What does the Bible say about the heart?

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on the heart.

• Psalm 9:1, thankful heart (I will give thanks to God with my whole heart)
• Psalm 26:2, heart and mind (prove me, try me, test my heart and mind)
• Psalm 37:4, desires of the heart (delight in the Lord and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart)
• Psalm 51:10, clean heart (create clean heart and a new spirit within me)
• Psalm 73:26, flesh and heart (my flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart)
• Proverbs 3:5, trusting heart (trust in the Lord with all your heart)
• Proverbs 4:23, guard your heart (watch over your heart diligently)
• Proverbs 23:26, giving one's heart (God asks us to give him our hearts and observe him with our eyes)
• Jeremiah 17:9, devious heart (the heart is perverse)
• Jeremiah 31:33, heart as inner being (God will write his law on our hearts)
• Mark 6:52, hard hearts (the disciples' hearts were hardened)
• Mark 7:21-23, inner heart (from the heart all evil comes)
• Matthew 5:8, pure in heart (blessed are the pure in heart; they will see God)
• Matthew 6:21, heart as inner compass (your heart can be found where your treasure is)
• Matthew 22:37, all your heart (Love God with all your heart and soul and mind)
• John 14:27, troubled heart (don't let your heart be troubled or afraid)
• Acts 2:37, sorrowful heart (they were cut to the heart and asked what they should do)
• Acts 13:22, after my heart (when Saul was removed, God made David the king, calling him "a man after my heart")
• Ephesians 3:16-17, heart as dwelling place (may Christ live in your heart through faith)
• Philippians 4:7, heart of peace (the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus)

Sermon ideas about the heart

Biblical language of the heart

A sermon or homily on the heart can point out that biblical language about human beings is neither scientific, on the one hand, nor merely careless, on the other. It's popular religious language that employs rough synonyms (soul, spirit, mind and heart partially overlap in meaning but have distinct connotations) and lots of synecdoche — using the part to speak of the whole. Thus, instead of discussing a person in her fundamental orientation to life, you simply speak of her heart. Instead of saying that a person has integrity, you speak simply of her heart: it's "clean" or it's "pure." Instead of saying that people are deeply corrupt, you say that the human heart is devious or perverse.

Heart language in the Bible often suggests the flux of emotion: Hearts may desire, may be troubled, may be calmed, may be hardened, may be softened, may be moved.

The prevailing use of "heart" language in the Bible is for the governing center of human beings. This is where the person's motives, desires, will, and dispositions lie. The heart is the person at his essence, at her core. In the heart are the "springs" of life — the motives, the movers of life. So to have a pure heart means that much else in life will be healthy and right. To have a devious heart is to have a devious life — devious practices, devious habits, devious character.

The heart, the governing center, is at bottom unfathomable. This can be seen with respect to both good hearts and bad ones. In the case of good hearts, common grace causes surprises. A guy with a pickup truck may have fought with his wife one Thursday. He may have yelled at his kid and stressed himself out over his $12-an-hour job and tight finances. But then he hears of a flood in another state, drops everything, and drives to the flood site. He fills, hefts, and transports sandbags all night to protect people he does not know. Looked at from a domestic angle, his heart seems unhealthy. Looked at from a public service angle, it looks wonderful.

In the case of believers, all the desires and motives of the heart are influenced by the fact that Jesus Christ is resident in it. At least a good deal of the time Jesus is the prime mover in the believer's life. This is no minor mystery — that the Lord who seems to be "back there" in history or "up there" in heaven is actually as close to me as inside my rib cage. 

A heart with Christ in it is unfathomable. Was it I who welcomed an immigrant family even when it was inconvenient? Or was it Christ in me? A sermon about the heart can explore this question.

A heart empty of Christ

A heart that is empty of Christ is also unfathomable. Ask a thief who preys on confused elderly people why he does it, and he'll say (if candid for a moment), "I want their money, and cheating them seems to be the only way to get it." But why is he willing to break the law and hurt elderly people? Because he wanted their money more than their peace of mind. But why? Because he is selfish. But why be selfish if it causes vulnerable people so much grief? Because, as the filmmaker Woody Allen once said, trying to defend his affair with the young daughter of his wife Mia Farrow, "The heart wants what it wants."

That's the conversation stopper. The imperial heart overrules all. It is unfathomable. As Jeremiah says, who can understand it?

Excerpts about the heart

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about the heart:

• "God made the human heart to reflect the divine heart. The purpose of the biblical law was to train the human heart in divine wisdom, to motivate it to respond as God's own heart responds." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Michael Simone from America: The Jesuit Review

Worship ideas about the heart

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org worship resources about the heart:

• "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me." Hymn by James E. Engel from Hymnary.org
• "When we long for your coming to change the world, and yet are unwilling to change even our own hearts: In your mercy, Lord, forgive us and heal us." Prayer of Confession by Nathan Nettleton from Re:Worship