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MaxPC wrote:Tangential thought: I heard a sermon in which the Holy Spirit is also the Soul of the Body of Christ, His Church.

That may open up the proverbial can of worms or it may not. YMMV

What Scripture would have been used to support that, do you know?

I would agree that we could call the Holy Spirit the Life Force of the Body, but I don't have any Scripture to support that. Possibly that would be a parallel understanding, I don't know.

silentreader wrote:

MaxPC wrote:Tangential thought: I heard a sermon in which the Holy Spirit is also the Soul of the Body of Christ, His Church.

That may open up the proverbial can of worms or it may not. YMMV

What Scripture would have been used to support that, do you know?

I would agree that we could call the Holy Spirit the Life Force of the Body, but I don't have any Scripture to support that. Possibly that would be a parallel understanding, I don't know.

SR, off the top of my head I don't have any at the moment. I believe that reference may have been more of a metaphor but it certainly rings as true.

Perhaps a Scripture study of who he is and what he does is called for???

MaxPC wrote:

silentreader wrote:

MaxPC wrote:Tangential thought: I heard a sermon in which the Holy Spirit is also the Soul of the Body of Christ, His Church.

That may open up the proverbial can of worms or it may not. YMMV

What Scripture would have been used to support that, do you know?

I would agree that we could call the Holy Spirit the Life Force of the Body, but I don't have any Scripture to support that. Possibly that would be a parallel understanding, I don't know.

SR, off the top of my head I don't have any at the moment. I believe that reference may have been more of a metaphor but it certainly rings as true.

Perhaps a Scripture study of who he is and what he does is called for???

I guess my problem at this point is that I don't know what would be an accurate Scriptural definition of 'soul'.
There are different teachings out there, but I've never run across one that I was totally comfortable with.

silentreader wrote:I guess my problem at this point is that I don't know what would be an accurate Scriptural definition of 'soul'.
There are different teachings out there, but I've never run across one that I was totally comfortable with.

Same here. I feel like the Bible doesn't really teach a strong body - spirit - soul distinction or talk about it a lot, although it does definitely embrace the idea that there is more to human beings than just our mortal bodies.

MaxPC wrote:

silentreader wrote:

MaxPC wrote:Tangential thought: I heard a sermon in which the Holy Spirit is also the Soul of the Body of Christ, His Church.

That may open up the proverbial can of worms or it may not. YMMV

What Scripture would have been used to support that, do you know?

I would agree that we could call the Holy Spirit the Life Force of the Body, but I don't have any Scripture to support that. Possibly that would be a parallel understanding, I don't know.

SR, off the top of my head I don't have any at the moment. I believe that reference may have been more of a metaphor but it certainly rings as true.

Perhaps a Scripture study of who he is and what he does is called for???

Just kind of off the top of my head without spending time on research, I would say that the Holy Spirit is usually spoken of as indwelling or empowering individual believers. And this empowerment is then often intended for the benefit or edifying of the Body as a work of the Holy Spirit empowered individuals (Body parts).
So if we consider that one of the works of the Holy Spirit is to be the Soul or Life Force of the Body, then it seems to me it does so somewhat indirectly as it works through the members of the Body.

There are, of course, other works of the Spirit.

Josh wrote:

silentreader wrote:I guess my problem at this point is that I don't know what would be an accurate Scriptural definition of 'soul'.
There are different teachings out there, but I've never run across one that I was totally comfortable with.

Same here. I feel like the Bible doesn't really teach a strong body - spirit - soul distinction or talk about it a lot, although it does definitely embrace the idea that there is more to human beings than just our mortal bodies.

i believe "embrace the idea" is an understatement.
i believe scriptures, throughout, determine+define humans as more than mortal bodies.
from Genesis throughout. weighty stuff.

Signtist wrote:John Piper says the following...

Now the positive thing I want to say about the moderate Pentecostal teaching is that it is right to stress the experiential reality of receiving the Spirit.

When you read the New Testament honestly, you can’t help but get the impression of a big difference from a lot of contemporary Christian experience.

For them the Holy Spirit was a fact of experience.
For many Christians today it is a fact of doctrine.

He obviously has teaching that many of us would disagree with, but I can't disagree with this.

words to mull over.

silentreader wrote:I guess my problem at this point is that I don't know what would be an accurate Scriptural definition of 'soul'.
There are different teachings out there, but I've never run across one that I was totally comfortable with.

http://biblicalcounsellingresources.s3. ... hotomy.pdf

Here's something to mull over a time or two...

Signtist wrote:

silentreader wrote:I guess my problem at this point is that I don't know what would be an accurate Scriptural definition of 'soul'.
There are different teachings out there, but I've never run across one that I was totally comfortable with.

http://biblicalcounsellingresources.s3. ... hotomy.pdf

Here's something to mull over a time or two...

Hmmm....interesting, for sure. At first mulling, I'd have to say there's quite a bit there that I agree with, and have for quite some time.

Not how I was raised to believe, but it makes a lot of sense...

I'll try to chime in some more on this thread as time frees up, as this is a topic I'm intrigued by.

I certainly believe in an active Spirit; I think we can all agree on that. The nature of how this manifests, to whom, when, and in what regards is something I cannot answer.

To me, the Holy Spirit is undeniably mysterious. Immensely so. In fact, we're told He's like the wind. Let's remember that as we try to hash through this topic.

If there's one thing I think about, personally, it's that the Spirit by no means follows any sort of predictableness or definable pattern (if you will). The times when I've felt profoundly Spirit-fed moments, it's been in obscure times were I wasn't looking for any kind of experience at all. Maybe it's different for others.