by Debra Collins

Created on: January 01, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

If you look at this issue of the difference between your soul and your spirit, first through your minds eye, logically, flat out, strictly black and white...I think you would have to look in the pages of your nearest Dictionary. Old Webster states that a soul is an animated and vital principle of man. There are a few other definitions like a person or a vital core, and a leader. My understanding of the word is that it is a valuable and essential base. Now when we look at the definition of Spirit, it's funny because the very first thing that stood right out was "the vital principle ot animating force with-in living beings, an individual, plus others like: a supernatural being, loyalty and dedication, a mood or emotional state, and vivacity and courage. Two different words in many ways yet similar in many as well.

Now if we look into these two words from a Biblical stand point we find the Old Testament "the spirit fell upon various individuals and Moses expressed his wish for the spirit to fall on all the Lord's people," (Numbers 11:29) Chapter 8 of Romans talks much of the spirit.
"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God swell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is not of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." (Romans 8:9-10)
There are many verse which speak of souls but one that struck me was "Human souls are as the angels of God" (Matthew 22:38)
To come to a conclusion as to the difference between your soul and your spirit I would have to say they are one in the same only at different stages. The soul is the ground, the noun or subject and the spirit is the essence, the idea or the enhancement of it all. I do believe both words are very individualized to each persons life and what they do or do not believe in.

9Romans 8:9-10)

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