30 - THE PERSONALITY OF MAN
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
INTRODUCTION When Professor Higgins first discovered crude Lisa Doolittle on a London street, he was convinced that she could fit into England’s high society with proper education. He recognized that the real person within is not dependent upon outward appearances, mannerisms, and dialects. Though the story of My Fair Lady was fictional, it demonstrated the ability of a person to overcome insurmountable obstacles, to accomplish preconceived dreams. A person has the power to accumulate knowledge, then interpret it, and draw conclusions that make the thinking man more independent than when the process began. A person is independent to draw insight, foresight, and hindsight, he can abstract an idea into principles, formulas, theories, or judgments. Hence, a person can be educated, not just trained as an aniMal A person can recognize, remember, and recall words, then interpret them in an hitherto unusual manner so that he creates, invents, or composes„ A person can raise himself above his teachers or his previous level of attainment. A person can create beauty, harmony, or passion through pictures, music, literature, or the arts. A person can determine a goal and pursue it. He can use fire, or create tools for his work. A person has an innate sense of right and wrong, so that he suffers agony of conscience when his conscience is violated by others or himself. A person wonders about life after death, and is inquisitive for explanations of the causes of life that he cannot understand. The inner person is so important that it becomes the criterion by which God judges each one. Saul had failed to be faithful to God as king of Israel and had to be replaced. The Lord sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to the task but gave the aging judge some special instructions. "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). In this verse the heart does not mean the physical organ but the inner man, specifically, the person. As the sons of Jesse passed before Samuel, it was David, the most unlikely, who was named as heir to the throne. While personnel managers today may be concerned with appearance, dress, health, and other matters when hiring employees, God’s approval depends upon his evaluation of the inner man.
Understanding the heart or inner man is crucial in light of the contemporary study of the makeup of man. The Bible is not a psychology textbook, but when it speaks to this subject, it is authoritative. What the Bible has to say about the heart of man sheds light on the psychological makeup and functions of man. In the Old Testament the term "heart" is used essentially to refer to a physical organ. It is the center of the circulatory system that distributes the blood of the body. The term "heart" is never used in the New Testament to denote the whole physical man, but it was a natural transition to bring the Perm "heart" into the spiritual world. The New Testament sees the heart figuratively as the center of the person or spiritual life. In every instance but one, the term "heart" in the New Testament signifies the inner man; the seat of intellect, emotions, will, and moral consciousness. The heart is the personality which has that extraordinary ability to perceive oneself. We say it is the seat of conscious life. Whether viewed in one aspect or as a whole, the heart is pictured as the fountainhead of life.
Key to understanding the personality of man is understanding what the Bible teaches about the heart. The heart is the central seat and organ of man’s conscious life in its moral, intellectual, volitional, and emotional aspects. The normal child is born with these embryonic abilities. Naturally, none of these areas are fully developed but, with the gift of life, God also gives the responsibility to develop the infant into a mature adult. THE INTELLECT OF MAN The word "brain" is not used in Scripture, although its intellectual function is surely there. The word "heart" is the immaterial term that conveys the intellectual activities of man. The brain is the physical organ through which this phenomenon operates. A number of specific intellectual activities are identified as belonging to the heart. The absence of one or more of these activities or even the severe limitation of any of these, as in the case of a retarded individual, does not make a person less of a person. Each person has some intellectual ability to a greater or lesser degree than another. The tremendous intellectual capacity is part of God’s design for the uniqueness of every individual because man is created in the image of God who has all wisdom. The following chart identifies some of these intellectual activities ascribed to the heart in Scriptures. THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES OF THE HEART
1. Thinking Hebrews 8:10 2. Planning Hebrews 4:12 3. Memory Luke 2:19 4. Perception Matthew 13:14 5. Reasoning Mark 2:1-28; Mark 3:1-35; Mark 4:1-41; Mark 5:1-43; Mark 6:1-56; Mark 7:1-37; Mark 8:1-38
