The Heart of the Bible by Donald T. Williams

Quodlibet

The Heart of the Bible

The “heart” symbolizes the emotions in post—Victorian English, and so biblical references to the heart are often used to justify an emotion—based faith. But in the Bible, the heart does not refer to the emotions. A biblical writer who wishes to symbolize the emotions will use the “bowels,” not the “heart.” (The King James Version translates this idiom literally and hence does not miss the point; our modern translations tend to substitute the “heart” as more communicative to modern readers and so do miss the point completely.)

In biblical culture the heart meant not the emotions but the central core of the inner personality, the place where the three faculties of intellect, emotion, and volition find their unity. To “believe in your heart” means to believe there, with the whole of your being, not just to feel the truth emotionally. It means a belief that is embraced by and affects the whole personality, including the mind as well as the emotions and the will.

Following the Bible’s actual usage here would produce a very different kind of piety indeed from the one we typically have.

Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.

subscription options

Order
Print/Online
Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Order
Online Only
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.


more on bible from the online archives

32.2—March/April 2019

That Hideous Food

on Preserving Physical & Spiritual Nourishment by Nathanael Devlin

27.4—July/August 2014

The Things Freely Given

The Bible, Sacred Theology & the Mind of Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon

32.3—May/June 2019

Editing Jesus

on the Implications of Changing the Pater Noster by John M. McCarthy


more from the online archives

29.5—Sept/Oct 2016

The True Atheist Myth

on Past & Present Atheism & the Invention of Happiness by Jordan Bissell

33.4—July/August 2020

The Joy of God

by S. M. Hutchens

31.1—January/February 2018

Mere Sexuality

Getting Sex Wrong Is a Foundational Error by James M. Kushiner

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

00