Biblical Anthropology - What makes up a human being? Saved or Unsaved?
Vern Peterman · Feb 3, 2008
Biblical Anthropology, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926052137998

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The question we're looking at here is, what makes up a human being? We want you to grab both handouts. They're over here on the pew. Make sure you have both of those available to you. We have at the start here, what makes up a human being. We'll be talking about those who are saved as well as those who are not. There are at least a couple of principal issues, and guess what? I mean, this is going to boggle your mind, but people debate these things, you know? If you can imagine that. We're going to have to sort out a couple of things.

Is mankind only material, or is mankind material and spiritual? Now, that may not seem like much of a debate point, but why would that be debated? Okay, yeah. In other words, one viewpoint that is out there in the world, the Bible doesn't convey this at all, but one viewpoint that's out there is physical stuff, this material matter is all there is and there isn't anything else. That's one view. Scripture does not indicate that.

So that's one area of debate, however. It's debate, typically, between believers and unbelievers. The second one is mankind composed of only two parts, body and soul, in which case they say soul and spirit are the same thing. Or three parts, body, soul, and spirit. And among believers, there is that debate. So let's take a look at the first one there.

As to the first issue, secular sciences that seek to study human individuals and their groups, psychology, sociology, anthropology, those are the main ones, typically have a non-spiritual assumption. That is, in the secular sciences, they don't assume that what is spiritual is reality. They begin with this viewpoint that what is spiritual is really only concocted by those who believe, and as they would see it, without basis. That's the secular scientific viewpoint.

Ever met anybody that believes that way? Ever talk to anybody that thinks that way? Yeah. There are those people who just take that, this is matter, This is a material world. That's all there is. And we can study things, but there's nothing else. You know, you can believe whatever you want, I suppose, they would say. And some of them are actually getting to the point where they're militantly against you believing things that are spiritual. But, I would say there's just absolutely no basis for it. God is superfluous at best. Okay?

Scripture, however, reveals truth that it can be not known apart from God's revelation. Science won't get you there. That's one thing about science. Even if a scientist assumes that there are and believes that there is actually a spiritual reality. Science itself can't go beyond the physical realm. It can at best imply things about the spiritual realm. It can't go beyond this physical realm into the spiritual realm. Science just can't get there. So scripture reveals to us what science could never. Science is not revelation, it's discovery. And by the way, it's changing discovery too. Alright, the next one. Two lumps or three?

Among those who study scripture, there's been an ongoing debate as to whether a person is composed of these two parts, body and soul, where soul and spirit are the same thing, or three parts, body, soul, and spirit. At some times, and I put here, the debate has gotten elevated, and I put a question mark whether elevated is the right word. Maybe it's lowered itself to the point of lots of arguments and even name calling. The bottom line, when you get right down to it, Scripture says that a person is a physical being and a spiritual being. So there's the two parts, right?

And then the various words that refer to the spiritual side of a person, in whole or in part, often refer to distinctions within the spiritual side of man. So if we use the word soul and use the word spirit, those are distinctions within the spiritual realm. We're not dividing up the spiritual realm, but simply making distinctions of something within the spiritual realm. So body and then soul and spirit, with soul and spirit both being spiritual distinctions.

And we'll talk more about what those distinctions are. In a way, if a person wants to say we're really composed of two parts, in a way I don't have a problem with that. Because are we physical and spiritual? Yeah. But then we're just saying, okay, within that spiritual realm, we think scripture makes a distinction further beyond that.

As a matter of fact, there's even a whole bunch of other distinctions. Scripture talks about the mind. Scripture does address emotions. Other distinctions that are apart from just physical and spiritual. Okay. There are two passages that seem to make it clear that man is composed of three parts and that there is a distinction between soul and spirit. Let's look at those.

1 Thessalonians 5.23, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely. What's sanctified mean? Set apart. Okay? So does that mean that since Nancy's over on that side and everybody else is here, that she's sanctified? What does set apart mean? At least she's laughing. Okay. So what does this set apart mean?

What is that? Set apart for a purpose, for a spiritual purpose, for God's eternal purpose ultimately, isn't it? For God's eternal purpose. And may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean that your spirit, soul, and body be preserved?

What's that talking about? In other words, it identifies each of the three parts separately and we'll talk more about what those are. What else is this telling us? First of all, this is kind of a prayer for them, isn't it? For the believers there in Thessalonica. Essentially what he's laying out is that three parts of a person, in the ultimate, is the Lord going to save the whole of us?

