https://youtu.be/9TVP8Doq298
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we finished Rom 2:5. Our expanded translation is "Because of your hardness and unrepentant heart, you store up and accumulate for yourself wrath against the day of wrath, even disclosure of just judgment from the God."
The words translated heart, hardness, unrepentant, and judgment in this verse brought up some doctrines to look at and we are presently looking at the doctrine of the heart.
Last time we noted that the nouns for "heart" in the Bible always refer to the right lobe of the soul. The Hebrew word "lebh" and the Greek word "kardia" are both translated "heart." Outside of the Bible both are used for the physical literal heart, but never in the Bible.
The usage of the words translated heart are based on analogy. Just as the physical heart is the pump that circulates blood throughout the body and thereby supports physical life, so the right lobe of the soul circulates doctrine supporting the spiritual life of the believer.
Doctrine is actually academically perceived in the left lobe, but it is in the right lobe where it is understood, chosen, and deployed.
In the English, the word "heart" connotes several things. It can refer "to the core or center of something, it is used to describe emotion as in "He is all heart," and of course it is used to refer to the blood pumping organ of the body.
The Bible never uses the heart for emotion. Faith comes from the heart because faith is thinking, not emotion. The mentality of the soul is divided into two lobes: the left lobe, called the "nous," meaning mind, thought; and the right lobe, called "kardia" that means heart.
The right lobe is the dominant lobe because God designed it to dominate the entire soul. A person who is logical, analytical, or categorical in their thinking is using their heart, 1Sam 16:7;
Since the heart is designed to dominate the soul and all influences must be subordinated to it, especially the emotions. The emotions are actually not part of the soul, they are part of the body, but they influence the soul.
Category two love between a man and a woman is an excellent analogy to the relationship between the heart and emotions. The right man corresponds to the heart and the right woman corresponds to the emotions.
Jer 11:20: "O Lord of hosts... who tests the emotions in relation to the heart." In this verse we see God testing to see if rational thought or emotion are controlling the soul.
God's justice always bases any function of justice on His knowledge of the situation.
Jer 17:10; "I, Jehovah, search the heart [for doctrine] and test the emotions [to see if they are subordinate to doctrine]." NET note 18
Jer 20:12; "Yet O Lord of armies, You who have tested the righteous, who sees the emotions and the heart." Net note 27
Psa 26:1-2; "Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, because I have trusted in the Lord and I do not slide into reversionism. Examine me, O Lord, and test my emotions and my heart."
In this passage we see that one of the major considerations in the function of God's justice is the relationship between the heart and the emotions.
In the Bible the word "heart" is used to describe the place of thinking, the location of your vocabulary and categories of thought. Therefore, the heart is the thinking function of the soul. The Lord's evaluation of you is what you think.
1Sam 16:7; "The Lord said to Samuel, `Do not look on his outward appearance or how tall he is, because I have rejected him. for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
We see here that God evaluates a person on the basis of their thinking not based on how they look.'" This correlates with Prov 23:7; "As a man thinks in his right lobe [heart], so he is."
The Lord looks in the heart and sees how much doctrine is circulating through it.
Prov 17:22; "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Having a joyful heart means sharing God's happiness (+H) in your right lobe, which is problem device #8.
Prov 15:13-15, "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. The heart of the intelligent seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast."
God's +H in the right lobe makes for a cheerful face, a marvelous life, and animation. But the spirit is broken when the heart is sad, down, or complaining.
Eventually one's motivation for learning more doctrine comes from the doctrine that is already resident in the right lobe because the continual spiritual feast is one of Bible doctrine in the heart.
Prov 18:12; "Before his downfall, a person's heart is arrogant; but humility comes before honor [virtue]." In other words, if arrogance controls the right lobe of your soul, you're a total loser.
Humility is teachability from grace orientation and authority orientation. There can never be honor until you learn and metabolize doctrine.
