The Christian's New Heart
DVD

CONTENTS:
The Christian's New Heart (PDF),
The Ways of the Heart (PDF),
8 Heart Booklets (PDF),
Slides

The Christian's New Heart (Advanced Study No. 2)

The Ways of the Heart

Frank Allnutt

$45.00

For Quantity Discounts, Please Click Here To Contact Us

In this second Advanced Study in The Christian's New Heart Series, best selling author Frank Allnutt guides us through studies of "biblical profiles" of the nonbeliever ("Adam-Hearted Man"), the fleshly believer ("Half-Hearted Christian"), and the spiritual believer ("Whole-Hearted Christian"). The profiles are developed from Christ's teachings about the spiritual heart and other passages in Scripture, and give us helpful insights into the nature and behavior of man from several Scriptural perspectives, including the positional, relational, ontological, conditional, functional, and behavioral.

As in the first Advanced Study in this series—The Christian's New Heart—this study presents the biblical doctrine of the spiritual heart in the author's usual, straight forward and insightful style. His many heart illustrations simply yet profoundly interpret "God's Model of the Heart." They are especially helpful in teaching and understanding sometimes complex and abstract biblical concepts.

Click here to read The Whole-Hearted Christian, adapted from The Ways of the Heart

The Ways of the Heart Contents

Section 1: The Ways of Adam
Section 2: The Ways of the Adam-Hearted Man
Section 3: The Ways of the Christ-Hearted Man
Section 4: The Ways of Spiritual Masters
Section 5: The Ways of Satan vs. The Ways of God
Section 6: The Ways of Sin vs. The Ways of Love
Section 7: The Ways of the World vs. The Ways of God's Kingdom
Section 8: The Ways of Law and The Ways of Grace
Section 9: The Ways of Lies vs. The Ways of Truth
Section 10: The Fruit of Our Works
Section 11: The Ways of the Whole-Hearted Christian

Book:
Illustrated
168 pages
8.5" x 11", 3-Ring Binder
ISBN 0-934374-05-8

DVD:
Slides from The Christian's New Heart and The Ways of the Heart
in 3 formats: PowerPoint, QuickTime, and Keynote.
ISBN 0-934374-29-5

“Personhood”: A Biblical Perspective
(Excerpted from The Christian’s New Heart)

“Personhood” is not a theory, not a philosophical concept, and not something that pro-lifers invented to give credence to their moral and political viewpoints: “Personhood” is at the core of Biblical anthropology which, among other things, discloses that a human being or person comes into existence at the moment of conception, i.e., when a human female egg is fertilized by a human sperm.

According to the Bible, before God created the heavens and the earth, He created personal spirit beings—namely angels. After the earth was created, God created animals, birds, and fish, which are referred to as “creatures” (Genesis 1:21, 24, 2:19, etc.). “Creature” is from the Hebrew term nephesh, which literally means “soul.” Scriptures indicate that God also gave animals spirit or a life center (Genesis 7:15, 22; Ecclesiastes 3:21). Because animals possess bodies, are soulical, and have a spirit, they have biological and psychological abilities to function in their physical environment. However, while soul and spirit are attributed to animals, animals are not personal beings; that is, they are not created with godlike personhood. They lack a sense of “self” and thus self-determination, do not have a sense of morality, and do not have perpetuity of life (their existence ends at the time of physical death).

Man is not merely another species of animal, but a personal being—a spirit being in a physical body. We read of this in the Genesis account of the creation of the first man, Adam.
Adam was a person. God first created a “man” organism from the dust of the ground. But he was not complete. For then God created that unique personal aspect of Adam—the spiritual Adam—in His image, and integrated it with the “man” organism. This is all described in Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” “Breath of life” in this verse is translated from the original Hebrew term, neshamah (ruach elsewhere). Both terms are sometimes translated “spirit,” but neshamah is more precise in that it can mean “person alive” or “living person” (The term used in reference to the procreated spirit part of man is usually ruach.) So, it can be said that God created Adam in a spiritual state as a “living person,” and placed him in the body of the “man” organism formed of dust.

God is active in the creation of Adam’s descendants—He is “your Maker” (Isaiah 17:7) “who made you and formed you from the womb” (Isaiah 44:2). Eve, on delivering her first child, proclaimed: “I have gotten a man child with the help of the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). From that event on, every person was procreated in Adam’s image (human nature, consisting of body, soul, spirit, and natural life), and was also created a “person” or spirit-being by God “in His likeness” (Genesis 5:3, James 3:9).

The “hidden person of the heart”
In the New Testament we find reference to that aspect of a person which is created in God’s image and which is distinct from procreated human nature. It is referred to as the “hidden person [literally, man] of the heart...which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4). “Person” is an English word, of course, and it usually denotes the whole person. But there is another English term that seems to most closely capture the biblical meanings of “living person” and “hidden person.” That word is “personhood.”

So, God-created personhood, along with procreated human nature (body, soul, and spirit) comprise a human being.

The godly features of personhood
Personhood is created by God in His image (sans His unique diety), according to Genesis 1:26, 27, 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7. Personhood gives its godly features to the body, soul, and spirit, and those three give features of human nature to personhood. The life that animates a person (Adamic sinful, natural and everlasting life or Christ’s righteous, supernatural and eternal life) determines the moral or ethical nature of a person.

Personhood has four features which correspond to God’s personhood, but not to any non-personal life form, such as animals:

1. Essential spiritual being or “selfhood.” It is what we refer to as “I,” “me,” and “self,” and which is capable of self-awareness, self-determination, and self-expression.

2. Uniqueness. This is what makes each person an individual—a unique spirit being who is distinct from all others.

3. Morality. This is the innate ability to recognize and distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies, love and sin, and to express them through behavior. The Bible refers to this as the natural law which God “writes on the hearts” of all people (Romans 2:14, 15).

4. Perpetuity. God creates personhood to last forever. Enjoined with procreated life, soul, and spirit at the time of conception, it gives everlasting existence to the spiritual heart or spiritual self.

©Frank Allnutt Legal & Acknowledgments