Finding Your Hidden Man Of The Heart
Oh, my soul, know thyself.
Research on knowing yourself, my soul, is a long term process. I recommend that you start a vocabulary of related words and repeat a list of them in your writing often as they increase. Your mother tongue is English, for it was spoken to you by your mother and was the language of your childhood community. Concerning soul-type words and the classical Biblical languages, many English words are used to translate one classical word, and many classical words can be translated by one English word. To enhance this complexity, many classical words are synonyms in those languages, and many English words to translate them are synonyms in English Usage. Another consideration is the change in words from old English to modern day usage, which is partly responsible for the many modern day paraphrases and translations.
The greatest writings of importance about your nature, my soul, (other than the Bible) come from English translations of Greek and Russian authors throughout the centuries. The Greek authors had a translation of the Hebrew Bible before the time of Christ and so there are valuable complexities between those two languages. Later authors in those languages also translated and interpreted works written by early Latin speaking Roman church Fathers equal in value to the early Greek speaking Roman church Fathers. Although the complexities increase because of this, their works translated into English are invaluable.
You will have to unravel a lot of teaching on another level, my soul, in order to know thyself. Your training is primarily from a pentecostal-charismatic experience, which brings in a sub-culture terminology for many of your internal processes, with a lot of inaccurate and incomplete concepts. Your limited education comes from the reference works and literature present in the protestant realm, which by custom invalidates most of historical church authors as irrelevant; for example, most all of the classic Eastern Orthodox authors are grouped under the topic of 'Christian mysticism', which is a turn-off to most holiness movement protestants. Furthermore, you will have to understand that even though protestants have rejected aspects of Franco-Latin Vaticanism, un-be-known to most, the bulk of their theological underpinnings are the same with regard to Greek academic philosophical metaphysics that pass for Theology.
As promised lets start the vocabulary list of related words i am using, which are: [soul, thyself, yourself, nature, internal processes, mysticism, holiness, philosophy, metaphysics.]
Concerning the nature of man, my soul, you were taught in terms of body, soul, and spirit. This comes from the English words used to translate a host of classic words. Other words that are thrown in when needed are; flesh, heart, conscience, mind, will, word, thought, feel, convict, burden, and sense (for starters). Some of these words are translated from words that are themselves synonyms in the original languages. In the early literature of the Church, the term for the most inward part of man, which in English is usually translated 'mind' (but is not accurate), was settled upon; and it was not 'spirit', in order to remove the confusion between 'spirit' (as in human spirit) and 'Spirit' (as in Holy Spirit). Now an interesting thing that promotes confusion is that the word used to translate your most inward part in English (mind), has other original words for mind which are not your most inward part!
It turns out that the original Greek word for me, your most inward part, does not have an English equivalent? And so, when modern translators convert writings to English they prefer to leave the original term untranslated in the English text, which is the Greek word 'nous'. You are well instructed by me, my soul, and so you know that i call myself, the 'hidden-man-of-the-heart', 'the essential inner entity of the heart', or 'the soul's most inward identity'; rather than 'mind' or 'spirit'. The word 'spirit' is most commonly used in my early tradition as such: 'the Lord spoke to my spirit', or 'i just felt in my spirit'; which works but leaves much to be desired, because it cuts off being able to relate my experience in terms of valuable teaching from church history. Now what tends to happen to add to the confusion is that because of the void, certain modern psychology terms are used such as: love yourself, self-esteem, sub-conscious, self, ego, etc.. And in general most of the borrowed Greek words used in English, cause confusion with their classical meaning used in their ancient context for the purpose of Theology.
As promised let's keep the vocabulary list going of related words i am using: [body, spirit, Spirit, flesh, heart, conscience, mind, will, word, thought, feel, convict, burden, sense, most inward part, me, 'nous', 'hidden-man-of-the-heart', 'the essential inner entity of the heart', 'the soul's most inward identity', love yourself, self-esteem, sub-conscience, self, ego].
