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The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof,
the world and all who dwell therein.
For He has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
Who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear deceitfully
He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek Him,
who seek Your face, O God of Jacob.
Psalm 24: 1 -6
originally posted by: DeathSlayer
We have a spirit inside of us. God is spirit and we were made in his image and God BLEW breathe into man....and man became alive...flesh, bone, and spirit.
a reply to: randomuser
originally posted by: randomuser
originally posted by: DeathSlayer
We have a spirit inside of us. God is spirit and we were made in his image and God BLEW breathe into man....and man became alive...flesh, bone, and spirit.
a reply to: randomuser
There are two baptisms. One is by water, the other is by spirit. The one by water is in the name of the Father, the son, and the holy spirit. The baptism by holy spirit is an anointing done by God. And unless you are baptized by holy spirit there is no way you are going to enter into the kingdom in heaven.
The forbidden fruits of Eden and The Towers of Babylon suggests that mankind most likely wasn't spiritually aligned and experienced enough to ascend to greater heights. It's like the discovery of nuclear power but as a means for war rather than energy.
originally posted by: FlyInTheOintment
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Incidentally, this form of gift is the one averred as 'the gift of prophecy', which is well known but little understood. My prophetic gift is made manifest through powerful dreams, others prophesy through the spoken word in prayer, others by written commentary which is inspired.
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“Christianity” Becomes a Philosophy
The philosopher Celsus mockingly described Christians as “labourers, shoemakers, farmers, the most uninformed and clownish of men.” This mockery was too much for the apologists to bear. They determined to win over public opinion by resorting to a new tactic. Once rejected, worldly wisdom was now used in the service of the “Christian” cause. Clement of Alexandria, for example, saw philosophy as “true theology.” Justin, though claiming to reject pagan philosophy, was the first to use philosophical language and concepts to express “Christian” ideas, considering this type of philosophy “to be safe and profitable.”
From this point on, the strategy was, not to oppose philosophy, but to make supposed Christian thought a philosophy higher than that of the pagans. “On some points we teach the same things as the poets and philosophers whom you honour, and on other points are fuller and more divine in our teaching,” wrote Justin. Adorned with its new philosophical finery, “Christian” thought now claimed the dignity of old age. The apologists pointed out that Christian books were far older than those of the Greeks and that the prophets of the Bible lived earlier than Greek philosophers. Certain apologists even concluded that the philosophers copied from the prophets. Plato was made out to be a disciple of Moses!
Christianity Distorted
This new strategy led to a mixture of Christianity and pagan philosophy. Comparisons were made between Greek gods and Bible characters. Jesus was compared to Perseus; and Mary’s conception to that of Perseus’ mother, Danaë, who was said to be also a virgin.
Certain teachings were greatly modified. For example, in the Bible, Jesus is called “the Logos,” meaning God’s “Word,” or Spokesman. (John 1:1-3, 14-18; Revelation 19:11-13) Very early on, this teaching was distorted by Justin, who like a philosopher played on the two possible meanings of the Greek word logos: “word” and “reason.” Christians, he said, received the word in the person of Christ himself. However, logos in the sense of reason is found in every man, including pagans. Thus, he concluded, those who live in harmony with reason are Christians, even those who claimed or were thought to be atheists, like Socrates and others.
Moreover, by forcing the tie between Jesus and the logos of Greek philosophy, which was closely linked with the person of God, the apologists, including Tertullian, embarked on a course that eventually led Christianity to the Trinity dogma.* [For further information on Tertullian’s beliefs, see The Paradox of Tertullian.]
The word “soul” appears over 850 times in the Bible, including more than 100 times in its Greek form. It basically refers to mortal, living creatures, either human or animal. (1 Corinthians 15:45; James 5:20; Revelation 16:3) The apologists, however, twisted this Bible teaching by linking it with Plato’s philosophy that the soul is separate from the body, invisible and immortal. Minucius Felix even asserted that belief in the resurrection had its early beginnings in Pythagoras’ teaching of the transmigration of the soul. How far Greek influence had led them from the teachings of the Bible!