Thinking. Thinking is a mental process by which we evaluate and interpret what we have seen, heard, experienced, or otherwise learned. When Paul promised the Philippians, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Php 4:7), he attached a key list of eight attributes by which they were to evaluate the content of their thinking (Php 4:8). God promised in the new covenant, "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33; cf. Hebrews 8:10). The writer of Hebrews also ascribed thought patterns to the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
Planning. The ability to plan grows out of dreams and desires, and at other times out of necessity or self-preservation. Planning is one of the greatest abilities of mean because it involves the immaterial man. Planning involves the ability to develop a strategy by which to accomplish the perceived goals that may arise from emotions, self-perception, or self-preservation. Since plans would be useless unless man had ability to decide to carry them out, they are based on the total inner man. It is again the writer to the Hebrews who teaches us the heart is the instrument for planning: "For the word of God is quick ... and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
Memory. The ability to recall the past is an intellectual activity springing from the intellect or heart. A number of unusual things occurred at the birth of Christ. While most people only observed them, "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Memory is a reconsideration of a matter on a more personal and perhaps more practical level after it has occurred. David identified the heart in connection with Scripture memory. "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee" (Psalms 119:11). When we obey the command to meditate on the Scriptures (Joshua 1:8), we are reflecting on a portion of Scripture seeking to apply it in various ways to different parts of our life. This is an activity of the heart of man.
Perception.. Sometimes we will meet a special person who sees many things we fail to see. We may listen to a lecture, but when that special person listens to the same things, he picks up much more than we do. We may be looking across a meadow and see little but grass while the! one standing next to us sees a groundhog, some birds, or a stick trapped in the creek. This ability to see and understand is called perception. Perception is the power to discern or interpret what we hear, see, or read, to see the connection between things. The lack of perception by religious leaders who listened to Jesus was a result of a darkened heart (Matthew 13:14).
Reasoning. Finally, the ability to weigh the evidence and make a rational and reasonable decision is an intellectual activity of the heart. When Jesus forgave the sins of a sick man, some listeners responded by thinking he was doing wrong. They knew that only God could forgive sins and therefore they reasoned that Jesus must be a blasphemer: "And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?" (Mark 2:8). Jesus was not critical here of the reasoning process but rather recognized it, and their ability to reason became the basis by which he condemned them. The ability to reason is a God-given ability. Used properly, God is glorified, but used falsely, man harms himself. THE EMOTIONS
Often we speak of the heart as the emotional seat of man. When two people fall in love, they might say, "I love you with all my heart." A valentine hears: is the symbol of persons who are emotionally involved. Most people have no problem understanding the use of the word "heart" to reflect the emotional part of man.
Man is an emotional being and these emotions spring from the heart. When Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" (Matthew 22:37), he identified the source of love, and later identified the opposite-hate-as springing from the heart (Matthew 15:19). When he said, "Let not your heart be troubled" (John 14:1), he recognized fear as an emotion of the heart. In the same conversation with his disciples Jesus observed, "And ye now, therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you" (John 16:22, also John 16:6). The Bible identifies several emotions springing from the heart. THE EMOTIONS
Love Matthew 22:37 Hate Matthew 15:19
Confidence John 14:1 Fear John 14:27
Joy John 16:6 Sorrow John 16:16
Peace Php 4:7 Frustration Psalms 131:1-3
Unity & Acts 2:46 Division & 1 Corinthians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 3:3 gladness strife THE VOLITIONAL PERSONALITY OF MAN
God has given each one a will, the ability to make decisions. But the free will never operates alone. God has given man the responsibility to use his intellect to examine the alternatives of life and then the will can choose the direction of life. Also, God has given man emotions to enrich his life and these sometimes control his will, while at other times the will dominates both intellect and feelings. God gives men intellect, emotions, and will to determine the direction and quality of life. Our conversion, sanctification, and relationships with others can all be determined in part by the way these act upon one another. But in this section we shall examine the will or volitional aspect of man, the final ability that makes the decisions that gives meaning to life.