In music culture there is a term 'the soul man' or 'you've got soul'; which is a pretty accurate term in describing deep feeling mixed with ill-passions that are well expressed. Watchman Nee wrote a large work entitled, 'The Spiritual Man'; which moves along some of the same lines as my investigation. Spirit is really a description of the soul in relation to the life it gives to the body; and so, a more accurate title may have been, 'A Look at Man, With His Hidden Inward Reality' or simply 'The Noetic Man' (from the Greek word 'nous' ). By the way, my soul, i am not criticizing Nee's work; for it is deeper than i. You also have been exposed to Finis Dake's work on the subject as well as having taken classes in anthropology, both secular and in modern Western Theology.
'May your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless'. Here we have three aspects of man named; the soul-spirit enlivens the body, and then again body is where the spirit-soul is anchored. I disagree that these are three parts of the whole, but rather two aspects of the inner man in relation to the outer man. These three so-called parts are not needed to reflect the Trinity either, for what person does the natural body represent? Rather, man reflects the Trinity in essence, energy, and spirit. Even the resurrected body of man is spirit, a spirit-body? yes, but still spirit.
'Piercing to the division of soul and spirit'. This division is either the distinction of the directions the inner man points; the soul inward and up towards God, while the spirit moves outward and in towards the body; or, is referring to the distinction of the spirit from the soul as being anchored in the soul; or perhaps it is referring to both. The spirit is rather the life of the soul for Job exclaimed, 'the breath of the Almighty gives me life'. 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour'. Here the reaction of the spirit to rejoice, is triggered by the soul's union with the Lord.
Watchman Nee has the spirit and soul conveniently divided by functions; with conscience, intuition, and communion belonging to spirit; and choice, mind, and emotion belonging to soul. Now if he means by 'spirit' the heart's most inward entity, then he is pinning some things down; however reality teaches that if you drill down through the soul by following any of these functions that some elemental form of all of them are anchored in the center of the heart. New life sown to the spirit quickens the body and overcomes the power of the flesh. Sowing your life to the flesh allows the corruption there to weaken or arrest the motion of the spirit. And so, the rightful conclusion is, that the spirit and the flesh are contrary one to the other.
Mr. Nee continues on with great teaching about the connection of the 'flesh' with relation to all of these things. In that section i assume again the role of student, for admittedly he is far more advanced in understanding than i. He later spends a lot of time on 'passivity of mind and will'. I relate this to the subject of 'pathos', ill-passion, pathology, lack of virtue, and that which needs to be cured.
As promised let's keep the vocabulary list going of related words i am using: [soul man, ill-passion, spiritual man, life, hidden inward reality, noetic man, soul-spirit, spirit-soul, inner man, outer man, natural body, spirit body, essence, energy, resurrected body, breath, conscience, intuition, communion, choice, emotion, center of the heart, passivity, pathos, pathology].
They prefer to leave the original term untranslated in the English text, which is the Greek word 'nous', which occurs 24 times in the New Testament and is not 'soul', 'mind', or 'spirit'.
St. John of Damascus writes: "The soul does not have the nous as something distinct from itself, but as its purest part, for as the eye is to the body, so is the nous to the soul".
St. Gregory Palamas writes: "For it is not the bodily constitution but the very nature of the nous which possesses this image and nothing in our nature is superior to the nous"
"If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my nous is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the nous also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the nous also" (1Cor.14,14-15).
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Author: bimonics
Location: Rocklin California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 58
Blog Entries: 219 (archive)
Blog Comments: 250
hello, my name is grant. my user name is bimonics which is short for bible mnemonics. i am blessed with a wonderful loving wife; a gifted, mature, christian lady. between us we have 8 children and at present 27 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. i was born in 1952, to...
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i was lost when jesus found me. i am still lost without his company, and without all that he does. i was a lead guitarist in a rock band, until i gave up my old life and picked up the bible. i am still a guitarist for the rock that...
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