Yes. That's right. We are spiritually alive to God. That's our position in Christ. We have a soul, and we'll talk about what that soul is, that is redeemed as well, and we will have New bodies. It doesn't mean that I try really, really, really hard to keep this one going forever. It's really good that that's not the case. But we have a new body. And the Lord will ultimately save all three parts. All of us.

Hebrews 4.12 is one that does make a distinction between soul and spirit. And let's see what that says. For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. What are the three things that he says the Word of God is? It's living. This Bible. Is that what this thing is doing? Why does he say it's living? Why is this thing living? It speaks of a living person.

This is inspired by God. Any other thoughts? Any other hands out there? Okay, yeah. This is not a dead book. You can go back and look at a bunch of ancient historical documents, and they may be historically or archaeologically fascinating to read. Books that have been written centuries, even thousands of years ago, and they may be very interesting to read, maybe.

But this, this is different. This is unique. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit who now lives where? In you. He has an active ministry of using this in our lives. And it's not just a bunch of words. It's not just message. And it's not just intellectual knowledge. It contains the message. The message that allows us to behold the Lord Jesus Christ. It provides for us that ability to look at the living Lord who said to John, I was dead, but now I'm alive.

I live now. So it's living. What's the next thing? Active. Now, what does that mean? If I take this book, I mean, I think this book's probably been sitting there at least since last week. Why do we say it's active? Yes? No? Ah, it is designed and intended by God to have impact and it is active, not because the printer did something odd with the book, but it is active because of the Lord who is speaking it, even as we gather this morning. It is intended not to be a passive book where we look at it and say, well, that's interesting, but it is intended to impact us. And it goes back to the living, right? If it's dead, it's not active, but it's living, that's active.

Okay. And then the next part here, and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit. You know, this is one thing that is really cool. Next quarter we're going to be going into biblical counseling. And you know, it's really amazing. I think there are some possibly valid things in the realm of psychology that have some application. But this book lays claim to something that no psychological science can address. And that's that it touches the very deepest part of you, right there at the connecting point between soul and spirit.

God's word is able to touch there and nothing else gets there. You can go to the doc and he can write your prescription and maybe you need it. But you know, there's nothing that they can write out on their pad that gets that deep. You can go to the pharmacist and they may be well qualified and well stocked, but nothing that they can give you over the counter will touch that level. Only the Word of God. That's cool. That's major cool. And that to me is really exciting because as we talk about what is biblical counseling, we're talking about touching that nowhere else and nothing else can touch. This is major, major cool stuff.

Okay, let's take a look at the top of page 14, which is the second page in your main handout there. Okay, three lumps. Remember I told you about the lumps. We're back to the lumps. Body, soul, and spirit, or spirit, soul, and body, as he gives the order.

Scripture uses a number of different words to describe or refer to different parts or aspects of a person. But the three-part understanding, body, soul, and spirit, is a good and biblical foundation for looking at the composition of a person, whether an unbeliever or a believer. You have as a second item a write-up that was done by Hal better than a half-dozen years ago. As a matter of fact, I think it was just before I came. or something of that sort.

At any rate, and he talks about the body, soul, and spirit, and gives a better explanation for that. We won't have time to go into all the detail that's in here, but I highly recommend it. It's a very good concise document, and it goes into things we won't have time to address. But what God has revealed about human beings, and this is important, is not just some sort of an analytical model because scripture speaks in reality, not just hypothesizing or scientific analysis.

The distinctions are there, so let's talk about what does he mean by body. The body of a person, a believer and unbeliever, is what exists and interacts with this present physical world. I don't know about you, but my body is here. Our body interacts with this present physical world. A living person is one whose soul and spirit are still joined to the body in this present world.

That's what death is. A lot of times we'll say, well, what's death? Well, it's when the heart doesn't pump or when the brain quits emitting brain waves or some such thing. Death is actually the separation of soul and spirit from the body. Remember what we've said, like Brad said last time, death is separation, right? So death is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body. That's what death is. That's what physical death is. The soul, the immaterial and eternal part of a person that is the interface between a person's physical being and the spiritual being.

