WITH THE HEART

In speaking of the people's unwillingness to place their faith in Jesus, the Apostle John says,

"For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere (in Isaiah 6:10):
'He has blinded their eyes
and deadened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
nor understand with their hearts,
nor turn - and I would heal them.'" (John 12:39-40) 

Understand with their ... hearts? Doesn't he mean "minds"?

I don't want to make too much of a single passage in Scripture, but it is interesting that John and Isaiah speak here of people comprehending the Gospel with their hearts.

Christian author James K. A. Smith says that we often miss the mark in communicating the Gospel or Scripture in general because we conceive of human beings as "brains on sticks". 

If we just make a convincing argument and have all our facts in line, people should assent to the Truth, right? 

But it seldom works that way. 

For better or worse, we humans - you, me, and everybody else - are simply not as logical as we would like to think. 

And if the Gospel does not hit people on the level of emotion and desire - things of the heart - they will not likely "understand" it at all.