Guard your heart

Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (NIV)


Philippians 4:7 "and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (NKJV)

These are the only two verses in the Bible that I know which use the phrase "guard your heart" (at least in some translations), yet this phrase is used all over by Christians offering advice on relationships.

It's rather ironic.

The first verse in its context seems to be quite clear in its warning to guard your heart, against sin, not against possibly painful emotions, which is how it's generally used.

The second verse seems to be speaking of guarding the heart from anxiety and worry.  Again, not much to do with romance.

When most Christians today use the phrase "guard your heart" they are warning against becoming too emotionally involved too quickly with a member of the opposite sex.  Such warnings may be logical, but I'm beginning to wonder if they're Biblical.

Some might argue that in the culture the Bible was written in there was no idea of dating.  Marriages were generally arranged, and a bride might only know her intended husband for a brief time before they were legally married.  There was then a time of "betrothal" where, though legally married they were not physically intimate, in which emotional attachment could presumably be cultivated.  Thus, there was little risk of developing an emotional attachment to someone who was not to be your husband and girls could effectively "guard their hearts" and avoid painful breakups.  Christians then argue from this culture to say that young men and women pursuing a relationship should attempt to avoid emotional attachment until at least engagement, thus making break-ups less painful.

I have at least two problems with this argument.

First of all, simply because something was done a certain way in the culture of ancient Israel, I don't think that is reasonable to conclude that that is the best way to do it.  All cultures need to be redeemed by the gospel, and Israelite culture is no exception.  There is evidence that some of these same women who were so properly betrothed, once married, also worshiped clay images of women with large breasts, praying for fertility.  Should we then advise Christian couple struggling with fertility to make their own clay goddesses to pray to?  Arguments from culture, though possibly having valuable insight, are not on par with arguments from Scripture.

Second, I don't recall any place in the Bible where we are told to avoid emotional pain.  Human nature wants to avoid pain, and there is no wisdom in looking for it unnecessarily, but some emotional pain is unavoidable.

C. S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves:
Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.”
To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities.…
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.