Some of the kind of key components that we talk about with the soul we have listed here is the center of consciousness of self, self-aware, and has the aspects of mind, emotions, and will. Does scripture address mind, emotions, and will? Yeah, it does, and in various places even uses those words or words that obviously indicate those things. 1 Corinthians, we'll see this later, 1 Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ. That's a positional statement. We have the mind of Christ. Hundreds of times scripture addresses the will of a believer.

And certainly scripture is not emotionless, is it? not emotionless. You take the Apostle Paul's writing, he was certainly a great intellect having been trained under the highest level of training both of the Jews and of the Greeks and even as a Roman citizen under Roman training as well. A very highly trained man with quite an intellect and yet he had emotions and he expressed them. There were times when he was overjoyed, rejoicing, and there were times when he was exceedingly concerned.

The third one is spirit, the immaterial and eternal part of a person that is the point of interaction with God for those who believe and the point of spiritual separation from God for those who do not believe. Does an unbeliever have a spirit? Yes, I hear a yes. Do I hear any other yeses? Yes, yes, okay. And why? Why do we say that? Okay. And think about this. And think about this.

Certainly, he made Adam a spiritual being from the beginning, didn't he? What happened to the spirit of man beginning at that point when Adam sinned. What took place? His spiritual aspect did not end, but it was separated from God. So he continued to be a spiritual being, but separated from God. And to be saved means to be rejoined. with the Lord. Alive to God and not dead to, right?

Okay, we have five senses both ways is the next section there. Human beings have five senses in the physical realm and some of those may be diminished among some of us. Whether an unbeliever or a believer, Touch, hearing, smell, sight, and taste. Some of those may be limited or non-functional in different people and it varies. Some people have sniffed certain things that they'll never sniff again. The sense doesn't work. People can lose sight. Hearing can become dull. Things like that. Because of the Lyme disease that I got about 16 years ago, parts of my body don't feel things. It just doesn't feel it. Certain areas just got cut off.

So you can have a diminished sense or no sense at all. But in the total, in the ideal, you have all five senses. If we look at scripture, we can see that there is a spiritual analog for each of those five senses. So in other words, we think of the five senses in the physical realm. What we see is those same five senses used in the spiritual realm.

So what I would propose to you is believers have those five senses turned on. Believers have the capacity to have those five senses turned on. One of the things that we see with believers is that it is possible for those to be non or partially functional. But believers have those turned on. Unbelievers have a basic shutdown in those five senses in the spiritual realm. They go and kind of look in the spiritual realm and they say, I don't see anything. I don't hear anything. Their five senses in the spiritual realm have been shut down. They're non-functional.

To illustrate it, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to shine enough light on the issues regarding salvation to turn on enough of that spiritual sensitivity that the unbeliever can see their need for the Savior. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit operating now among unbelievers. We oftentimes talk of, and we certainly should, the ministries of the Holy Spirit to believers. But the unbeliever has this particular ministry. It's the turning on enough lights, so to speak, to the critical issues to the unbeliever that they can see the need to be saved.

Once they believe, then the rest of it gets turned off. The functionality is there if they will listen and hear and see. Ephesians 1 18 through 19 the first half and by the way Ephesians 1 15 through the end of the chapter is all one sentence so we're kind of breaking into the middle of it but if you'll forgive that I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe He says, I really want you to see these spiritual truths. For the unbeliever, they're just not going to see them. But you as believers, you have the capacity to see and I want you to see.

Now, let's ask one question that springs up. What's the heart? We talked about body, soul, and spirit. What part of that is that? Yes. Yeah, really. He says seed of will and emotion. Let's back up. We use the word heart. Why do we use the word heart? Although that's this thing in here that goes ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump. Why do we use the word heart?

Because they translated it wrong. Oh, because they translated it wrong. Ultimately, in the same way we've got five senses, In the physical realm, there's an analog, in other words, there's an equivalent to those. In the spiritual realm, oftentimes physical organs are carried over into the spiritual realm by analogy as well.

And so the heart is a word that is often used, cardia, is often used in the New Testament and the equivalent in the Old Testament. to speak of the deeper part of man. It can include both the soul and the spirit. And you referenced the seed of the will and emotions, and it includes that. It's the deepest part of man. It's a summary statement for the soul and the spirit. And you'll find the word heart used in that way, including will and emotions.

And so next one, 1 Peter 2, 1-3, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted, and by the way that if is not a doubting, it's an assumption that it's true, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. So here's this spiritual sense of taste. Had a good meal lately?