Conversion. The most important decision anyone will ever make concerns his eternal salvation. God does not force anyone to believe in him because the Lord wants the free expression of a person’s trust. Jesus Christ extends an invitation to eternal life in the form of a choice. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). Even the last chapter of the Bible contains an invitation to respond to the gospel. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.... And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17). When the Holy Spirit is at work in a person, and the person responds to the invitation of the gospel by faith and is saved, he has responded from the heart. The person knows he is lost and he knows the gospel (intellect), then he is convicted of his sin and in love reaches out to God (emotions); this leads to a decision of salvation (will). ’The Bible places the process of belief in the heart (Romans 10:9), but the soul is saved. Children go through this process when they are told to pray, "Come into my heart, Lord Jesus." Paul rejoiced in the conversion of the Romans by identifying the will in the heart, "that whereas ye were once the servants of sin, ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you" (Romans 6:17).
Growth in Christ. We must serve God as Christians the same way we are saved, by faith from the heart. If we are desirous of pleasing God, we must remember that "without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). Instructing the Corinthians, Paul reminded them that a decision to give to God came from the heart. "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
Interpersonal relations. Paul told the Ephesians how a Spirit-filled Christian ought to behave„ Part of those instructions included obedience to masters on the part of servants, "in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ" (Ephesians 6:5). This obedience was obviously tied to their intellectual ability, since he used logic to appeal to their will: "doing the will of God from the heart" (Ephesians 6:6). The total personality of man is operative in each act of thinking, willing, and feeling. The one cannot be considered without the other, for man is a unity, as is God, in whose image he was created.
MORAL AWARENESS The last aspect of our definition of the heart is moral awareness. Deep within man there is a consciousness of God and an idea of what is required of him by God. John wrote, "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). By this he implied the light of God shines within every person. Paul recognized this phenomenon among heathen, "which skew the work of the law writ. ten in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another" (Romans 2:15). The conscience of man dwells in the heart, acting as a moral regulator regarding right or wrong. As missionaries travel to foreign cultures, they are often accused of westernizing primitive peoples. Actually the most primitive tribes are highly civilized in their own way. They have a social structure we usually do not acknowledge since it differs from our own. Their society has usually determined certain acts as socially acceptable and others worthy of punishment. This is the moral code upon which society makes laws. Even among primitive tribes that appear amoral, missionaries have found traces of moral absolutes reflected in their laws (Romans 2:1). These are all evidences of "the works of the law written in their hearts" (Romans 2:15), so that they have some sense of what God requires of them. The idea implied in the word "conscience" is "a knowing with oneself." Since memory and thinking operate as a function of the heart, it is the apparent location for the conscience. The heart/personality is the place where God communicates to the individual. However, it is possible for man continually to reject the message of his conscience and render it inoperative (1 Timothy 4:2). An incapacitated consciousness of God is called a seared conscience.
CONCLUSION The moment we entered this world as babes, we were fully equipped with a personality. Of course, that personality needed to be developed and polished, and skills had to be acquired, such as walking and thinking, before we could accomplish much. Often Christians fail to realize that God has made them unique for a unique purpose. Because we all are made in the image of God, we are unique persons with all the properties of personality. God made us this way for his glory (Revelation 4:11) and will use us as we become available to him. We can respond to God through our intellect, emotion, and will; 11, Plus we can improve those areas of our personalities which need improving. But in contrast, we can reject God and go our own way. Also, we can’ misuse our abilities and allow them to degenerate. Because God has given us a choice, we can make our lives what we, choose to become.
DAILY READINGS Monday: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 Tuesday: Php 4:1-9 Wednesday: Mark 7:14-23 Thursday: Proverbs 12:1-28 Friday: Proverbs 23:1-35 Saturday: Proverbs 4:20 Sunday: Matthew 15:10-20