Let’s talk about your brain.

Did you know that the Old Testament holds some key truths regarding the brain’s frontal lobe? Consider this passage from the book of Deuteronomy.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:4-9)

In a culture where family values are crumbling, this passage is critical for any readers who are parents. And most of the principles found in this passage are not too difficult to comprehend.

• The first few verses are fairly self-explanatory. As parents, we must accept that we should “impress” God’s commandments on our children, and “talk about them” when we’re at home or out and about, living life.
• The final line of the passage is also fairly easy to understand. It is highly beneficial to set aside physical reminders of God’s commandments, in order for them to be brought to memory at a later time. Many Christian households literally have Scripture verses placed in highly visible places in their homes as reminders.

Verse 8 is often the challenge.

Quite often, verse eight causes some confusion among readers. What does “bind them on your foreheads” mean exactly?

• In a more modern approach to this verse, someone could easily jump to the interpretation of tattoos. That we should display Scripture on our bodies like we do our homes. After all, forehead and hand tattoos would definitely be the most visible! Personally, I’m not opposed to Scripture tattooing, but this interpretation misses the mark.
• On the other side, within the Jewish Orthodox context, verse eight is interpreted quite literally. When they read “tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads“, they actually write Scripture on small pieces of parchment, place them in tiny boxes and attach them to their wrists and foreheads. Interesting tradition, but they also miss the mark.

In reflection, there is a great deal of commitment within both of these approaches. However, neither of them directly leads to an improvement in one’s actions or behaviours before God. Once again, they miss the mark on what God is trying to reveal to us.

Our brain holds the answer…literally!

It turns out that a more realistic answer can be found by understanding how God has designed the human brain. More specifically, how God has designed the brain to function, in relation to behaviour (s). Modern science has revealed that behind or under one’s forehead is a section of the brain called the Frontal Lobe.

The Frontal Lobe is responsible for “motor control and cognitive activities, such as planning, making decisions, setting goals, speech, and purposeful behavior“.  Further study shows that the area in the very front of the Frontal lobe is the Prefrontal Cortex.  The Prefrontal Cortex supports functions “involving the integration of information about emotion, memory, and environmental stimuli” and “support the regulation of behavior and control of responses to environmental stimuli“. (TheRefinersFire.org/Phylacteries.htm)

In short, the Prefrontal Cortex is where we make decisions to take action on thought or shorter still, the Prefrontal Cortex handles one’s behaviour. To bring this back to our passage, God (who designed our brains) was leading Moses to be as specific as possible, in exactly where we should store His commandments.

Wait! What about the “symbols on your hands“?

Well, I think this understanding of how God has designed our brains can shed some light on this concept as well. As we already established, the Frontal Lobe deals with motor control and cognitive activities.

• For example, no healthy adult, living in Western society, really has to think deeply about brushing their teeth. Sure, maybe about squeezing the toothpaste into a straight line on the brush. But once the toothbrush is placed into one’s mouth, the hand and brain seem to take over until the job is finished and it’s time to rinse.

Considering our text and scientific research on the Frontal Lobe, perhaps God was indicating something significantly greater in verse eight? Furthermore, considering the fact that God designed us, He must be fully aware that the actions we repeatedly do with our hands, become second nature to us.

Eventually, these actions become so automatic, to the point of character traits. If these actions and behaviours are generated initially by following Scriptural instruction, then the passage holds even greater meaning.

Moving forward, we should never be surprised if and when scientific data on the human brain, that God has designed, points us to possible Scriptural understanding and/or clarification.