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Proverbs 23:12 · World English Bible

Proverbs 23:12 Meaning Apply Your Heart to Instruction

Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge.

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What does Proverbs 23:12 mean?

There is a willingness that turns the whole mind toward being taught, and this turning is the small opening love has always waited for. To apply the heart is to want the correction, not merely to hear it, and to lean the ear toward what is true is to loosen the grip of what the ego insists upon.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 23:12 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

There is a willingness that turns the whole mind toward being taught, and this turning is the small opening love has always waited for. To apply the heart is to want the correction, not merely to hear it, and to lean the ear toward what is true is to loosen the grip of what the ego insists upon.

A mind learns peace only as fast as it consents to. The instruction is gentle and the knowledge already given, so nothing has to be forced or earned, only received. What a person offers is simply the readiness to be shown.

Heart: the deep willingness of the mind, the part that must consent before any teaching can enter Ears: the mind turned toward truth, the opening that lets love's correction be received

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 23:12 today

  1. Read or watch one thing today that you suspect will change your mind, and stay with it past the point where you want to argue.
  2. Ask someone who knows you well what you are not seeing, and write it down without defending yourself.
  3. When you get critical feedback at work, say thank you first, really mean it, and leave the explanation for tomorrow if it is still needed.

What would you learn today if you were not busy being right?

The same truth in other traditions

Zen · Shunryu Suzuki

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's there are few, because he has already decided.

Taoism · Tao Te Ching 48

Gathering knowledge adds something every day. The way takes something away every day, until there is nothing left to defend.

Sufism · Rumi

Your task is not to hunt for love but to find and clear away the walls you built against it. The opening is the whole work.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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