The Essence of Being: Body, Soul, and Spirit in the Bible

Show Notes

Episode 418: 
In this episode, we read Genesis Chapter 2, focusing particularly on verse 7. We explored the profound concept of God breathing life into man, transforming him from dust to a living soul. This biblical passage opened up a dialogue about the essence of human life and our intrinsic value, which is not based on our achievements but on the life God has breathed into us.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Welcome to the Bible Guys. My name is Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're glad to be here. Yes, and everybody can be a Bible guy or a Bible girl, Bible gal, babbel gal. Does it have to be that way? Guy and gal to be guy and girl? Sure it can, Chris, whatever you want it to be. So I was just offering an alternative. It's usually ladies and then a couple of young gentlemen. And then if it's if it's guy. Yeah, you're probably right. It's probably probably guy and gal, isn't it. Huh? Whatever. Anyway, we are going to open up with a very interesting segment because we are committed to bring you the best news, only the finest news, from the finest sources that you can trust. Yes, and so, by the way, this source is a satire source and we consider it just as trustworthy as any other news source that is out there. It's called the Babylon b Maybe you've heard of them before. So here's the headline today. It's forty year old man pulls hamstring while thinking about going for a run. It's hilarious. Hendersonville, Tennessee. A local forty year old man was forced to put his fitness aspirations on hold indefinitely today after he pulled his hamstring while thinking about going for a run. The incident reportedly occurred as the man sat motionless on the couch and thought about how he needed to get into better shape. Though he had not engaged in any physical activity, the mere thought of going for a run resulted in a sudden and debilitating injury. You know, I should start working out. I should go for a run today. Ah oh, the man's wife heard him say. She went to the living room, where she reportedly found him crumpled in a heap on the floor in front of the couch. Emergency personnel were called to the scene, where they determined the man to be in critical condition before rushing him to the hospital for medical intervention. He was in rough shape, the attending physician said. At his advanced aage, it appears the mere thought of exercise was enough to cause a devastating terror to his hamstring. I don't think he'll be doing any running or anything physically active for that matter for a significant amount of time. He is forty. After all, a man of his age should not be putting himself through such exertion. At publishing time, the man had returned to the comfort of his home under the care of his wife, and was back on the couch adhering to his doctor's prescribed treatment of eating chips and watching Tombstone. That's so good now, By the way, this is way funnier for a man who's over forty. Yes, because we know that that's just around the time where anything starts to breaking. Everybody starts experiencing the hard reality that your body isn't going to do what you think it does. That's right, and it really does. I mean, everybody has that experience. By the way, can I just share this. I was in Florida and I was down there with a good friend of mine, Kevin, and he's a pastor down there, and he said, Hey, let's go play tackle football. And so I'm like great, And then he throws the ball and I said, I said, hit me at go long. I'm just I'm known to be a fast runner. I was a safety, you know, wide receiver, and I'm like, just hit me. I'm just gonna sprint and he's like, all right, so hut. I run down and I have this guy beat by at least, I'm not even kidding twenty yards, right, he bombs it and I bet you it's a thirty yard bomb probably, which you know, for us, that's pretty good, and i'd catch it, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, all I have to do is just run straight to the end zone. And nobody's even near me. And as I'm running, my body just said, you're going to fall down. Yeah, I know I've done that, ye, And it says you're just going to fall, and I just literally just fell and so for no reason, for no reason. And then they came back and say, Chris, did you hit something? Did you step in a hole? I'm like, no, no, my body just collapsed. And then it happened again where I was running again and I had the ball. I was ready to break away, and my body just said you're going to fall, and it just fell. And I thought to him myself, what is happening? And you know what it was? I turned forty. Yeah, it just happened. I was in my mid forties when I discovered that we were We had a softball team I was playing on, and I used to be that guy that hit it into the right field corner and score right right, So I was always looking for extra bases. I've never got up the bat thinking I'm going to hit a single ever, Not never in my life. Not from the time I was five years old and te ball until I was forty five, always going for you know, doubles and triples and always stretching it. And I came flying around first base. I look over my shoulder, it is in the right field corner and then suddenly I'm on the ground and I could not It's like my legs just quit going right. So it was, you know, I had my happy feet. They were going really really really really really fast, and all of a sudden, I'm not going anywhere. Bang I'm on the ground and I just wiped out. And so then I couldn't get back up in time. I couldn't figure out what was happening, right. My brain was like, this isn't what was supposed to be happening, right. So