Hebrews 5, 11-14, concerning him we have much to say and it is hard to explain because you have become, what? Dull of hearing. Here he is writing to believers and the Lord's turned on this hearing thing, but you guys aren't terribly receptive. Hey, let's spring into another question.

Is God's revelation through Scripture deficient? Yes? No? It is not, is it? The Word of the Lord is perfect. It's inspired word for word. It's not deficient. How come all believers don't understand all of God's Word completely and all the same? How come you have people out there, well for every passage it seems like there's a half dozen interpretations. What's the problem? Yeah, in other words, what you have, Gary's point out there, not growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is quite possible Just use the analogy of like a radio or a television station. You might have perfect broadcasting, but the reception on the other end may be variable. We're not getting the message clearly and that varies from person to person. Yes? There may be another reason we all don't believe everything is true. Yes, the believer has a problem with believing. Isn't that something?

But the rest of the passage, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained. Here it just doesn't refer to a particular one, it basically says all of them have their senses trained spiritually. Spiritually speaking.

Before we move on to the next page, there's a reference there in that paragraph right under five senses both ways to Ephesians 4.19. which is quoted on the next page, and it talks about having become callous, or in the King James, being past feeling. So this sense of touch or feel that we have physically also has a spiritual analog. And here he speaks of it in a negative sense. The unbeliever, they can't feel spiritually. They have no sensitivity spiritually. They touch and then it doesn't, they say, I don't feel anything. You know, nothing there.

Okay, now let's look at the next page, 15. Yes, I think that's another, Nancy's made a good point, that oftentimes the perception, if not completely shut off, may also be very distorted.

They may have a perception of what's there, but their perception is very distorted. 2 Corinthians 2, 14-16, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him. Isn't this interesting? So now we've talked about all the senses, now it even talks about the sense of smell as a spiritual equivalent. And notice, and here's where Nancy's point of distortion is an important perception. For we are a fragrance. Do you feel fragrant? You're a fragrance. Congratulations. We are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. We are a fragrance in both cases.

In this case, how does Christ smell to the unbeliever? To the one who is disbelieving, he says, I don't like the smell of this. And that's where Nancy's point of the distortion is critical. It's not that they don't smell anything. It's just they don't like what they smell. Their spiritual sensitivity, when it comes to the spiritual equivalent of this nose here, it gets a distorted reception. It ought to smell good. It ought to be a fragrant aroma. And they're going, eww. They're holding up their nose, they're pinching it. Yes, Gail? It makes me think of my brother before he was saved.

He was visiting us one time, and Troy and I were talking with him about the Lord. And he said, he made the comment that he was afraid of Jesus. Isn't that something? He didn't talk about God, but he was afraid of Jesus. And then after he was saved, I asked him about that, reminded him of it, and I said, what do you think?

What were you thinking then? and he thought about that, he said, I forget exactly how I put it, but it was the idea of death. You know, with the gospel, I think the old man smells that, or hears that, whatever, and there's some kind of thing like, I'm gonna have to die, this is the end of me, kind of thing, and so it goes, okay, this doesn't smell good, I don't understand anything, Let's talk about that a minute because you touch on a good point.

To the unbeliever, it smells like death. Where you see death to death and life to life, those kinds of phrases, grace to grace, etc. This is the idea of increasing or growth. It's an expression that means it smells worse and worse to them all the time. Think about it. Life smells like death. Why? Life to them smells like death. Why is that? Pardon? It is. That's right.

Because the person who believes, what happens? They are made alive, but also what else is going to take place? You're identified with Christ and His death. It does mean a death. And they smell that death. Because it's a death that cuts off from total control, the sin nature. Yeah, it smells like death for a good reason. The sin nature doesn't like it. And it says, this stinks. Yeah, we believe and all of a sudden, that doesn't smell so bad after all. What was I thinking? What was I thinking?

These spiritual senses are present in every believer but have varying degrees of functionality of some of these passages as revealed. Even the believer can have degrees of functionality. You ever know somebody who is a believer but they just don't want to hear certain things? That may happen. you may have encountered or you may, you know, in the future encounter that. Where you talk to someone you know they're a believer, but boy, certain things, you know, scripture lays it out clear, but boy, they don't want to hear it. To them that just, boy, they have trouble with it.

