Human beings are complicated. Each one of us is unique; we come from various backgrounds and have different personalities.
But with respect to how God created us, we’re actually all the same. The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that we were all created with three parts—a spirit, a soul, and a body:
“And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In this post we’ll read an extremely helpful note on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version to help us understand these three parts.
The three parts of man
Let’s take a look at note 5 on 1 Thessalonians 5:23 in the Recovery Version. Since this is a lengthy note, we’ll read it in sections.
The first part of the note says:
“This word strongly indicates that man is of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. The spirit as our inmost part is the inner organ, possessing God-consciousness, that we may contact God (John 4:24; Rom. 1:9).”
The human spirit is the deepest part of a person. By means of this innermost part, we can contact God in the spiritual realm. No other creature was created by God with this third part.
Now let’s read the next section of the note, which explains our soul:
Our soul perceives things in the psychological realm. In fact, in Greek—the original language of the New Testament—the word for soul is psuche, which is also the root word of psychology.
Our soul is our personality, who we are. With our soul we think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. We experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And we’re able to resolve, choose, and make decisions.
