[zeek]

Originally Posted by awareness

Thanks to OBW:

The last Adam became a life-giving school spirit.

Sounds funny, but there may be something to it.

We seem to be stuck on "spirit." But Paul may have been using spirit in a generic sense.

Maybe the critical word we should be concentrating on is "life-giving."

The word spirit may not have any deep meaning, nor be a "being" kinda
thing, that Zeek and I have been harping on & wondering about.

In fact, maybe Paul could have just said, the last Adam became a life-giving being, or thing.

However, he did use the Greek word pneuma.

So maybe Zeek and I should be looking in the Greek heritage to find what spirit means. Paul, as most back then, had become Hellenized. Maybe they knew back then what was meant by pneuma.

Plus, we aren't in the loop the Corinthians were in with Paul. Paul visited the Corinthians, and preached to them. So they would have an understanding we aren't afforded by Paul's letter.

That just makes it harder for us. Like Unto said, it requires digging.

But we're never gonna be able to define what spirit is. We just aren't. Not until we are one. The human spirit just don't pull that truck.

I'm not claiming that Paul is using the term in a generic sense, but rather to understand the specific sense in which the term is used anywhere, an understanding of what it means generically would be entailed. Your facetious use of the expression "school spirit" in a trivial sense illustrates the fact that the word “spirit” (with a lower-case s) has almost disappeared from the English language as a significant term. This may be a result of the radical separation of the cognitive function of the mind from emotion and will, as typified in English empiricism. In any case, the word “spirit” appears predominantly in a religious context, and here it is spelled with a capital S. How can we understand the meaning of Spirit unless the meaning of spirit is understood? As ex local churchers we do have an experience that may be relevant. Some of the local church meeting could be easily described as "spirited." How off or on the mark do we consider our experiences of "exercising the spirit"?