As clear as scripture might be on that point. This distorted perception issue is a biggie there. The ministry of the Holy Spirit and unbelievers is to shed light on their personal need for the Savior Jesus Christ. That's the ministry that John 16 includes the Holy Spirit. It's shining not everything. They won't understand it all. You can give them all kinds of spiritual information, but the Holy Spirit's ministry is to shine light on that area that has to do with the things they need to believe to be saved. Do they really believe that they need a Savior? Do they really understand that Christ died for my sins? And yes, I have a sin problem. And I do in fact need a Savior. Okay.

Without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, any spiritual sensibility in the unbeliever would be non-functional or severely distorted. There would be no hope were it not for the ministry of the Holy Spirit drawing them providing light just enough for them to see their need for the Savior.

Now, we've got a couple of diagrams here, a spiritual summary of the unbeliever. Ephesians 4, 17-19, well, it's been a few years now that we've studied, says this, So this I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk, he's talking to the believers here, no longer just as the Gentiles also walk. They're going to live this way You need to be living a different way, okay? And then he goes on with a multiple description of the unbeliever's soul and spirit. And so in the spiritual realm, this is what we see.

Futility of mind. What would futility of mind be addressing? What's that saying? Why would the unbeliever have futility of mind? He's a sinner, he's going to stay that way. What else? No hope. What do you think of when you think of futility? This is like, it doesn't get anywhere, it doesn't accomplish anything, this is kind of a waste.

The best tendency a man can do is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. No matter what they do. Working on getting the arrangement just right while the boat's sinking. I hear another thought. Yes, Carol. You always hear, and I'm sure I said this too, the employer says, well here's what I think happens. What is that? Where did I go? What good does that do? futility of mind being darkened in their understanding. This is what we talked about, you know, the eyes, the spiritual eyes aren't working. It's all dark to me, you know. They just are non-functional when it comes to seeing.

Things are dark. What appears very clear to us is absolute blackness to them or really foggy. Yeah, Nancy? Be a moral person or an immoral person, it doesn't matter. There's still darkness there. In the spiritual realm, they just can't see, the lights aren't on.

Excluded from the life of God. This is the point we've been making. Death is separation. They're excluded. And when it comes to the life of God, they are excluded from it. That's separation. And so he's just stated this principle of death is separation another way. It's another reason why the aroma, Does it smell like life or death to them? It smells like death. Okay.

Ignorance. I've known some unbelievers who have been intellectually brilliant. So do these fall into the category of ignorance? Are they ignorant? I see heads nodding slightly. Yeah. Okay. Ah, okay. Yeah, they may have astounding intellectual facilities. They may be able to baffle everyone with their overwhelming intelligence.

But that's not the same as spiritual knowledge, is it? It's amazing, a person who may not have a great deal of education, a person who may and be still in the process of growing in their usual sense and understanding of that. A person who may even be challenged in terms of their mental capacity can still have a knowledge of God, can't they? They can have a knowledge of God.

And yet the person who is intellectually brilliant, the person who baffles and astounds everyone, overwhelms them. with their intellectual capacity, that person may still, when it comes to the spiritual realm, be quite ignorant. They don't really know what matters. They don't really know Christ, who is the truth.

How about the next one? Hardness of heart. Remember we said heart includes both soul and spirit. Hardness. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so what you've described there is sort of an apathy. You know, I don't care. And that can be one expression of hardness. Just sort of, it doesn't matter to me. Nothing's sinking in. Has any of you met, talked to, maybe you know right now, someone who is an unbeliever who is heart of heart? Yeah. And when you see that, sometimes that comes across as no response. My dad's mother, up until about three weeks before she died, was the no response kind.

You could tell her anything you want and it was like you didn't say it. It got nowhere. The whole family was concerned and we kind of took turns telling her about the Lord. She didn't say, go away. She didn't say, don't tell me about that. She just shut her mouth and didn't respond. Some neighbors that we had no idea were around, came and talked to her. And she listened. And she responded. And the next time I saw her, you could tell. you could tell in her face that she had listened. So sometimes there's a hardness of heart that's just no response. Have you ever known anybody that is militantly, angrily unresponsive?

Yeah, you've probably seen those too. Pardon? A rebellion, yeah. Boy, I mean, I've seen people, boy, they get red in the face. And it's like, you know, am I going to lose my life here? I've seen guys that get really, really angry. if you talk about the Lord.

