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.

8326. 'And plant them' means regeneration going on continuously. This is clear from the meaning of 'planting' as regenerating, for regeneration is like the activity of planting. When a tree is planted it grows into branches, leaves, and fruit, then from seeds in the fruit it grows into new trees, and so on. A person's regeneration is similar, which also explains why in the Word a person is compared to a tree, and one who has been regenerated to a garden or paradise. The truths of faith with that person are compared to the leaves, and forms of the good of charity to the fruit; the seeds from which new trees grow correspond to truths which spring from good, or what amounts to the same thing, to faith which springs from charity. The expression 'regeneration going on continuously' is used because a person's regeneration has a beginning but never ceases; he is continually being made more perfect not only while he lives in the world but also in the next life for evermore. Yet he can never reach any kind of perfection that enables him to be compared with the Divine.