Bible Discussion Thread

I want to know what my soul is? I've researched a little, but I'm not satisfied with what I read.

Dear Sharol;

I just did some research on your question. It seems that soul can mean a number of things, even the Bible.

I learned that in O.T. the word "nepes" was used in Hebrew for the English word "soul" and Hebrew thought of the nepes meaning the whole person, not a separate immortal part of a person. So, in the O.T. the word soul (nepes) stood for an individual person as a unit-some of it being physical and other parts of it being immaterial (soul, spirit, mind, heart).

In the N.T. the Greek word "psyche" was most often used for soul and meant-self, individual and was considered immortal whereas the body is mortal. When one dies, our body is dissolved by decay into "dust" and yet our soul departs our body at death. Our soul will re-unite with our resurrected body and spend eternity as a unity of body, soul, spirit as it was in this mortal life.

Our soul is created by God, not by our parents, (they contribute the physical parts-sperm, ova, chromosomes, DNA) I believe at conception God creates our souls, which imparts life to the newly formed person in utero. Sperm and ova have a life span and both will die if conception does not occur. But in the merging of the sperm and ova, a new person is conceived and God gives this new person a soul in order that the physical parts will continue to live and develop in the uterus and survive until physical death occurs.

The soul has the capacity to know and love God or to reject Him. The soul needs to be atoned for since it is the seat of our life and all of our thoughts, desires, actions flow from our soul. Whenever we sin, our soul always involved with the sin.

Each individual person (soul) is a unity of our physical and immaterial aspects. A body without a soul is dead, a soul without a body is not complete. We do not have two natures-body and soul, nor three-body, soul, and spirit, nor any other way one could try to divide ourselves up into. We are a unit possessing one complex nature.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so very much, I am blessed by your knowledge and thoughtful response. It helps me lot now maybe I can write about it a little more intelligently and perhaps bless someone else in some small way. I am amazed how God works always for our betterment.