FAITH: Hardening Our Hearts
Jan 30th, 2008 by azdean
Consider this verse:
John 12:40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.”
The Greek word for “hardened” in this verse is “poroo” which means, “to grow hard, callous, become dull, lose the power of understanding”. The etymology for this word (see here) says the word comes “apparently from poros (a kind of stone)”. Now I assume that a poros stone is a kind of “porous” stone, or a stone that is full of pores or holes.
Think about it. A porous stone’s holes make it rough and by handling it a lot, one will develop callouses that thicken the skin, so that the skin can bare that roughness. But those same callouses also make it hard to be sensitive to materials that are not rough and full of pores.
Thus, we have a natural defensive mechanism that on the one hand protects us from injuring ourselves from rough materials, but on the other hand we lose our ability to be soft, sensitive and discerning. In other words, we lose our ability to be sensitive as we suffer the abrasions of this world. In other words, it is not wise to handle rough things that coarsen our lives.
So, what rough things do our hearts rub up against that harden them? What do we expose our hearts to that dulls them, maybe protecting us from sharp and cutting things, but in fact making us dull and thick and hardened?
Going a little further, I noticed that besides being translated as “hardened”, the word “poroo” is also translated as “blinded” two times in the Bible. Here we could think of those pores as what allows lies to come pouring through, not only deceiving us but also twisting or thickening our perception of reality making it hard for us to see the truth.
When we are hardened, we are blind. When we are blind, we can’t see the truth. When we can’t see the truth, we can’t understand. When we can’t understand, we can’t be used. When we can’t be used… well, then we’re like an old wineskin, and there is not much use for us.
How abrasive is the world today? How much is it coarsening us? How can we guard against this abrasion, soften our hearts and *gain* understanding instead of losing it?
What do you think?