when I got I got back to first base. Anyways, when I got back to the dugout after that inning, one of the guys in his fifties, went, is that the first time this happened to you? And miss what? And he said, your brain was saying you're running, and your body said no, we're not right. That's exactly right, that's exactly right. And that's really the only way to describe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my body rebelled. So anyways, that's what that's about, right there. So only the finest information. Sometimes we bring you real news and other times the special interest things that are useful to people. We thought, Hey, we just want to caution all the guys hitting forty this year, be careful not to tear your hamstring thinking about working out, right, thinking about working out? That's so funny. Well, hey, today is the third day in our new series. And get this, this makes the first series, or the first one and the third one. We're only reading one verse. Yes, so this is the second time we're only covering one verse. So Genesis chapter two, verse number seven is what we're doing today. That's correct. I can't find it, can you? I have it? It's separated by this purple thing. I think. Yeah, Hey, would you be mad if I went ahead and just read a few of these verses? Would I be mad? Yeah, Yeah, Am I allowed to get mad at more Bible? Well, I don't know. That was kind of a trick question, wasn't it. Yeah right, I don't think I can get mad. You know, I think I'm gonna read. I know, we chose two seven and I did that, But the more I look at it, I just think, hey, let's cover this whole thing. There's so many important elements for setting up the next piece. Yeah, for the next couple days, and so let me just read it. So we're gonna read Genesis chapter two, verse four. It says, this is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. So this is like a rehash of Genesis chapter one. It says, when the Lord God made the Earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing in the earth, for the Lord had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there was no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. And then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person. Another translation says a living soul. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden, he placed a tree of life, in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed through the entire land of Havla, where gold is found. The gold of that land is exceptionally pure. Aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. The second branch, is called the Gihan, flowed around the entire land of Kush. The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asher. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates. Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, you may freely eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die. Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I'll make a helper who's just right for him. So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them. The man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, and all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no help or just right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While he slept, the Lord God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. At last, the man exclaimed, this one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh. She will called woman because she was taken from man. And this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now, the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. It could just cover so many elements for what's coming up next. I felt like we should read that whole chunk. Yeah. Well, tomorrow is supposed to focus on the verses you just read fifteen through seventeen, just to let you know so. And that's fine if we cover it twice or at least mention it twice. Yeah, yeah, we'll read it twice for contexts. And yeah, I made that mistake. Yeah, it's okay, but I've done that before. By the way, I've made a mistake. Yeah, I remember one time in nineteen eighty one. It was very uncommon. Yeah. Uh. Genesis uh two seven is sort of the focus, uh you know, sort of the central focus for this one where we're basically talking about, uh, a living soul. Yeah, and then the Lord formed the man out of dust from the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living soul holy cow, right, and he he created everything else afterwards, and uh, and that's just incredible. So as we talk about, uh, you know, manu being a living soul. I was always taught that there are three parts of a man, or three parts of every person. There's the body, Uh, there's the spirit, and then there's the soul. Were you taught the same thing. Yeah, so it goes down. Yeah, explained those What are the difference between those three? Obviously we know the body. The body is your physical physical body. Your soul is that thing that is alive in you, right, that your your awareness, your your living essence, whatever that is. Did you know that a body after it dies weighs less than before it dies. Isn't that weird? Wow? Yeah? Yeah, and you know who knows maybe that's maybe that's part of the soul part, but it's it's your consciousness, your awareness, who you are. You are a soul is what the Bible says, right. And then there's the spirit. The spirit is that which is able to communicate and connect to God. Right. And so in the same way that God is a trinity, father, son, and Holy Spirit, He made us in his image, and we have these three elements to how how we are designed and we are made. And so in this instance, you know, the New Living Translation says, and the man became