Watchman Nee

[DAII]

Some his teachings on head coverings are freaky to me ... he is into the "because of the angels" thing.

[Socialite]

Blume, you are conveniently interchanging spirit and Spirit.

[mfblume]

Notice who these terms are used and what they are associated with.

SPIRIT

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Phil 3:3

It is with our spirits that we communicate with God. We worship in the human spirit. Paul's statement was unique and quite novel, since Israel after the flesh were only involved in carnal ordinances of the law, and physical rituals. Their covenant, in dealing with unregenerated people, could only work in physical rituals due to the inactivity of their human spirits. So, to read of a Jew worshiping God in the spirit, was quite a thing to speak about! Of course, Paul was of the remnant of Israel who were born again, though.

The Catholic Church proposed the error that the spirit is the place of intellect and thought. But everytime you read about the spirit of a man, it is always something SPIRITUAL that is indicated., as we shall see.

Jesus perceived spiritual things in his spirit.

Mar 2:8 KJV And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

Act 6:10 KJV And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.

The spirit exudes that special something. When people could not resist Christ's spirit by which he spake, we see indication of anointing and authority -- very spiritual things.

Act 17:16 KJV Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

Again we read where Paul was stirred spiritually. In fact, the plainest manner of discerning what the spirit of a man is is by considering what the term "spiritual" means. Its root word is "spirit". And when we think of spiritual things, we do not think of intellectual things, but of things apart from the reason and intellect of people.

Ministers who are sensitive to the Lord's moving are spiritual people. Paul was described as being pressed in his spirit to speak of the Lord. This is, again, beyond intellect. The intellects oif this world have all but a non-existent spirit, since they are so inactive spiritually.

Act 18:5 KJV And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.

Act 18:25 KJV This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.

Act 19:21 KJV After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.

Paul discerned something in God's will with his spirit. Its as though his spirit agreed with what he felt God's desire to be. This is how the human spirit functions as opposed to the bare intellect and reason.

SOUL

To sum it up, we are made of three elements referred in the Bible as spirit, soul and body. The soul is where our thought processes occur. It is Grand Central Station, so to speak. It is in the soul, where a manner of thinking towards carnal, fleshly pleasures takes place, or another manner of thinking occurs which reaches out for God. The soul will go the route of one of these two avenues of BODY or SPIRIT in order to reach out and communicate, or to learn.


The soul is the seat of human emotion, will and intellect. The following scriptures reveal this to be true.

EMOTION:

...the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him
1 Samuel 18:1

...for whatsoever thy soul desireth:...thou shalt rejoice,
Deut. 14:26

...the soul of all the people was grieved,
1 Samuel 30:6

WILL:

The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.
Job 6:7

...set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God;
1 Chronicles 22:19

INTELLECT:

...that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good;
Proverbs 19:2

...My soul hath them still in remembrance,
Lamentations 3:20

...When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Proverbs 2:10

All three of these faculties are affected by that to which the soul relates. We can be emotionally excited about something physical, or about something spiritual, depending on what "realm" (spiritual or physical) the direction of the soul is pointing.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Blume, you are conveniently interchanging spirit and Spirit.

No I am not. Look at the posts I just made.

[Socialite]

Blume, you're a quick typer! Sheesh!

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by DAII

Some his teachings on head coverings are freaky to me ... he is into the "because of the angels" thing.

Not at all. I studied his thoughts quite intensely. He believes the head covering is a veiling, not hair. And he says the power on the woman's head is her husband, not mystical magic. I have his book on the issue.

[tbpew]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Blume, you're a quick typer! Sheesh!

he is a gifted copy and paster from previous writings as well!

[mfblume]

To really get a grasp on the issue of spirit versus soul, we need to break the terms down in the Greek, and notice what Greek words stem from them.

SOUL is PSUCHE, and we get the term PSYCHE (NATURAL) from it.

SPIRIT is PNEUMA, and we get PNEUMATIC (SPIRITUAL) from it.

SPIRITUAL is PNEUMATIKOS while NATURAL is PSUCHIKOS.

