Today's Scripture
Insight
Greek thinkers often saw the soul or spirit as pure and eternal in contrast to the weaknesses and passions of the body, and therefore emphasized controlling the body through the mind. Followers of Aristotle, for example, emphasized moderating bodily desires and feelings, while Stoics tried to eliminate negative emotional reactions to life entirely.
Paul also often contrasted life lived “merely” in the body (1 Corinthians 3:3–4) with spiritual life (see for example Romans 8:4–9). But for Paul, the mind or human spirit was just as susceptible as the body to being governed by unhealthy desires. Paul emphasized instead the contrast between a life empowered by God’s Spirit and a life lived as “mere human beings” (1 Corinthians 3:4). Paul taught that only living in continual dependence on the Spirit could lift human beings from being slaves to their desires to living out their true purpose.
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