humanity

there is a line of thought that has been circulating in the modern evangelical church for some time now that doesn't sit well with me. much of what churches do today is focused on "saving someone's soul". many churches think this way because the line of thought mentioned above is a skewed dichotomy of humanity. many have abandoned the "unity of humanity" for a gnostic-like view (gnostics hold that matter is evil, and spiritual things are good).

let me explain myself. a huge amount of Christians have this ridiculous idea that only the spiritual is good and all matter is evil (you can see this reflected in much of the churches language i.e. escaping to heaven, "saving souls", etc.), that the soul is worth saving but the body isn't. many have accepted this philosophy without even taking the time to findout what scripture has to say on the matter. after taking the time to find out what scripture says about this we'll see that simply "saving someone's soul" is not biblical or holistic.

many read the beginning of Genesis simply as how thing happened in the beginning, but, sadly, much of the time we don't stop to see the beautiful intentionality of the author. i specifically would like us to look at the creation of adam. it is in these verses that we can learn so much about what it looks likes to "save" someone.

in Genesis 2:4-7 we find god creating adam. the text tells us that god made adam from the dust (dirt) of the earth, that we were made from the stuff of earth. the author of Genesis is telling us that we have an affinity with the earth, that we are earth bound, that god took inanimate earth stuff, which he had already declared good, and began to fashion it into his image. the idea of man as a only a "spiritual" being that has no affinity with the world is simply not biblical.

shortly afterwards, the text tells us that god breath life into adams nostrils, and "he became a living creature"(ESV). god fashioned an inanimate, image bearing thing and then breathed life into it, and this is where many get confused. many view this as god "giving" adam a soul, but adam wasn't given a soul. adam was ultimately made with the breath of god, and adam wasn't given a soul, he was made a soul. it is that we find the beauty of this passage. the beauty is that the body and soul are one. we don't have a soul, we are a soul. people don't have a soul, they are a soul.

it is that mentioned above that makes christ's ministry of healing the sick much more meaningful. believing that the body and soul are really one makes is difficult to just "save a persons soul", doesn't it? the thing is that we cannot simply save the soul becuase it is one with the body. we cannot save some someone spiritually without also saving this physically. the body and soul are not a dichotomy, but a unity. to save one we must also save the other.

what we must learn is that getting someone to pray a prayer and sit in a pew once a week is not saving them! the problem is we have been offering extasy, not transformation. biblical outreach is telling people about jesus while you are offering a hand up, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or loving the orphan. Christ went about healing the body and the soul as one, offering people a hand out of the situations that they were in. that is saving someone biblically and holistically.

maybe "saving" is much different than we thought.

maybe "saving" someone is much more than just getting someone to pray a prayer.

maybe it's much more beautiful...