Prov 18:15, "The heart of the discerning [wise] acquires knowledge; because the ears of the wise seek it out." Net note 50
Here we see motivation to learn Bible doctrine. When you listen and concentrate, then you will acquire the discernment of the right lobe that provides spiritual momentum.
Prov 22:15; "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him."
Prov 27:19, "As water reflects a face, so a person's heart reflects that person." What you really are is not what you appear on the surface; it is what you are in your heart or right lobe. The Bible is like a mirror, for you can look into the Word of God and know what you are really like.
Job 38:36; "Who endowed the heart with wisdom, or who gave understanding to the mind?" Both lobes are cited here. The mind is the left lobe; the heart is the right lobe of the soul.
2Cor 6:11-12; "O you Corinthians, our mouth has been opened face to face with you [in teaching], because our hearts [right lobes] have been enlarged [by maximum doctrine in the right lobe of the soul]. Therefore, you have not been hindered by us [in your spiritual life]; you have been hindered by your own emotions."
The Corinthian believers had receptive comprehension in the 'nous" but no retention in the "heart." Notice that emotions and heart are in contrast in this passage. Therefore, emotions are not part of the function of the right lobe of the soul.
Eph 1:18; "[I also pray] that the eyes of your hearts [right lobes] be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance for the saints."
In Rev 2:23; John adds that if emotional control continues you die. Just as when blood does not circulate through the heart there is death, so this is true in the spiritual realm.
"Furthermore, I will execute her followers with death, and so all the churches will know that I am He who investigates the emotions and the hearts, and I will administer punishment to each one of you [cosmic believers] according to your activities."
Heb 4:12; "The word of God...is a judge of both thoughts and ideas of the heart."
Heb 3:12; "Beware, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God." An evil heart of unbelief is failure to metabolize doctrine.
1Pet 3:15, "But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, always {being} ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence."
James 3:14; "But if you have bitter jealousy and strife in your heart, do not be arrogant and do not lie against the truth."
Arrogance and lying against the truth block the metabolization of doctrine. Gnosis doctrine minus epignosis is a lie against the truth.
Eph 4:18, "They have darkened their way of thinking [they always distort what is taught], they have been alienated from the life of God [they only have gnosis and lack metabolized doctrine], because of the ignorance which is in them, because of scar tissue of their heart."
The mentality of the soul is divided into two parts: the left and right lobe. The right lobe is where you do your thinking, analyzing, applying of knowledge, and is the seat of common sense. The left lobe is the place where information is assimilated and where talent functions.
Brain scientists indicate that it is like two people inhabiting our heads, each residing in the separate hemispheres of the brain. According to scientists, one is verbal, analytical, and dominant, while the other is mute and mysterious.
Scientists classify the non-speaking side as the right hemisphere and the verbal side as the left hemisphere. The Bible switches them and classifies the mute side as the left lobe and the verbal side as the right lobe.
The two halves of the brain are linked together by millions of nerves forming a thick cable called the corpus callosum
In cases of severe epilepsy, this cable sometimes has to be cut. This results in some strange occurrences. The left side of the brain no longer knows what the right side is doing; yet the speaking half of the patient is controlled by left lobe.
The person still insists on finding excuses for whatever the left side has done. His thinking part is severed from his non-thinking part and still operates under the illusion that he is one person, and that his lobes are combined. The two halves of the brain are integrated into a single mentality with the Bible referring to the speaking half as the "heart."
A child is about two years old before the link between his two hemispheres is completed. And it doesn't become completely functional until he is about ten years old.
After age ten, one side of the brain is used for synthesis, spatial perception and music, while the other side performs sequential, verbal, analytical, and computer-like activities.
God's Word tells us that the heart is the rational part of the essence of the soul; it is where the thinking, reasoning occur. It is designed to dominate the soul so it must be the target for doctrine, 1Kings 3:9,12; Psa 119:11, Psa 19:14.
To reach the target, Bible doctrine must pass through two staging areas under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit: the left lobe and the human spirit. We refer to this process where gnosis becomes epignosis as "operation Z.