Some wit once said, “The quality of life depends on the liver.” There is some truth in that, even in the biological sense, for our livers assimilate goodness from food. In a similar manner, as believers, we assimilate the goodness of God by staying connected to our ultimate source of nutrition – Jesus Christ.
Digestion
Consider from a biblical standpoint how the dead food you swallow into your gut becomes transformed into the living being that is you. Food is digested in the stomach and intestines. Extracted nutrition with information about gut reactions passes into the bloodstream and goes into the liver, where it is transformed into nourishment which passes back into the blood. It then goes through the heart and into the lungs, where it is exposed to air and atmosphere, before it returns to the heart. The heart can thus be seen to collate everything before distributing it all around the body. We can see, then, that all our life comes into the circulating blood, as stated in Leviticus 17:11.
So where does our actual life come from? Is it just a biochemical reaction? No! God breathes life into us (Gen 2:7). Our life comes from the breath of God!
Yet in the air we breathe, and in the atmosphere in which we live, there is much more than just oxygen. There are various gases and chemicals, electromagnetic waves, light, bacteria and influences, all of which impinge upon us, for good or ill.
This is true also in the spiritual realm. The more conscious we are of what affects us, and of how it affects us, the more spiritual self-control we muster. The Holy Spirit gives discernment and words of knowledge to help us.
We are affected by everything we imbibe, whether we perceive it or not.
Jesus knew what he was doing when he instituted the swallowing of bread and wine into our bowels to remind us to be feeding on him and his painful, victorious passion and death until he comes again.
Emotion
Bowels are mentioned numerous times in the Bible (King James Version), in connection with powerful emotions, perceptions and thoughts. Jeremiah’s bowels were famously anguished as he realised the inevitable devastation that would result from his country’s faithlessness (Jer. 4:19). Job’s bowels boiled with unrest (Job 30:27). “My bowels were moved for him,” sings the beloved in Song of Songs (5:4). Paul describes tenderness, compassion, kindness, and comfort from bowels of mercy (Phil. 2:1; Col. 3:12) whereas John describes an absence of love when bowels of compassion are shut up (1 John 3:17).
In those days no distinction was made between the thorax and abdomen. Everything within the cavity of the body - heart, lungs, intestines and womb - were subsumed under the term ‘bowels.’ This is perhaps best demonstrated in Psalm 22: “…my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels” (v. 14, KJV) The medical adjective ‘splanchnic’ still retains this connotation.
The so-called Enlightenment changed the way we see ourselves. Anatomical dissections by Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively had demonstrated the large internal diaphragm muscle separating chest from belly. The diaphragm contracts and moves down as breath is drawn in. And the diaphragm will automatically remain tense if it should be necessary to fight, flee or defend yourself against exposing your true feelings.
It became politely anodyne to speak only of the feelings of the heart. Gut emotion was considered dangerous, irrational, romantic and weird.
Humanism glorified the capabilities of humankind and made people appear clever, more rational – and nicer. Human solutions were required. It became politely anodyne to speak only of the feelings of the heart. Gut emotion was considered dangerous, irrational, romantic and weird.
Truth in the Inner Parts
Modern Bibles, in consequence, substitute the words ‘body,’ ‘womb’ or ’heart’ in places where the King James Version uses the word ‘bowels’. Yet the old KJV meaning is relevant for a proper understanding of what David referred to when he told us that God requires “truth in the inner parts” (Ps 51:6) and for a proper grasp of what Paul was referring to in Ephesians when he said: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (3:16-17).
Enlightenment culture stopped people from admitting to raw emotion in their guts (often the result of trauma). Rage, terror, witchcraft, lust, confusion, etc., were sins that were shameful, not to be revealed. Churches made rules of behaviour to save souls from being contaminated.
Unless we allow his peace to come into our profoundest emotional responses, we are not committing our lives fully to Jesus Christ.
Yet it is from the bowels that the heart is moved and the brain sends checks and controls. The bowels are the inner parts into which Holy Spirit will bring his healing. We tell God what we feel in our guts and confess it all, sometimes commanding it out in the name of Jesus, inviting him in and accepting with grateful hearts the victory over death that Christ won for us at the cross. He will show us his truth and his way. Unless we allow his peace to come into our profoundest emotional responses, we are not committing our lives fully to Jesus Christ.
Isaiah tells us that our salvation is to be found in repentance and rest, and our strength from God in quietness and trust (30:15). In these qualities, our diaphragm muscle can relax because with God there is no need to feel vulnerable. The Father loves us even when we are a total mess. We can let him into the truth about ourselves and allow him to take all our sin and guilt and shame. He will set us free and put his Spirit in our guts, with power.
Because of the state someone was in, I suggested they might take a deep breath, “As if you were breathing into your hips.” (This would loosen the diaphragm muscle.) The reply I received was, “I can’t do that because if I breathe deeply like that I get bad feelings and thoughts that I cannot handle.” A surprising number of people would say the same thing.
Much mental illness could be healed if people knew how to allow Jesus to take the badness and pain in their guts. Other people, of course, just act on their gut feelings, without any reference to their Saviour, then wonder much later why everything has gone wrong. Most people, however, like to substitute religious rules for living which saves them from having disturbing feelings, instead of enjoying an abundant living relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Without Holy Spirit, the origin of our inspiration and reason is always pagan.
All in the Mind
If we keep the diaphragm tense, constantly defensive because there seems to be no one to trust, we shall be cutting ourselves off from our gut reactions. If then we live mostly in our minds, we shall run the risk of becoming cut off from reality; for gut sense is a vital indicator of what is actually going on. We might even become deluded, which happens when our minds become overburdened.
This is not helped by an academic tradition which goes back to Plato that deems our human emotions unreliable and effectively substitutes ‘The Divine Light of the Mind’ of the Neoplatonists. Despite the reasoning of René Descartes (‘I think therefore I am’ which still prevails) this is not of God.
We are warned in 2 Corinthians 11:14 about the one who masquerades as an angel of light. Our academic institutions, nevertheless, remain full of the opinion that deductive and inductive reason should not be contaminated by human feelings. Without Holy Spirit, the origin of our inspiration and reason is always pagan.
Yet God is working his purposes out. He is in charge, and he is merciful. Let us, therefore, bring our emotions, our gut feelings, to Jesus, allowing him into our innermost being.
John Gordon was formerly a GP, a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. He is now a licensed minister in The Order of Jacob’s Well.