a living person, that person and soul. You can't separate your personhood from your soul, right. And then your spirit is that which is able to commune and connect with God. Yeah, which is really interesting. So when a person dies, what part of them goes to heaven spirit or soul. Yes, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's what I thought you were going to say. I get it predicted you're gonna say. Yes. Well, here's why, man, this is this is why I wanted to read that next piece too, because in a couple days we're going to talk about sin, and he says, yesterday, or I just read that passage just now, he says, if you sin, you will die. If you eat of this tree, you're going to die. Yeah, but they didn't die physically immediately. They died a long time later. Yeah, the death process started, even though it took nine hundred years, right, But they died spiritually immediately. And then the New Testament says, you were once talking to Christians, you were once dead in your sins, but now you're made alive in Christ. Well, they were physically alive, but they were spiritually dead. Righthysically alive, having a soul in their body, but they were spiritually dead. And then in Christ you made a live in Christ. So only those souls that have been made alive in Christ, he reawakened their spirit, are the ones that will go to heaven. Right, So when you ask which goes to heaven. It's your soul and your spirit. Yeah, it's a respirited soul goes to heaven. And by the way, while we're at it, let's go ahead and toss in there that some people believe, or at least I've heard groups of scholars say when the Bible mentions that we will have perfect bodies in heaven, some people say that it's the physical remains, the dust, you know, because after all, our bodies stay on earth and it's ashes to ashes, dust to dust, So all the dust will somehow physically get to Heaven and be formed into a new body. Or then some people would say, no, we're given new bodies. Yeah, well, the resurrection mentioned in the New Testament. Boy, we're in a weird spot for Genesis chapter two, I know. But the resurrection in the New Testament is a physical resurrection. So the rapture is a physical rapture. But then he says he gives them a new body after that resurrection, and so it's interesting. The first time it refers to the body as a body of flesh and bone, the other one is flesh and blood. So the first is flesh and blood, the second one's flesh and bone is how he describes it. So I don't know what that means other than the fact that we know anyways, there's a whole bunch of weird. It is a weird tangent for Genesis chapter two, except for the fact that we're talking about this idea. Yeah, a living being. So it's totally applicable because it's the beginning of you and me. Yeah, it's who you really are. Your body is not who you really are. Yeah, your body is your vehicle, right, It's a vehicle you're right around in. And then someday that body, because of sin, that body is going to run out of gas, it's going to rust out, it's going to stop working. But you don't. You will live for eternity somewhere, and every single person you know is going to spend eternity somewhere. So the vehicle that you're riding around in your body is important, but it's not the most important thing. A lot of people worship their bodies, right, and others of us could work harder at taking care of the vehicle God gave us. But you, there's more to you than just what people can see. And I think that most people know that deep inside, but don't feel that. A lot of times, yeah, a lot of times they may not understand that. And so at this point of the game, there's no sin. Sin hasn't happened yet. So God created a perfect paradise and so it is there's no announcement about death, yet there's no consequence of sin, so no experienced consequence. He did warn them about the consequence of sina. Yes, the experience consequence, no consequence you know, applied. Uh. And so it is believed based on if you couple all the books of the Bible together and you thread the story together, it is believed that God's intention, or his desire or his h you know, purpose was to create Adam and Eve to live in paradise without sin forever and and and to populate the planet and to take care of what I made in relationship with him. So there's a paradise that's a physical planet, uh. And it is designed for repopulation, and it is designed to be without sin. And yet at the same time, the possibility of sin exists because there's free will, there's there's choice, there's choice. So then you know, people ask, hey, where is the Garden of Eden, and That's why I wanted to read that piece. This this perfect thing. We know where the Tigris is, and we know that where the Euphrates is. And yeah, and he's mentioning the the land of cush and he mentions the around Havlo where the gold is found. Right, so it seems to be this middle eastern North Africa chunk is where the garden would have been, which is consistent with what we know about where life began anyways, which is interesting. So he puts them in this massive garden and he gives them this job, maintain the space and don't eat from that tree. Right, those are the two big ones. But can we go back to that he made us in his image? The note for verse seven. Did you read this? This is amazing? It says from the dust of the ground, implies that there is nothing fancy about the chemical elements making up our bodies. The body is a lifeless shell until God brings it to life with his breath of life. When God removes his life giving breath, our bodies once again returned to dust. Our life and worth therefore come from God's spirit. Many boasts of their achievements