Body
and Soul
1
Corinthians 6:19-20
I love to cut out or copy things I find in books,
magazines or newspapers for “future use.”
Trouble is, I don’t always identify the source. I do the same thing with phone numbers,
writing down the number, but without a name or reason for saving it. I have four items I copied from some
book. They’re called simply, scraps.
I have no other identification for them.
***
“You are always dragging me down,” said Soul to
Body.
“Dragging you
down!” replied Body. “Well I like
that! Who taught me to like tobacco and
alcohol? You, of course, with your
idiotic adolescent idea of being ‘grown up.’
My palate loathed both at first:
but you would have your way. Who
put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to
sleep. Who does his best to keep you
from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches
and indigestion? Eh?”
“And what about relationships?” said I.
“Yes, what about them?”
retorted the Body. “If you and your
wretched imagination would leave me alone I’d give you no trouble with them. That’s Soul all over; you give me orders and
then blame me for carrying them out.”
***
My father and I were having a conversation once, and I
mentioned how much trouble I was having disciplining my mind. He said, “Yes, the mind is the most difficult
part to control.” We don’t have to read
too far into the Bible to find out the truth of that statement. Eve wasn’t tempted by her body, even though
the fruit appealed to her senses. It was
her mind that Satan messed with, telling her that she would not die as God had
warned, but that she would instead be able to think like a god.
Cain, the people of Babel, Jacob, David, Ahab—all sinned
first with their minds, then their
bodies. It was their minds that gave
their bodies the orders to sin—just as the “scrap” says.
For all Paul says about the sins of the flesh, telling
the churches to avoid them, I believe he comes nearest the truth when he talks
about the mind.
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 2:5).
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
“…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to
put on the new self…” (Ephesians 4:23).
Paul knew what my father knew: sin begins in the mind. The body is the instrument through which the
sinful thought is put into action. When
Paul says, “…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
within you, whom you have from God?” he understands perhaps better than we do
about the warring natures within us.
“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).
Paul
identifies clearly the source of our inner conflict. Our mind, ruled by our ego, wants its own
way. “I have a right to do what I want,”
our ego asserts, even though the Holy Spirit, residing in us, constantly reminds
us of our calling as God’s temple.
Don’t
blame your body for following orders.
Instead, renew your mind in the Spirit.
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