Generally speaking, people who are at lower levels of an organization serve those at higher levels. Bosses boss and their employees serve; coaches devise strategy and players do what the coach tells them to do; engineers design car parts and workers assemble them according to the engineers' instructions. Ideally, of course, it's a two-way street: A good boss knows he is really there to help his employees succeed; a good coach creates strategies based on his players' strengths. Even there, though, the boss and coach are really working in service of a higher goal, seeking organizational success. The same is true in the spiritual sense of the Bible. When someone serves another, they are in a lower state, serving a higher state (or a deeper evil, if they are being enslaved by people who represent evil). This can take many different forms, depending on the circumstances. In many cases, this creates a connection between "service" and intellectual things. This is because who we are is determined by what we love; our loves are the deepest part of us. What we think, our reasoning and intellect and the things we learn about, come from those loves and serve those loves.

3302. 'And they called his name Esau' means its essential nature, that is to say, of the Natural as regards good. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' or calling by name, as knowing the essential nature of a person or thing, and so knowing that nature itself, dealt with in 144, 145, 440, 768, 1754, 1896, 2009, 2724, 3006, and from the fact that names in the Word, however many these may be, in the internal sense mean spiritual realities, 1224, 1888, so that 'Esau' is some spiritual reality. That reality is the Lord's Divine Natural as regards Divine Good when first conceived, as is clear from what has been stated and from what follows concerning Esau, as well as from other places in the Word. But as Esau and Edom are very similar in meaning - the difference being that 'Edom' is the Divine Natural as regards good to which doctrinal matters concerning truth have been allied - confirmation from places in the Word will in the Lord's Divine mercy therefore be provided at verse 30 below, where Esau is called Edom.