Understanding the Human Heart

I like reading anything Mike Emlet writes. Mike has written, in my opinion, the best short treatment of the relationship between the human heart (you were created to worship God), physiology (your brain chemistry), relational influences (your alcoholic, absent father), and societal-cultural influences (you grew up in a poor, urban neighborhood). Mike’s diagrams (pictures) are particularly helpful. Take 20 minutes this week to work through his article: Understanding the Influences of the Human Heart.

Using a series of diagrams, Mike Emlet shows the relationship between human responsibility (the “heart”) and the impact of physiological, relational and societal-cultural influences. Mike’s goal is to help us avoid the two extremes that ultimately short circuit the process of biblical change: either ignoring the context in which we live or concluding that the context is determinative of the way we live. Either extreme truncates the transformative message of the gospel.