The word for spirit (pneuma) appears very frequently in the writings of the apostle Paul (146 times, in fact). Understanding his use of the term can be important, because Paul actually uses pneuma in at least five different ways:

1.  The breath of a living being (2 Thessalonians 2:8).   The word pneuma is sometimes used in the New Testament to mean "breath" or any movement of air or wind (John 3:8, etc.), but Paul does not use the word in this way.

2.  A characteristic of human behavior.  This may be negative as in “a spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7) and “spirit of sleep” (Romans 11:8), or positive as in “a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1) and a “spirit of wisdom” (Ephesians 1:17).  The positive references often refer to qualities of the Spirit of God (see 5, below) expressed in us – we must look at the context of each instance to decide.   In this sense of behavior, pneuma is sometimes used as an adverb or adjective with the meaning of “spiritually” or even “crafty” ( 2 Corinthians 12:16)! 

3. A non-material part of the human being (1 Corinthians 2:11). Paul refers to Timothy's spirit (2 Corinthians 7: 13) and tells us to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23).  Compare James 2:26, which says that “…the body without the spirit is dead….” 
 
4. A non-physical being. Just as John 4:24 says “God is spirit….,” 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that after his resurrection Jesus Christ became a “life-giving spirit.”  Compare also Hebrews 1:14 which says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits…?”

5. The Spirit of God (2 Corinthians 3:3) or equivalents such as “the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19), “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead” (Romans 8:11), “the Spirit of His Son” (Galatians 4:6), “the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:14-18) or “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9).

How do these different ways Paul uses the word pneuma or “spirit” affect our understanding of his writings?  Often even Bible translators have to try to decide whether Paul meant “Spirit” as in meaning number 5 – the Spirit of God – or “spirit” as in one of the other possible meanings of the word.  Consider the fact that the King James Version translated pneuma as “Spirit” 138 times and as “spirit” 123 times, whereas the New International Version translated the word as “Spirit” 246 times and as “spirit” 92 times.  That means the word is translated differently over one hundred times between these two versions – a considerable difference!

Sometimes context makes it clear which meaning of “spirit” is intended.  In 1 Corinthians 2:11, for example, Paul writes: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” Both instances of pneuma are translated spirit, but it is clear one is human spirit and the other God’s Spirit that is meant.

But the lesson for us in our own study is that we should look carefully when Paul uses the word “spirit.”  Should it be capitalized or not? And if not, which of the meanings of the word given above best fits the context?  In the Book of Galatians, for example, Paul frequently mentions “spirit” but does not qualify the word, so we need to read each instance carefully to see what he meant.

There are clues we can utilize.  When Paul uses the definite article and says “the spirit,” it is usually the Spirit of God (unless he states otherwise as in “the spirit of fear”).   If Paul is talking about the Holy Spirit in the verses before an instance of just “spirit,” he usually means the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:3-7). When he writes that people have “received the spirit,” he means the Spirit of God. 

But even with the clues we have, translation is often not easy.  For example, “gentleness” can be a characteristic of the human spirit or the Spirit of God – we must look carefully to try to decide which spirit is meant.  When Paul writes that he is absent in body but present “in the spirit” (1 Corinthians 5:3-4), he may mean in his human spirit, just as we use the expression today, but he may mean he is connected to his audience by the fellowship of the Spirit of God he and they have received – so they are of “one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17).

No great doctrinal uncertainties hang on the exact meaning of pneuma in the writings of Paul or elsewhere in the New Testament, but we can often deepen our understanding of God’s word by thinking about the possible meanings when we do read this word in our study.

 ​Every Christian knows that when Jesus was asked which was the “Greatest Commandment” (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27), he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5:  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” 
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But how exactly are we to do that – what is it we do to express love to God?  Many Christians would say that we show love to God in our prayer, praise, worship, and so on.  While this is true, of course, and we can express love in these ways, it is interesting that the Bible itself mentions only two specific ways that we love God.

Obedience

The first way the Bible teaches love for God – in the words of Christ himself – is through our obedience.  Jesus made many statements to this effect:  “If you love me, keep my commands… Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me …Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching….” (John 14:15, 21, 23).  The same principle is reiterated in the later books of the New Testament (“… if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them” – 1 John 2:5,  “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments…” – 1 John 5:3, etc.).

This is something  we also find throughout the Old Testament as well as the New – for example, in Deuteronomy 30:16: “For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws…”   We see the correlation between love and obedience throughout the Pentateuch and then continuing through the Book of Joshua (Joshua 22:5) and beyond.   In fact, there are more verses correlating our obedience with our love for God than those showing any other aspect of our relationship with God.
 
Service

A second specific way the Bible shows we express love to God is found in the Book of Hebrews: “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Hebrews 6:10).   This principle is not always immediately obvious because showing love to others may not seem the same as loving God, but the two are inextricably connected.

Jesus showed this, of course, in the Parable of the Judgment in which he said:  “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’“ (Matthew 25:40).  It is a fundamental concept of the Christian Faith that God holds our love given to others as equivalent to love given to him.

Totality

But we can also go beyond the specific teachings the Bible gives regarding loving God through obedience and service. If we look closely at Jesus’ words that we “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” we can see not only the idea of degree – that we love God as much as we can – but also the idea of extent – that we love God in every aspect of our being.  

The aspects of our selfhood that Deuteronomy 6:5 enumerates represent an ever-widening circle. Our heart represents our inner thoughts, emotions, and will; our “soul” represents our physical being as a living person; our “strength” is the power we exert toward something. But our “strength” can have a broader meaning, too.   The Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 6:5   can sometimes be translated as an adjective – as “very”–  or it can be a noun (as it is in this verse) – as “muchness” or “abundance.”

In other words, loving God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength  encompasses loving God with our inner thoughts, our outer being, and even the extended circle of that which we own – our “abundance.”   If we want to know how to love God, the full answer is that we can love God in every expression of every one of these areas – in the totality of our being.

​​The word “slave” has virtually nothing but unpleasant connotations to most modern ears. Yet, as many Christians are aware, we are called to be “slaves” of God and of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 7:22). The dissonance between how we feel about the word and the unequivocally clear message of the New Testament is difficult for many to handle, and we can clearly see this in most English translations of the Bible.

The Greek word for “slave” – doulos – occurs about 150 times in its different forms in the New Testament, but it is rarely translated that way.  Even as early as the King James Version, the translators elected to use the English word “servant” except where the word cannot be understood any other way (as when slaves are contrasted with “free” individuals) or when the meaning is figurative (as when the New Testament speaks of being “slaves of sin” – Romans 6:20, etc.).

But although doulos can mean “servant” in some few circumstances, there were clear-cut distinctions.  For example, ancient slaves would routinely wash the feet of house guests, something free servants would not normally do.  Doulos is not the usual word for servant, and probably more than 90% of its occurrences in the New Testament do simply mean “slave.”  Yet only one modern translation of the New Testament (the Holman Christian Standard Bible) translates doulos as “slave” – as it should be translated – whenever it appears.  The reason is obvious.  Most translators cannot bring themselves to convey the clear meaning of the Greek with a word that is so offensive to most modern readers.

As a result, most translations use “servant” – sometimes with a footnote explaining that the Greek may be “slave,” and sometimes (as in the ESV) even with a labored explanation in the Introduction stating that the word doulos can be either slave or servant.  Yet the fact that they opt almost invariably for “servant” proves the point we are making.

But the answer to this dissonant situation is not to try to make the Greek word mean something it did not. The answer that Christians need to be aware of is to be found in the nature of ancient slavery itself.  Some try to claim that ancient slavery was “much better” than the abomination we know from the modern world, and in many cases it was – but for many it was no better at all. The key to understanding ancient slavery is ultimately not in the nature of how well a given slave was treated (which could vary considerably – just as in any other human relationship), but for whom the slave worked.
 
Few Christians today realize that in the Roman Empire a slave of someone of high position had far more status, authority, and often freedom than any poor free man.   For example, Tiro, the personal secretary of the great Roman orator and statesman Cicero, enjoyed great prestige and was successful enough to retire on his own country estate, where he died at the age of 99.  But perhaps the best examples can be seen in the fact that slaves of the Emperor included some of the highest-ranking individuals in the whole Empire.  The status of the slave was almost entirely a matter of the status of his or her master.
 
When, in his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul introduces himself as a “slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle” (Romans 1:1 HCSB), he effectively uses not the lesser, but the greater title first.  To be called as a slave of the Son of God is to be called to a far greater position than that of a “free” person.  Stating that fact is not to elevate the Christian above others in any way – it is simply to stress that we need not be reluctant to translate the Greek word doulos the way it should so often be translated. We just need to understand its meaning in context. Early Christians understood – and we should, too – that being called to be a slave of the Son of God is being called into a relationship of privileged service.  That service is not demeaning  – as slavery inevitably is in this world – it is a high calling based on the nature and stature of the one we serve.  

Something to think about:  

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known" (Jeremiah 33:3)  is a verse often quoted in relation to Bible study.  It certainly is an appropriate scripture to think about in that regard.  We only understand the deeper things of God's word to the extent that he opens our mind to see them, and we do need to ask to see them. That may seem like a very basic principle, but it's always one we must remember.

Yet that is not the only meaning of Jeremiah 33:3.  If we look at the context of this particular verse it actually has nothing to do with study of God's word, but it is concerned with a situation in which God reminds the prophet that he will answer the prayer to understand deep or problematic aspects of life if he is asked.  The context is one of the suffering the nation of Judah was experiencing as a result of its sins. God tells Jeremiah in this context: “Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; his love endures forever” (vs. 11), and we see that the understanding God promises in verse 3 has to do with that situation.

God allows individuals – and sometimes nations – to suffer when they sin or as a result of the sins of others – but he promises to help us understand his purpose in this, his underlying intent and his love that lie behind the suffering.  It's an essential part of learning to have faith in the God who controls all outcomes.  He offers to help us understand these troubling and often disheartening aspects of life when we suffer – but we need to ask in order to hear.  

So don't forget Jeremiah 33:3 (chapter and verse numbers don't come any easier to remember than this one!). It's a verse we can apply in many aspects of our lives, and especially when we, or others, suffer.