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.

2046. 'Every male' means those who possess the truth of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'a male' as truth, dealt with in 672, 749. The reason why the word 'male', meaning the truth of faith, is used is that nobody can be purified from those filthy loves except the person who is governed by truth. From truth he recognizes what is pure or impure, and what is holy or unholy. Until he possesses such knowledge there are no channels into which and through which heavenly love flowing in constantly from the Lord is able to operate, for it cannot be received except within truths. It is by means of cognitions of truth therefore that a person is reformed and regenerated, but this does not take place before he has been endowed with them. Conscience itself is formed by means of the truths of faith, for the conscience with which a regenerate person is endowed is a conscience for what is true and right. On this matter see 977, 986 (end), 1033, 1076, 1077. This also is the reason why flint knives, or 'swords of flint', as they are called, were used for circumcision. 'Swords of flint' means truths, see above 2039 (end).