So there are both kinds. You'll find one person seems like you can't get a response out of them, and the next person, it seems like you're getting a volcano, and various shades in between. But any of those are hardness of heart. The next one is callous, and that's the idea. Can't feel anything. Callouses are so full, so thick. Can't feel anything through it all. Can't touch. Unresponsive.

Now, and they having become callous, verse 19, have given themselves over to sensuality. So their spiritual state translates into a pattern of life. That's what verse 19 is telling them. Now, the spiritual summary of the believer, this is the last part in the final rectangle there.

You got the physical realm on one side and the spiritual realm on the other. Here's a fascinating thing. The one thing in this physical world that has the capacity to touch the deepest part of man is something I can hold in my hand. That's kind of amazing. Here is a physical thing.

People have tried in various places and in various times throughout the centuries to eradicate this thing, to make it even death penalty for you to have this right here. People have been tortured over it. People have endured all kinds of things. Believers have lost their lives for possessing this. William Tyndale, who did the translation, from the original languages into English, was finally killed for doing so.

So here's this amazing thing in the physical realm. And boy, people can, well, they'll treat it various ways. We've talked about that. It doesn't impact them to one person or another person. This makes them mad, really mad. But this thing here can touch what nothing else will.

Hebrews 4.12 that we looked at, the dividing line between soul and spirit, the deepest part of you. This gets deeper than anything else and it comes, at least by appearances, out of the physical realm to touch us deeper than anything in the physical realm ever can. That's really amazing. That's phenomenal stuff. So that's one of the things that the diagram shows here.

Here's spiritual food coming out of the physical realm to touch us deeply where nothing else can get there. And then we have, on the other aspect of it, in the spiritual realm we have spiritual life from the Lord that is expressed out into the physical realm. So there's this interaction between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. One other thing. Does this talk about things in the physical realm? Here it is. It's a book in the physical realm. It talks about things in the spiritual realm and it talks about things in the physical realm.

In six days God created the heavens and the earth. This one. Amazing book. Phenomenal book. speaking of things that we would not know if it were not revealed about the physical realm and the spiritual realm. It exists in the physical realm, but it comes entirely out of the spiritual realm. This is quite a thing that we have the privilege of holding in our hands here. Amazing stuff.

Okay. The last minute here, we've got this supplemental handout from Hal. I encourage you to take a look at it. We won't have time to go over the details. One of the things that it begins to address that we won't have time to address here is talked about the heart.

But what's interesting is that's not the only physical organ that scripture uses to explain the inner parts of a human being. Some of the expressions from the Bible talk about actually coming out of our intestines. And it'll use those kinds of expressions, other organs, aside from the heart, to try to explain the inner workings of a person. And it uses those physical organs by analogy or figurative expression.

So anyway, I'd encourage you taking a minute to take a look at this here. And Brad, do you want to come up and say something? Last week I taught, if you were here I'm sure you remember, we talked a lot about salvation and one of our brothers amongst us was fairly offended and rightly so by the fact that I used the word stupid in keeping with or in connection with Presbyterians or Presbyterian doctrine.

One, I want to apologize because that's not really what I meant in terms of that's not really where my heart is. But two, what I wanted to address and really apologize for is for the absolute arrogance that that kind of attitude shows. And I don't want us to be about that arrogance. that level of arrogance, like we're right and everyone else is wrong or we're the best and this is where all the real believers are and believers everywhere else are just kind of pretending. That is so unbelievably inconsistent with who we are in Christ and who God has made us to be in the world. So I want to do apologize for that. I wanted to correct that. Yeah, and ultimately as I thought and prayed about it, I just couldn't sit right without kind of confessing it before everybody and apologizing and also just kind of came to the realization that are we ever really right?

I don't think we're ever right. I think we're always either in line with the Word of God or not. But there's never any reason for us to be arrogant because we found the truth or we this or we that or this that. It's just we're in line with the Word of God or not. if that makes any sense.

So please accept my humble apology and hopefully we'll be able to move forward with a decrease of that attitude in any way. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you as we get together and as we gather around the truths from your word. We're just thankful for the things that you've revealed. The truth is there not because of us, but because of you. And you're the one who took the initiative to reveal it. And we thank you for that. What a privilege we have and what an honor. And through your precious word to behold our living Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.