The Wrong Choice
Some apologists sensed the danger that philosophy could pose to the Christian faith. Yet, even though they criticized the philosophers, they still loved the intellectual approach of philosophy. Tatian, for example, denounced the philosophers for accomplishing nothing good but, at the same time, called the Christian religion “our philosophy” and indulged in philosophical speculations. Tertullian on the one hand decried the influence of pagan philosophy on Christian thinking. On the other hand, he stated that he wanted to follow in the steps of “Justin, philosopher and martyr; Miltiades, the sophist of the churches,” and others. Athenagoras called himself “a Christian philosopher of Athens.” As for Clement, it is said that he felt that “philosophy can be judiciously used by the Christian as an aid to wisdom and the defense of the faith.”
Whatever success these apologists might have had in defending their faith, they had nonetheless committed a serious error in their defense. How so? The apostle Paul reminded Christians that among the spiritual weapons at their disposal, none is more potent than “the word of God,” which “is alive and exerts power.” With it, Paul said, “we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.”—Hebrews 4:12; 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5; Ephesians 6:17.
On the night before he was killed, Jesus told his disciples: “Take courage! I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33) The trials and tribulations that he experienced in the world had not overcome his faith and his loyalty to his Father. Similarly, the last surviving apostle, John, wrote: “This is the conquest that has conquered the world, our faith.” (1 John 5:4) Although the apologists wanted to defend the Christian faith, they made the wrong choice in adopting the ideas and the approach of worldly philosophy. In so doing, the apologists allowed themselves to be seduced by such philosophies and, in effect, allowed the world to conquer them and their brand of Christianity. So rather than being champions and defenders of true Christian faith, the apologists of the early church, perhaps unwittingly, fell into the trap set by Satan, who “keeps transforming himself into an angel of light.”—2 Corinthians 11:14.
The clergy and theologians of the churches today have largely followed in the same path. Instead of defending true Christianity by using God’s Word, they often downgrade the Bible and resort to worldly philosophy in their teaching in an effort to win over public opinion and the establishment. Rather than sounding a warning against the dangers of following the unscriptural trends of the world, they have become teachers who do their best to ‘tickle the ears’ of their listeners in order to win adherents. (2 Timothy 4:3) Sadly, as did the early apologists, these teachers have ignored the apostolic warning: “Look out: perhaps there may be someone who will carry you off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ.” And we are reminded that “their end shall be according to their works.”—Colossians 2:8; 2 Corinthians 11:15.
originally posted by: FlyInTheOintment
When we contemplate the attendant realities of cymatics we see that in two specific instances, the geometric symbols of a language (Hebrew & Sanskrit), are (apparently) literally created by pronunciation of their vocally-derived resonance patterns as sonic waveforms. This fact indicates that in two cases, someone with knowledge of cymatics artificially crafted a language which (apparently) is able to produce metaphysical effects in the soul complex of those who speak or listen when that language is vocalised.
Definition: In the Bible, “soul” is translated from the Hebrew neʹphesh and the Greek psy·kheʹ. Bible usage shows the soul to be a person or an animal or the life that a person or an animal enjoys. To many persons, however, “soul” means the immaterial or spirit part of a human being that survives the death of the physical body. Others understand it to be the principle of life. But these latter views are not Bible teachings.
What does the Bible say that helps us to understand what the soul is?
Gen. 2:7: “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Notice that this does not say that man was given a soul but that he became a soul, a living person.) (The part of the Hebrew word here rendered “soul” is neʹphesh. KJ, AS, and Dy agree with that rendering. RS, JB, NAB read “being.” NE says “creature.” Kx reads “person.”)
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Gen. 9:5: “Besides that, your blood of your souls [or, “lives”; Hebrew, from neʹphesh] shall I ask back.” (Here the soul is said to have blood.)
Josh. 11:11: “They went striking every soul [Hebrew, neʹphesh] that was in it with the edge of the sword.” (The soul is here shown to be something that can be touched by the sword, so these souls could not have been spirits.)
Where does the Bible say that animals are souls?
Gen. 1:20, 21, 24, 25: ...
Lev. 24:17, 18: ...
Rev. 16:3: “It became blood as of a dead man, and every living soul* died, yes, the things in the sea.” (Thus the Christian Greek Scriptures also show animals to be souls.) (*In Greek the word here is psy·kheʹ. KJ, AS, and Dy render it “soul.” Some translators use the term “creature” or “thing.”)
Do other scholars who are not Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge that this is what the Bible says the soul is?
“There is no dichotomy [division] of body and soul in the O[ld] T[estament]. The Israelite saw things concretely, in their totality, and thus he considered men as persons and not as composites. The term nepeš [neʹphesh], though translated by our word soul, never means soul as distinct from the body or the individual person. . . . The term [psy·kheʹ] is the N[ew] T[estament] word corresponding with nepeš. It can mean the principle of life, life itself, or the living being.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. XIII, pp. 449, 450.
