devastate relationships. They make us judge other people. We enter antagonisms because of these attitudes. Attitude sins cause instability. Instability makes us operate as a psychotic person who does not know he is psychotic.
The Word of God establishes our “hearts” by orienting us to God’s way of thinking for the complete person.