and abilities, as though they where the originators of their own strengths. Others feel worthless because their abilities do not stand out. In reality, our worth comes not from our achievements, but from the God of the universe, who chooses to give us the mysterious, miraculous gift of life. Value life as he does. Isn't that fabulous? It's a fabulous, fabulous note. So there's nothing special about our bodies. It's just dust until God breathes life into it, right, and then when that breath is taken away and you just go back to the dust, it's it's a great thought. So while he leaves his breath in you, you have purpose. Yeah, that's the only reason why he's leaving his breath in you. Right. Contrast that with people who reject to God. There is zero purpose for your life, right, It's just zero value for your life. This is one of the reasons why quite honestly, you know, you can you can point out all of the things that have done and been done in the name of religion, the wars have been fought, all those things, and some bad things. Let's contrast those bad behaviors with the atrocity he's committed by atheist regimes like Stalin and Lenin like Mao, like polepot, like, I mean, we just going down the line. You're talking hundreds of millions of people been murdered in the name of atheism only because there is no value for human life, right they they were, they were they were just obliterating human life. And then we've we've killed millions and beyond millions upon millions of babies. We've we've done so many things as humans, and it's because of a lack of an understanding of the intrinsic value of a life. Right, Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah wow. So anyways, I wanted to mention that. So we talked about the Garden of Eden and then remembered, oh, hey, I want to I wanted to point out that that, uh, that verse there that because because we read ahead, I'm tempted to talk about marriage. Are we are we covering marriage? That that is tomorrow? Okay, good, okay, okay, So we'll get to it. So, so the idea that God gives us life and gives us purpose. Not only do we realize that we have purpose because God gave us life and gave has put his breath into us, but also every individual is created for sort of a different purpose. They're they're gifted with different gifts. And so one of the things that we teach in our in our church, as we teach uh, this cute little acronym called shape, right, and so S stands for spiritual gifts. H stands for heart, A is ability, P is personality, and is experience. And so if you figure out and you piece together your shape your spiritual gifts. What is a spiritual gift? Well, God, God, you know makes people differently. And so my highest spiritual gift is faith. That's my strongest. Uh. My wife's highest spiritual gift is giving? Right? Giving? Can I just say that out loud? Can I complain about that? She gives away everything so much, so much, and so uh yeah, So, I mean she's the type of person where if we're driving down have you ever seen the people on the side of the road, right, She's like, whatever you have, And I'm like, I have three hundred dollars in my wallet. She said, give it to me. I'm like, no, God better speak loud enough for me. Yeah, if it's gonna be three hundred bucks, we better both hear it out loud right now. Now, that doesn't really happen that often, right. I remember one story I told It was sixty dollars, I think, is what is what actually the most we've ever given? Right, And I'm like, and that was in the nineties, though sixty dollars might as well been one hundred and fifty right back in the nineties. But anyway, the point is is we're all different, and so you know, God gives each person a different gift. And then what's so beautiful about it is is that later on we're fast forward and you know to the day we're living in the age of the Church. Jesus creates the church, calls us to live together as believers, and then says, we're all gifted differently, and we're all lived, you know, where we live to fill our purpose. And so in the Kingdom of God and the movement of God, when we discover how we're wired, and we when we discover that we're wired a certain way for a reason, it helps us find our niche. You know, this is how God made me. This is what excites me. This is this is how I'm gonna you know, you know, move the Kingdom forward. And I think that that's important to understand that not only did God create us with purpose. But you know, clearly Adam had a job that his children did not, Right, So Adam was given the responsibility of the garden to take care of it and all these kind of things. And yes, the others inherited it, but they didn't have the same responsibilities as Adam did. So I think that all of us have a different purpose and we have to find that and lean into it. Yeah, and while you're on that journey, that can be frustrating for some people. Yeah, oh man, you know, looking for this very precise purpose in life, and that's a part of the excitement of living for years and years and years is discovering and unraveling what your purpose is. But but don't be frustrated by that journey. Instead, understand, when they came to Jesus said, what's the most important thing we need to know? Right, Love God, love people? That right, those are your two core purposes is love God and love people. So while you're trying to unpack the specifics of that, just demonstrate your love for God every day, demonstrate your love for people around you every day, and you're fulfilling a lot of God's purpose for your life there. So that's great. Yeah, well, hey, that looks like it's our time and so we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,