“The Hebrew term for ‘soul’ (nefesh, that which breathes) was used by Moses . . . , signifying an ‘animated being’ and applicable equally to nonhuman beings. . . . New Testament usage of psychē (‘soul’) was comparable to nefesh.”—The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976), Macropædia, Vol. 15, p. 152.
“The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture.”—The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564.
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The original-language terms (Heb., neʹphesh [נֶפֶשׁ]; Gr., psy·kheʹ [ψυχή]) as used in the Scriptures show “soul” to be a person, an animal, or the life that a person or an animal enjoys.
The connotations that the English “soul” commonly carries in the minds of most persons are not in agreement with the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words as used by the inspired Bible writers. This fact has steadily gained wider acknowledgment. Back in 1897, in the Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. XVI, p. 30), Professor C. A. Briggs, as a result of detailed analysis of the use of neʹphesh, observed: “Soul in English usage at the present time conveys usually a very different meaning from נפש [neʹphesh] in Hebrew, and it is easy for the incautious reader to misinterpret.”
More recently, when The Jewish Publication Society of America issued a new translation of the Torah, or first five books of the Bible, the editor-in-chief, H. M. Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College, stated that the word “soul” had been virtually eliminated from this translation because, “the Hebrew word in question here is ‘Nefesh.’” He added: “Other translators have interpreted it to mean ‘soul,’ which is completely inaccurate. The Bible does not say we have a soul. ‘Nefesh’ is the person himself, his need for food, the very blood in his veins, his being.”—The New York Times, October 12, 1962.
What is the origin of the teaching that the human soul is invisible and immortal?
The difficulty lies in the fact that the meanings popularly attached to the English word “soul” stem primarily, not from the Hebrew or Christian Greek Scriptures, but from ancient Greek philosophy, actually pagan religious thought. Greek philosopher Plato, for example, quotes Socrates as saying: “The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods.”—Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A.
In direct contrast with the Greek teaching of the psy·kheʹ (soul) as being immaterial, intangible, invisible, and immortal, the Scriptures show that both psy·kheʹ and neʹphesh, as used with reference to earthly creatures, refer to that which is material, tangible, visible, and mortal.
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“LOOK out,” wrote the apostle Paul to Christians living in the latter half of the first century C.E. What was he warning against? “Perhaps there may be someone who will carry you off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men.”—Colossians 2:8.
Despite Paul’s warning, from the middle of the second century C.E., some Christians began using concepts borrowed from ancient philosophers in order to explain their beliefs. Why? They wanted to be accepted by the educated people of the Roman Empire and thus make more converts.
Justin Martyr, one of the most famous of these Christians, believed that God’s Spokesman had manifested himself to Greek philosophers long before the arrival of Jesus. According to Justin and like-minded teachers, the contribution of philosophy and mythology to Christianity made this form of religion truly universal.
Justin Martyr’s form of Christianity became very successful in gaining converts. However, the adoption of one myth led to the creation of others and produced what is now commonly believed to be Christian doctrine. To expose these myths, compare what the following reference works say with what the Bible actually teaches.
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Knowledge (gno'sis) is put in a very favorable light in the Christian Greek Scriptures. However, not all that men may call “knowledge” is to be sought, because philosophies and views exist that are “falsely called ‘knowledge.’” (1Ti 6:20) ...
... Thus Paul wrote about some who were learning (taking in knowledge) “yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge [...] of truth.” (2Ti 3:6, 7)
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How does God view the “wisdom” offered by human philosophy?
1 Cor. 1:19-25: “It is written: ‘I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectual men I will shove aside.’ Where is the wise man? Where the scribe? Where the debater of this system of things? Did not God make the wisdom of the world foolish? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not get to know God, God saw good through the foolishness [as it appears to the world] of what is preached to save those believing. . . . Because a foolish thing of God [as the world views it] is wiser than men, and a weak thing of God [as the world may see it] is stronger than men.” (Such a viewpoint on God’s part is certainly not arbitrary or unreasonable. He has provided in the Bible, the most widely circulated book in the world, a clear statement of his purpose. He has sent his witnesses to discuss it with all who will listen. How foolish for any creature to think that he has wisdom greater than that of God!)