A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.

In a world apart from God, the power of denial is absolutely essential if life is to proceed. The will or spirit cannot-psychologically cannot-sustain itself for any length of time in the face of what it clearly acknowledges to be the case. Therefore it must deny and evade and delude itself.

There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus' expense and have nothing more to do with him.

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.

I do emphasize that we cannot just get out of the Bible a definition of the soul.

We are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God's great universe.

The humility that cringes in order that reproof may be escaped or favor obtained is as unchristian as it is profoundly immoral.