We could probably do a whole series of blog posts on the meaning of common scriptural terms that many of you—like me—grew up hearing all the time without really having a clear picture to match. And maybe we should. But for today, I want to look at one in particular that has always been enormously important to all of us here in the company: the heart.

Scripture talks about the heart constantly. There are three different major terms used to describe the components of our nonphysical selves: the heart, the soul, and the spirit. Many of us use these interchangeably, but while there is some overlap, they all have unique, distinct definitions. Now, when we talk about the spiritual heart, we obviously don’t mean the organ in the left side of your chest that pumps blood through your body. Biblical thought understands this spiritual heart to be associated with the head.

Briefly, the soul is our temporal, animal self, and is strongly associated with our bodies. The spirit is our true, eternal self. The heart, then, is a sort of organ connecting the two. It has a foot in both worlds, so to speak. So let’s see what understanding we can gain.

What is the Heart?

The first mention of the heart in scripture occurs in Genesis 6:5, in the passages leading up to the Flood: “The Lord saw that the wickedness (depravity) of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination or intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.” There is an interesting association there, the “imagination or intent of the thoughts of his heart.” If you look at the original Hebrew of this section—on a side note, I use the Discovery Bible app to check in on the original language, if you haven’t tried it you really should—there is one word translated as both “imagination or intent,” it’s “yasar.” Properly, this word means a form, framing, or purpose, and is also used of potters working in clay: a skillfully formed image. The message here, as I was taught by my own spiritual mentor years ago, is that the language of the heart is IMAGES. “The images of the thoughts of his heart.”

On its own, I understand that sounds a little thin, but let’s build this idea out into our scientific understanding. According to Antonio Damasio, one of the world’s foremost neurologists, “imageless thought is impossible.” You cannot do ANYTHING if you don’t have an image for it. You can’t even go to the bathroom without an image in your head of what that means. I’ve talked to a number of experts who have told me that as best we can tell, animals do not have the ability to imagine. Man alone has the unique capacity to create images in his head of things that he has never yet seen, and mentally speaking that may be one of the most important differences between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

Albert Einstein famously said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination in the “yasar” sense, meaning the ability to intentionally and skillfully form images to focus our intentions. In other words, the ability to discover is more important than any individual discovery.

In 1981, Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for his work on split brain research. He worked with former epileptics whose corpus callosum had been severed, meaning that the right and left hemispheres could not easily communicate, and he conducted experiments that helped to redefine our understanding of brain function by isolating visual input from one hemisphere or the other.

For example, he would have a patient wear an eyepatch over their left eye, meaning that only the left hemisphere was receiving visual input (the optic nerves crisscross before reaching the brain, so the left eye feeds into the right hemisphere and vice-versa). When the left hemisphere was isolated, patients could identify words, but not the meaning of those words. He would show a patient the word “FORK” on a screen, and they would be able to read and recite the word, but not comprehend its meaning. They could not associate the word with the object.

Conversely, when the right brain was isolated, patients could not consciously identify the word. They would say that they didn’t see a word on the screen, even while looking right at it! But they intuited its meaning. When Dr. Sperry told them to pick up the object in front of them of which they were most aware, they would reach for the fork without hesitation. The left brain is  concerned with language and linear, analytical reasoning. The right brain deals in intuition, emotions, and images. The left brain must take its time to analyze, the right brain makes decisions immediately and automatically.

Scriptural Associations

So we know that the right brain is closely associated with the unconscious mind, which through the mechanism of the hypothalamus, controls our autonomic body systems, hormone levels, our stress and fight or flight responses… in short, what you might call our autonomic outlook. We know that this part of our brain is based on images, as alluded to in Genesis 6. But you can even take this association even further.

Obviously, the Hebrews of the BC world did not know about the specific functionality of brain hemispheres. But of course, they did have concepts of cautious, analytical thinking versus visionary, intuitive thinking. They had their own lenses for viewing these things, but the concepts have existed for as long as thinking people, so it should be no surprise that they can map to each other so easily. We are not talking about the rational versus the irrational, but about two ways of thinking that are rational in different ways.

Funny enough though, the old Hebrew concepts equating to the left and right brain actually did have a left and right association, though for different reasons. Two of the most important animal symbols in the Bible were the lion and the ox. The lion was associated with spirit, kingship, and the inner man. It was creative, visionary, intuitive, and a natural leader. In other words, right brained. The ox was an agricultural symbol, symbolizing the soul and body, the outer man. It was thought to be strong, reliable, and methodical, but a follower. The ox’s job was to faithfully carry out the lion’s vision.

The left and right association follows from the idea of kingship. You’ve heard the concept of being someone’s “right hand man,” yes? In Hebrew tradition, the king’s right hand was the place of honor, reserved for his most trusted servant or advisor, which was the place of the lion, while the ox sat on the left. You can see this in the vision of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 1, when he beholds the strange beast with multiple heads, it is the lion’s head on the right and the ox’s head on the left.

In Ecclesiastes 10, King Solomon the Wise writes that, “the heart of the wise man is on the right, but the heart of the fool is on the left.” I would normally show you more of the chapter, but the surrounding verses do not expand on this concept. I believe the proper meaning refers to this dichotomy between the lion and ox, which either by chance or divine inspiration, seems to perfectly match the dichotomy we can now observe unfolding in our own brains.

Lastly, there is the word of Jesus Himself in talking about how we should give to the poor: “Do not left your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” So what is the reason for the dominance of the right hand here?

Let’s all remember that favorite proverb of mine, “Guard your heart above everything else, for from it flow all the issues of life.” The heart, which I believe includes the right brain and unconscious mind, is the source of all life’s issues, for better and worse. What you reap all depends on what you put into it, good seed or bad, the word of God, or the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. But it doesn’t do to let the left-brained ox stifle it. Remember that the first step in doing anything is an image. If you want to learn, to build, to create, the lion must lead.

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd