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If you are familiar with Christianity and the Bible, you know that Christians are monodeists who beleive that God is a trinity of the Father (Jehovah, Elohim), Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. Some people have had trouble understanding how God can be made up of three parts. In Bible study last night, we were talking about how the Bible says, "Let us make man in our image", and how this was referring to the Trinity. As I was driving to work this morning, I was contemplating the different things that make up a person. It dawned on me that we are made up of three parts as well, and since it's easier for us to wrap our minds around the make up of a human than God, I think it makes sense to look at our trinary nature.

Humans are made up of the body, mind, and soul. It's easy for us to seperate the body from the other two. We've all seen a dead person before, or can at least imagine a dead person. That is the body, without the mind or soul present. The mind and soul are a bit harder seperate from each other, since they are both rather intangible. But if you think of a person who has suffered massive head trauma or fallen victim to a debilitating disease of the mind, the might still be alive, but their mind might have been destroyed. We assume their soul is with their body until the time of death, so then if the mind is gone, but the soul is sound, we must assume they are different entities. There is other evidence as well*.

Ok, so having pretty much established the existence of the body, mind, and soul, we can move on to how that translates to the Holy Trinity. Jesus came to earth in man-form, so obviously he would translate to the body. God the Father is the designer of the universe, the planner, and the voice that spoke everything into existence. This would most closely correlate to the mind. This leaves the Holy Spirit to correlate to the soul, and indeed that makes sense. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter that comes to live inside you when you accept Christ as your savior. He lives inside you alongside your soul.

Now obviously there is not a definite seperation between all these. If you get hit in your head hard enough, the mind suffers, despite the blow happening to your body. If your mental state is haywire it affects your body and your spirit. Your spiritual life has a profound effect on your state of mind. The Holy Trinity is very similar, and always connected, except when Jesus died for our sins. I think this is what had to happen for our sins to be forgiven. Jesus was seperated from the Father and the Spirit, because sin can not be in God's presence. Our sin seperated Jesus from His Father. Hence the "My God, my God! why have you forsaken me?". And as we see with humans, the body is the easiest to seperate. Jesus received a new body, as will we.

I hope this has helped clarify, if you were having trouble understanding. Obviously, this isn't meant to be all comprehensive, but just a general guide so people can begin to wrap their mind around the trinary nature of God.
-TechnoLust

*My other evidence comes from my experience counseling people. When people forgive themselves for things that they have done in the past, it is removed from the spirit, but the mind might still remember it. They can recall the event, but not feel the shame and spiritual seperation from God that they once did.

On Lawn gave me an idea with this post. So, if anyone would like to submit a question or topic for discussion during the break, deobfuscate the email address and send it to us. We will post it as a JE and let the readers discuss it.

Thanks,
TechnoLust

Well guys, we turned out 3 pretty good topics I think. Eugene said before the last topic that he though he should take a break. GLH and I have both been very busy also, and I think it is better that we don't try to do any more topics until after the first of the year. Most of you are busy also and really won't have time to read and do the research that many of you do when preparing your comments.

We had a lot of discussion and participation, and I thank everyone who read our journal, and especially those who commented. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a very merry Christmas/Hanaukka/Quanza/<Whatever you celebrate> and a happy new year. I hope to see you all again in January.

-TechnoLust

Preface: I apologize for the delay in getting this topic out. There are many things going on in our lives right now. I wanted to discuss Obedience in this topic. I will start out with the story of Jonah. Most of you know the story, but often we don't think of what it means. Many times I have questioned why God would want me to do what I thought He was telling me to. Sometime, I would refuse simply because I couldn't see His motive. I have learned however, that sometimes the reason He asks us to do something is simply so we will be obey.

Obedience to God:
Jonah 1
1. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
3. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
15. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
17. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 3
2. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
10. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not.

As we see in the first verse, this was God talking to Jonah. In the second verse, He tells Jonah where to go. Ninevah was the capitol of Assyria. Jonah is to go there and "cry against it." Jonah was supposed to go to Ninevah and show them that they were living in a way that angered God, and urge them to cease their "wickedness." It is important to note that Ninevah was notorious for killing missionaries, and they didn't like Christians. As we see in the 3rd verse, Jonah didn't obey. Instead, he decided to go to Joppa and catch a boat to Tarshish, rather than go to Ninevah. Tarshish is a Sanscrit or Aryan word, meaning "the sea coast." It was a city on the coast, probably in what is now Spain. Almost everywhere Tarshish is mentioned in the Bible, it is referencing it's great wealth and many ships. The sea started raging and as we see in the 15th and 17th verses, Jonah was cast into the sea for his disobedience, but even in his punishment, God took care of him. God prepared a "Great Fish," which we usually assume to be a whale, to swallow him so that he wouldn't die. Jonah would not have had to go through this if he had trusted God. As we see in the verses from Chapter 3, he did finally go to Ninevah, and the people repented, and God did not destroy them.

Obedience to Authority Figures:
Numbers 27

15. And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying,
16. Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
17. Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd.
20. And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.

These verses in Numbers tell us that God has set the pastor up to have authority over the church. This also applies to other authority figures. The Bible also tell us to be obedient to the laws of the land (Render unto caesar what is caesar's...)

TechnoLust's thoughts:
Jonah probably doubted God when it came to going to Ninevah. He probably thought, "Those people will never repent. They'll just kill me as soon as I walk into the city. Even if they do let me talk, I'm not a great preacher that can reach an entire city." These are usually the things we use to rationalize our disobedience: Doubting God, fear of others opinions, and doubting self. Had Jonah just obeyed, he would have had a much better experience. It tells us in Gen. 22:18 that Abraham was blessed because he heard and obeyed the Lord's voice.

I haven't heard from glh or Eugene, so they may add to this later, or post an addendum, or just participate in the discussion.

This is Eugene T.S. Wong speaking. In topic 1, we didn't cover a part that I wanted to cover. Here is the link. It discusses how the Bible came to be, but the part that I'm interested in is the part about the checksums. You'll notice that the link is pointed to a google cached page. This is because I wanted you to be able to skim down to the part that I wanted to discuss. In short, the Bible was copied using checksums and other things. For details about time periods and whatnot, skim through and discuss.