See how the Greek term SOUL is involved in the Greek term for NATURAL? And we all know the NATURAL is distinguished from the SPIRITUAL. Since NATURAL and SPIRITUAL are rooted in SOUL and SPIRIT respectively, we should get the idea Nee is proposing quite easily. It might have been easier for us had the English term not been "natural" but rather "soulical", because that is how it reads in the literal Greek. SPIRITUAL is easy since the term SPIRIT is readily seen in SPIRITUAL.

One other word involves the BODY -- CARNAL. CARNAL is a transliteration from the Greek SARX. SARX refers to the fleshly part of the body. So while we have PSUCHIKOS (natural) and PNEUMATIKOS (spiritual), there is also SARKIKOS (carnal.) This takes in the the three parts of man's being. Spirit, soul and body.

So, if NATURAL is analagous to what is OF THE SOUL, and SPIRITUAL is of the SPIRIT, and we read there is a marked contrast from the NATURAL MIND and the SPIRITUAL MIND, cannot we see how the SPIRIT must be divided from the SOUL?

All agree too many believers are NATURALLY minded.

1 Corinthians 2:14-15 KJV (14) But the natural (psuchikos) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (15) But he that is spiritual (pneumatikso) judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

1 Corinthians 3:1 KJV And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal (SARKIKOS), even as unto babes in Christ.

Above we have the three kinds of people. Spiritual, Natural and Carnal. Spirit-oriented, soul-oriented and flesh-oriented. Can we not see that the natural mindedness must be divided from the spiritual mindedness?

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:6-7

The last verse says that we cannot understand the things of God with the "carnal" or natural mind. This is saying that one manner of thinking cannot be subject to God's Law and cannot follow His ways.

The manner of thinking which can be subject to God's Law, though, is called spiritual thinking. Paul said that minding the things of the Spirit causes one to be spiritual. However, when we only think of things which our FLESH can relate to, that is, that which only our five senses are aware of (taste, touch, smell, sound and sight), then we will never be able to perceive the things of God. God is not physical, therefore, the physical senses will never discern anything about Him nor be able to interact with Him. We cannot understand God's ways, or laws, through fleshly thinking.

It is spiritual mindedness, says Paul, which leads to life and can be subject to God's laws. Our thinking can be directed through the "flesh" and "body" to perceive physical things. Such fleshly thinking alone will leave us without hope. And Paul said that something called "spiritual" thinking (minding the spirit) is subject to God's laws and is good. So, within us there must be another part that can relate to the spiritual besides the body. The soul can direct its attention to physical things, or natural things, by the body. There must be a part of us through which the soul can direct its attention and be made aware of the unseen, spiritual realities which the flesh cannot relate to whatsoever, if Paul said we can be spiritually minded. Another avenue besides the Body must exist. The Body cannot sense anything that is of the Spirit.

This other avenue indeed does exist, and Paul calls this part of us which can sense the spiritual realm the human spirit.

"To mind the things of the flesh", then, is the type of thinking wherein the soul dwells only upon that which the avenue of the body supplies. And the spiritual mind is experienced as the soul directs its attention towards the avenue of the spirit in order to perceive spiritual things.

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by mfblume

No I am not. Look at the posts I just made.

You did multiple times in all the verses you cited.

These categories are nice, and something to consider. But many separate these "faculties" too much. I don't view them as separable. One without the other is not a whole person. We are a whole person (many would use this as a parallel to the Trinity), and not body and soul and spirit. We are person which can theoretically be examined as body, soul, spirit. So in theory, we can discuss these three faculties of personhood, but in reality, there is no separateness.

I know this: we are dead, the Spirit has made us alive. We wrestle against our dead nature that is not fully done away with, and are told to "walk in the Spirit" (in that place of believing God for every area of our life).

When scriptures use language like "dividing even the soul and spirit" we need not believe this is literal speak, and that the Word actually splits apart our soul and spirit, just as much as it doesn't pull our bone from its marrow.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by tbpew

he is a gifted copy and paster from previous writings as well!

I had grapples with others about this before this thread!

This is from my website.