Soulish believers are believers without principles. Their words and deeds do not follow definite principles. Their walk of life is according to their emotion and mind. However, they feel or think, they act, perhaps contrary to their usual conduct. Change can easily be noticed in soulish believers after they have done a work. They will become whatever they preach. If they preach a message on patience, they surely will be very patient for one or two days afterwards. If they exhort people to praise God, immediately afterwards they will continually praise God. But these do not last long. This is because they live according to their emotions. Their own words stir up their emotion so that they live in such a way. However, once the emotion has passed, everything is over.

A particular point with soulish believers is that they have many gifts. Believers who are bound by sins do not have so many gifts, and neither do spiritual believers. God gives soulish believers more gifts with the intention that they may voluntarily deliver all the gifts to death and regain them more gloriously in resurrection. However, these believers are not willing to deliver the gifts to death, but rather, exhaustively use them. The gifts originally given by God should have been used by God for His own glory. However, soulish believers consider the gifts to be their own, but the work they do to be of God. Therefore, they do not trust the Holy Spirit to lead and use them but instead act according to their own ideas. Furthermore, when the work is successful they render glory to themselves.

Of course, this kind of self-glorification, self-boasting, and self-admiration is done secretly. Regardless how humble they are and how much they render glory to God, they cannot help being self-centered in their thoughts: "The glory should be unto God, this is right, but unto God and me!"

Since they have many gifts, good thoughts, and rich emotions, they can easily arouse people's interest and stir their heart. Therefore, soulish believers are often very attractive. When they work, they are easily welcomed by common believers. Actually they lack spiritual power, not having the power of the Holy Spirit's flowing rivers of living water. What they have is limited to themselves. What people see is what they "have," and it stops there in them so that they cannot cause others to receive spiritual life. They outwardly appear very rich, but actually they are extremely dry.

We must add a few words here: believers do not have to wait to be fully delivered from the domination of sin to become soulish believers and have the above-mentioned experiences. According to the actual experience of the believers, many are, on the one hand, under the domination of the body to commit sins and, on the other hand, under the influence of the soul to live by themselves. If we look at this according to the teaching of the Bible, it is even clearer because both are of the "flesh." Sometimes they may commit sins, and at other times they may follow themselves. Sometimes they either follow the body or the soul. In fact, many believers are such. If a believer can commit sin on the one hand and be soulish on the other hand, then he can also be soulish on the one hand and have some spiritual experiences on the other hand. At any rate, the experience of a believer is a very complicated matter. This, of course, refers to the details, but the main point is the same in principle. The most important question to ask ourselves is whether we have been purged from those things of dishonor. If not, then we still belong to those things of dishonor. Even if we have spiritual experience, we are still not spiritual. It is only when we no longer have the experience of sin and self that we are spiritual. Therefore, a believer may have many marvelous feelings of the soul yet still have many lusts of the body. He can also have many spiritual experiences yet still have the feelings of the soul. Of course, there are some who are delivered from one realm and then enter into the other.