THE ONLINE SEMINAR
How to Have the Living Water of Peace, Hope,
and Purpose that Jesus Promised Us
Session Three: Our Mind
Part 3
Continuing from Part 2, here are four quick examples that show how the early Christians used the word “heart” as a synonym for the human mind.
1. The first example is a question that Jesus Christ asked some teachers of the law during a debate. He asked them, “Why are you entertaining evil thoughts in your heart?”
2. On another occasion, Jesus asked His disciples this question, “Why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your hearts?”[2. Adapted from Luke, chapter 24, verse 38. It’s interesting that the New International Version of the Bible noticed this confusing use of the word “hearts” in this verse, and translated kardia more correctly as minds, instead of as “hearts.”] (However, our hearts don’t have doubts, only our minds have doubts.)
3. Then the apostle Paul once wrote, “It’s with the heart that you believe.”[3. Adapted from Romans, chapter 10, verse 10.] (But, our heart doesn’t believe things, only our mind believes things.)
4. Finally, in another letter Paul wrote, “The secrets of his heart will be laid bare …”[4. Adapted from First Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 25.] (However, our heart doesn’t have secrets, only our mind has secrets.)
These quotes show clearly that the early Christians used the word “heart” as a synonym (as an interchangeable word) for the human mind. More, the terms “evil thoughts,” “doubts,” “beliefs,” and “secrets” in these quotes represent attitudes, feelings, and opinions of the human mind. And, since these things are included in the meanings of the Greek word for “heart” (kardia), this is more evidence that the word “heart” was a convenient synonym for the “mind” (nous) to the early Christians. (Incidentally, we still use the word “heart” the same way today – such as when we say things like, “She’ll always be in his heart.” But she won’t be, and can’t be, in his “heart.” However, she can be in his mind.)
So, to standardize in the seminar once again, every time we have a quote in these sessions that uses the word “heart” to refer to the human mind, we’ll replace the word “heart” with the word mind – and then to show that we’ve standardized a term, we’ll put the word mind in parentheses. An example might look like this: “The secrets of his (mind) will be laid bare.”
Now, let’s return to our theme and ask ourselves an extremely serious question: What “software” is running the “hardware” of our mind at the moment? What “program” is telling our mind the kind of outer behavior to produce in us?
Our Behavior Today?
As we’ve said, the early Christians taught that the human mind is neither good nor evil. They taught that it’s morally neutral. It’s simply a piece of “programmable hardware” waiting for a “program” of some kind to tell it what to do. Thus, the key to Spiritual growth is to ask ourselves this question: What “program” is producing our behavior at the moment? Assuming that there is both a good and a bad “program” available for the task, which one is programming our mind today: the good “program” or the bad “program”?
We already know that one of the abilities of the human mind is making decisions – and the most important decision our mind can make is deciding which “program” is going to motivate us during the day. As we’ll see in coming sessions, the early Christians taught that there are actually two different kinds of motivational forces that can activate our mind and produce our behavior daily. One of these forces produces bad behavior in us; and one produces good behavior in us. The sad news is that the force that produces bad behavior is the most common one in people.
The happy news is that the early Christians taught how to “upload” the good force in our minds to produce good behavior in us. In fact, this was Christianity’s core teaching for the first three centuries of Christian history. So, before we close this session, let’s quickly review what we’ve said about motivation thus far.
We began this session on “Our Mind” by asking the question: “If our mind doesn’t have the mysterious abilities that the false ‘Secret of Success’ claimed for it (and it doesn’t), then what abilities does our mind have?”
We’ve now answered that question. Our mind can understand things, decide things, and exert will power. But it’s morally neutral and runs equally well on whatever mental motivation (good or bad) that we “upload” to it. That fact explains all the trouble in the world. Because many people “upload” the bad motivation in their mind each day, with the result that they have bad behavior all day (behavior such as selfishness, anger, greed, stress, etc.). We’re going to describe that bad motivation in detail in Session Four, titled “Our Nature.” Then we’re going to devote several upcoming sessions to describing how to avoid uploading this bad motivation and, instead, describing how to upload the good motivation of daily peace, hope, and purpose.
Right now, let’s continue our review. Sessions Two and Three have given us a disturbing view of human Spirituality. We saw in Session Two that, in their original condition, our inner spirits are Spiritually “dead” and have no ability to motivate us for good behavior. Now, here in Session Three, we’ve seen that our mind is Spiritually “neutral” and also doesn’t have the ability to motivate us for good behavior.
Yet, while all this is true, it’s obvious that all people everywhere are highly motivated daily (for better or for worse). So, if people’s inner spirits aren’t motivating them; and people’s human minds aren’t motivating them – what is motivating them? For most people, it’s a force that we haven’t talked about yet: The bad “program” we’ve been hinting at is motivating them. That means we need to talk about this bad “program” next, and it’s a sobering lesson.
Meanwhile, we’ve completed the Second Circle of The Three Circles diagram, so our diagram now looks like this:
Our Spirit and Our Mind
Next, we’re ready for Session Four, our challenging discussion of “Our Nature.” Let’s click to Session Four now.
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