02-02-2011, 04:29 PM
Quote:Because it reads strange to me otherwise... that someone most destroy their soul/breath of life in order to live... has to me a sound of suicide.For as long as I can remember, I have always interpreted Luke 9:24 and its parallel verses as applying to martyrdom. In other words, NOT one taking his own life, but someone taking it away from him because of their belief in Yeshua. Or as defined in the dictionary:
martyr: a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion.
For whoever willeth to save his life, loseth it; but whoever (is willing) to lose his life, for my sake, he saveth it. - Etheridge
Do others share that interpretation, or might I be off base on it? Admittedly, martyrdom is not specifically implied in the verse, but to not imply it requires an alternative way of viewing the verse. Something more on a figurative level, where one has to put to death his "worldly" life in order to gain his "spiritual" life. Yet, there is no distinction in the verse between "worldly" life and "spiritual" life; both are written as nephesh.
I bring this up mainly because I have been revisiting the word nephesh/(soul), and trying to get a better handle on it.