Listen People, All of You!

Deuteronomy 6: 4-5

Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.

There are a lot of folks that go in to great detail about the soul. They try to make us a trinity like God by saying we are body, soul, and spirit. Honestly, that stuff always confuses me and seems like a word game.

There was a footnote I came across today that threw me for a loop, as so often happens when I’m reading the NET Bible http://net.bible.org.

The note came after that word being in Dt 6:5

10 tn Heb “soul”; “being.” Contrary to Hellenistic ideas of a soul that is discrete and separate from the body and spirit, OT anthropology equated the “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) with the person himself. It is therefore best in most cases to translate נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) as “being” or the like. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10-25; D. Fredericks, NIDOTTE 3:133-34.

I never even heard of this! That your soul is you! I’ve always heard everybody from priests to hallmark cards talk about your soul or your spirit being the you that’s not you. As in, it’s the you that’s going to leave and the you that’s you will be left behind to rot away.

The problem here, of course, is that camping out on fine meanings is a great way to hide from the truth and engage in some holy disobedience. The point of the sham (this section of Deuteronomy) is to love the one true and unique God with everything you’ve got. With all that you are, whatever you want to call it or however you want to theorize about it.

Grab hold of all of your life and point it towards God and love Him with it!