Two recent books have provided me with a topic I would like to explore a bit in the short time we have together today.  These books are: (1) Care of the Soul, (a guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life) by Thomas Moore that has been on the New York Times bestseller list and (2) Putting the Soul Back in Medicine (reflections on compassion and ethics) by David Schiedermayer, MD who practices internal medicine in Milwaukee and teaches clinical ethics to junior medical students.  My topic is the human soul, your soul and my soul.  I hope that in these comments is a "pearl of wisdom" that will be of value to you, to your family, and to those you love.

As we consider the soul three main options are at hand:  (1) Plato inspired the belief that souls enjoyed some higher existence before their entry into individual human bodies.  This theory was widely condemned in the 5th and 6th centuries.  (2) Traducianism (also called generationism) argues that, like the body the soul is derived from our parents by the process of procreation and is material.  (3) Creationism asserts that God, having formed man of dust from the ground, creates a living, immortal soul ex nihilo (out of nothing) for each human being.  Thus, each of us has two parts, a body and a soul that are distinct and separate.  [Scripture also asserts the soul's existence after the death of the body and the Creator's power to destroy both body and soul.]

The human soul then embraces all human life as created by God.  Broadly speaking the word "soul" stands for life, the affections, the instincts, the will, the consciousness; that invisible, inner spiritual nature called human life whereas the word "body" stands for our physical, material body.  I assert that the whole human person - body and soul, is a divine creation fearfully and wonderfully made and that while you will be spending the rest of your lives comforting, caring for, treating diseases of, and healing the body, it is the care of the soul that should command your greatest interest.  As it is God who gives us this wonderful and miraculous gift, I urge you to treasure it as He does.

In Matthew's gospel, Christ spoke of the priceless value to every one of their own soul.  He taught this lesson by asking one of the most searching and well‑known questions in Scripture.  "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26).  Clearly there is nothing on earth that can compensate us for the loss of our souls.  There is nothing of worth or value to exchange for a soul.  Peter warns us that the desires of the body wage war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11).  Earthly sensual desires seek to slay the soul and bring it into captivity to lead it to eternal death.  To forfeit one's soul means to suffer temporal ruin and to sacrifice one's eternal destiny.  Yet, James tells us that our souls can be saved from eternal death (James 5:20)!

The world and all that is in it (including our bodies) is temporal - it is fading, perishing, passing away.  However, the soul is eternal - your soul, my soul, the souls of our loved ones.  A call to consider the soul is a call for a true sense of values in our lives.  We are faced with a fundamental choice - a decision to make.  We may exchange our soul for worldly possessions and pleasures or we may gain for our soul eternal life with God.  The writer of Lamentations says "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him" (Lamentations 3:25).  Seek Him and trust Him with your soul.

Two Georgia statesmen, Alexander Stephens, afterward vice-president of the Confederacy, and Benjamin Hill, had a quarrel.  The frail Stephens challenged Hill to fight a duel.  Hill declined the challenge, telling Stephens that he had "a family to support and a soul to save."  It is a great day when we awaken to the fact that we have a "never-dying soul to save."

The apostle John wrote to his friend Gaius and greeted him with the good wish that his body may prosper and be in good health and that his soul prosper as well (2 John 1:2).  My prayer for each of you is that you may be in good health but most importantly that your soul may prosper as well.  The greatest blessing on this side of heaven is the health of your soul.  Consider your soul, value it, cherish it, take care of it, don't exchange your soul for the riches, honors, or pleasures of the world, don't forfeit your soul, don't lose your soul, trust the Lord with your soul!  There is nothing so precious as your soul!

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