Difference between hearts of stone and flesh

[bling]

Perhaps address the OP first before changing the subject.

I did with:
Ezekiel like all the prophets gave the people an excellent reason to repent, both woes if they do not and gifts if they do. Those excellent reasons should work for even the selfish hardened hearts of the people, for they can for selfish reasons repent of their ways. Once, they are showered with these gifts including a heart of flesh, they can out of a Loving gratitude worship God.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

If that’s what you think the passage is about, then you’re right. You shouldn’t.

If that's what you think I think the passage is about, then you're as wrong as you think I am.

 

[Hammster]

If that's what you think I think the passage is about, then you're as wrong as you think I am.

Since I don’t...

 

[redleghunter]

I did with:
Ezekiel like all the prophets gave the people an excellent reason to repent, both woes if they do not and gifts if they do. Those excellent reasons should work for even the selfish hardened hearts of the people, for they can for selfish reasons repent of their ways. Once, they are showered with these gifts including a heart of flesh, they can out of a Loving gratitude worship God.

If you notice those warnings came under the Sinai covenant.

 

[Swan7]

Given the context of Ezekiel, the stone is unbelief and the flesh is belief in God/ YHWH.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Given the context of Ezekiel, the stone is unbelief and the flesh is belief in God/ YHWH.

Ok so when He returns in His stone kingdom of Daniel to break the world kingdoms into minipetras then hearts of stone will meet stone or flesh? .... that is the question ....

 

[Swan7]

Ok so when He returns in His stone kingdom of Daniel to break the world kingdoms into minipetras then hearts of stone will meet stone or flesh? .... that is the question ....

Ok... what’s the issue? I replied due to the context of the situation then. Do you know something I may not? Please, edify.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Ok... what’s the issue? I replied due to the context of the situation then. Do you know something I may not? Please, edify.

I guess like everything else it depends on the timeline we were not provided with. np

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I think it’s the other way around. A wooden heart is just rubble but a heart of stone can endure, and a heart of flesh would be a relief in understanding.

The heart of flesh agonizes over sin, while the heart of stone is oblivious. An example of this is the way people just shove their shopping carts willy-nilly into the cart corrals, causing unnecessary work for others (many times per day). The fleshly hearted people put their carts away neatly, in hopes that others will follow their example. They agonize because it seldom is effective. They see the 'godawful' ways people behave, make decisions, etc. and 'sigh and cry' over it

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. The spirit runs deep but shadows are only seen on the surface. Living water from the Father through the smitten rock who is the son of God contains the power that draws from the divine source and fills the heart with peace.

 

[fhansen]

And it impresses me so much how wisely God has laid this out-that He seeks to draw man into that state, and to remain there. Sin would never have been possible to begin with if He had not allowed that very freedom, for justice/righteousness to be an option for man. And the more we opt for love, for God, the more just or righteous we become, which is His goal for us. He wants much for us, and that means expecting something from us even as He, Himself, is the very means to that something. I really appreciate this teaching I'm familiar with that helps to unveil the dynamic involved here:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts.

Together with other teachings that maintain that grace is necessary for this orientation to even begin, we can understand God's purposes as He does His work in us. And yet presumably only in heaven, where we see God "face to face", knowing fully as we are fully known (1 Cor 13), will this binding be complete, our love fully blossomed.

 

[Hammster]

And it impresses me so much how wisely God has laid this out-that He seeks to draw man into that state, and to remain there. Sin would never have been possible to begin with if He had not allowed that very freedom, for justice/righteousness to be an option for man. And the more we opt for love, for God, the more just or righteous we become, which is His goal for us. He wants much for us, and that means expecting something from us even as He, Himself, is the very means to that something. I really appreciate this teaching I'm familiar with that helps to unveil the dynamic involved here:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts.

Together with other teachings that maintain that grace is necessary for this orientation to even begin, we can understand God's purposes as He does His work in us. And yet presumably only in heaven, where we see God "face to face", knowing fully as we are fully known (1 Cor 13), will this binding be complete, our love fully blossomed.

I knew you’d end up walking it back.

 

[Monksailor]

Why is this necessary? What can the heart of flesh do that the heart of stone cannot?

The phrase "heart of stone" is a metaphor to depict insensitivity, coldness, mean, incorrigible, and inhuman. The heart of flesh is at least one capable of being good, compassionate, warm and friendly at times, howbeit mixed with corruption.

 

[fhansen]

I knew you’d end up walking it back.

You know, just hate leaving things unclarified.

 

[Hammster]

You know, just hate leaving things unclarified.

Well, your two post are contradictory.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

well here’s an interesting bit of scripture that I was looking up because I was bored. I looked up adamant in the biblical library because I keep telling myself ‘upandatemadamant’ and then never get anything done. Like the dishes that have been piling up for a week. So I thought this was just going to be another ‘adamant’ day. Wondering what type of day that may entail I proceeded to look it up. Heaven forbid that I should wash a plate today, but I really do plan to.

Anyway adamant apparently has something to do with this topic! Apparently a heart of stone can never be a good thing. or I think I was perhaps confusing a heart of stone with prudence. But prudence apparently takes a heart of flesh.
Prudence. In order to act well, we need to make good judgments about how we should behave. This is precisely the sort of habit associated with prudence, which Aquinas defines as "wisdom concerning human affairs" (STIIaIIae 47.2 ad 1) or “right reason with respect to action”

Zechariah 7:12
Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.

Ezekiel 3:8-9 are the only other place in any translation that adamant is used.
Intelesting

 

[fhansen]

Well, your two post are contradictory.

Hmm...ok, I gave that some consideration, and, nah. It's never been an either/or thing with God, but both/and. Can't do it it without Him, He doesn't do it without us.

That's why Adam could fall in Eden, and why all the centuries of human drama and struggle and sin between then and now, where man was patiently led and educated and prepared for the coming of Christ when he might finally be ready to begin to receive the full light-and choose rightly-as opposed to the choice Adam made, for example.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Hmm...Ok, I gave that some consideration, and, nah. It's never been an either/or thing with God, but both/and. Can't do it it without Him, He doesn't do it without us.

Obviously you have never studied Dagon.

 

[fhansen]

Obviously you have never studied Dagon.

Was he a prophet or something? Or maybe a wannabe at least? I mean the bible and the church have provided plenty enough fodder, no? I've sort of become jaded with listening to men to tell you the truth, having studied the thoughts of quite a few. They're not always without benefit though, of course.

 

[Hammster]

Hmm...ok, I gave that some consideration, and, nah. It's never been an either/or thing with God, but both/and. Can't do it it without Him, He doesn't do it without us.

That's why Adam could fall in Eden, and why all the centuries of human drama and struggle and sin between then and now, where man was patiently led and educated and prepared for the coming of Christ when he might finally be ready to begin to receive the full light-and choose rightly-as opposed to the choice Adam made, for example.

When you said, of the heart of flesh, “It can embrace goodness, light, faith, hope, love; it can embrace God,” the implication was that the heart of stone could not do those things.