The Bible

 

Exodus 1:13

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13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:

Commentary

 

God

  
Ancient of Days, by William Blake

When the Bible speaks of "Jehovah," it is representing love itself, the inmost love that is the essence of the Lord. That divine love is one, whole and complete in itself, and Jehovah also is one, a name applied only to the Lord. The divine love expresses itself in the form of wisdom. Love, then, is the essence of God -- His inmost. Wisdom -- the loving understanding of how to put love into action -- is slightly more external, giving love a way to express itself. Wisdom, however, is expressed in a great variety of thoughts and ideas, what the Writings collectively call divine truth. There are also many imaginary gods, and sometimes angels and people can be called gods (the Lord said Moses would be as a god to Aaron). So when the Bible calls the Lord "God," it is in most cases referring to divine truth. In other cases, "God" has reference to what is called the divine human. The case there is this: As human beings, we cannot engage the Lord directly as divine love. It is too powerful and too pure. Instead, we have to approach Him by understanding Him through divine truth. Divine truth, then, is the Lord in human form, a form we can approach and understand. Thus "God" is also used in reference to this human aspect, because it is an expression of truth.

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This video is a product of the New Christian Bible Study Corporation. Follow this link for more information and more explanations - text, pictures, audio files, and videos: www.newchristianbiblestudy.org

Commentary

 

Soul

  

The nature of the soul is a deep and complicated topic, but it can be summarized as our spiritual life — that is, who we are in terms of our thoughts and affections. And that, generally, is the internal sense when the Bible talks of a soul. You could be missing limbs, disfigured in the body due to illness or accident, paralyzed, but you would still be a complete human being. That's because the soul is the real you, and the soul has to do with internal things, not the state of your body.