Historic pastoral reading
Desire needs testing. Scripture does not treat inner feeling as the last word.
Jeremiah 17:9-10
Follow your heart.
The text
WEB
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
10 I, Yahweh, search the mind and try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
KJV
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
What kind of text
- Prophecy
- Jeremiah
- The heart
Jeremiah warns that the heart is not a safe compass.
How Christians have read this
Common misuse
Used to baptize impulse as guidance.
What the next verse does
The next lines contrast trust in man with trust in the Lord.
Older commentary
Matthew Henry
Henry on Jeremiah 17:9: the heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it?
Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon: do not make the inner feeling the last judge.