The matter of man’s spirit is a most neglected subject. Even among Christians there is an inadequate understanding and appreciation of the human spirit.
After a conference I had in Hong Kong in 1954, a Brethren preacher who had attended came to talk with me. He had enjoyed the conference, he said, but could not quite agree with everything that was said. The distinction I had made between spirit and soul he would not accept. Man, in his view, has only two parts: a material, physical body and a psychological, invisible soul. Spirit and soul, he felt, were interchangeable terms.
I pointed him to 1 Thessalonians 5:23: “...your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” If spirit and soul referred to the same part of us, there would have been no need for Paul to put the conjunction “and” between them. It seems as if Paul deliberately wanted to make a distinction between these two parts, lest anyone think they were the same.
This preacher refused to be convinced, maintaining that the two were the same in spite of this clear verse. All I could say further was, “Brother, if you do not believe the word of the Bible, and insist on holding on to your concepts, there is nothing more for us to talk about. I choose to walk in the way of the Bible. You can keep walking in the way of your concepts.”
As I mentioned in a previous message, confusion as to the difference between soul and spirit is partly due to the inaccurate translation of pneuma and cardia into Chinese. Romans 1:9, for example, reads: “For God is my witness, Whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son.” In the Chinese rendering, it says, “...Whom I serve with my heart.” The Greek word pneuma means air, spirit, and wind; it cannot be translated heart. It is because of the confounding of these terms and the creation of the term heart-spirit by the translators of the Chinese Bible, that the readers of the Chinese version are for the most part unaware of the significance of the spirit.
In the world today it seems that no one pays attention to the spirit. As soon as a child is born, his mother takes care to see that he is fed, bathed, clothed, and kept comfortable. All these needs for food, clothing, and lodging concern mostly the body. As the child grows, he goes to school, where they cater to his mind. Some people continue this educational process until their hair turns white. The shops take care mainly of the needs of the body or offer things for sale that appeal to the emotions. Thus, mankind seeks to supply the needs of the body and the soul, totally unaware that one third of his being is neglected.
You may say that a shop which sells Bibles is caring for man’s spirit. Truly the Bible is for the spirit. However, the salesman is probably ignorant of the spirit. Furthermore, all too often the Bible is used for knowledge. In seminaries and Bible colleges, the study of the Bible has become a matter of research, of debate, or of justification for religious concepts. Both the secular world and the religious world, then, largely disregard the spirit.
Home | First | Prev | Next