Everything Comes From the Heart
Everything we do comes from our hearts. One of the most succinct ways the Bible states this truth is found in Proverbs 4:23. The idea can be stated so succinctly because it contains two metaphors. The first metaphor is pretty familiar to us - your heart. In the mind of the author of Proverbs and his original hearers, the heart is the center of a person. The heart is comprised of the thoughts, volition, conscience and more. The second metaphor isn’t terribly difficult to understand either. It combines two words in the original language of Hebrew. The first word communicates the idea of the place things begin: their source, starting point, or the place from where things outpour. The second word communicates life. So the metaphor is like a river of life or the place from where all life flows. Combine the two images and you get a picture of all life flowing out of the starting place of the heart. According to this verse, ou...