Knowing Thyself

​In this subchapter, we’ll consider Dr. Gottman’s first principle about “love maps” - how loving your spouse requires first that you know them. But even before that, you can't know your spouse unless they know themselves. Here, we’ll consider the important theology on how the Bible reveals information about who we are, why we are on Earth and where we are going.

Knowing Your Spouse
Dr. Gottman sees that knowing your spouse is the first principle for a marriage that works.
 
“… emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s world. I call this having a richly detailed love map – my term for that part of the brain where you store all relevant information about your partner’s life.  Without such a love map, you can't really know your spouse. And if you don’t really know someone, how can you truly love them? No wonder the biblical term for sexual love is to “know.”  p. 54
 
 
Knowing Yourself
But unless your spouse knows themselves and you know yourself, the depth of your love for someone is shallow and incomplete. We see these concepts to know yourself in the Bible - Lamentations 3:40, 2 Corinthians 13:5.
 
“Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.”
 
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Yeshua Mashiach is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
 
 
Biblical Knowing
The concept of knowing in the Bible is an important concept.
 
Eve wanted a knowledge of good and evil to be like God.
The Bible uses the word “know” to convey the concept of sexual intimacy.
We can receive eternal life by knowing Messiah and God.
 
 
Knowing Defined
Knowing or knowledge are
 
facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education;
 
In the Bible, we see that knowledge is both education and experience.
 
God gave the Law through Moses that defines good and evil.
Adam and Eve fell from Paradise to experience good and evil as mortal beings with a carnal nature.
 
 
Education and the Bible
The Bible is first and foremost a book of education. It attempts to tell us about ourselves and how we relate to and with God. Abraham Heshel in his book God in Search of Man stated,
 
“Religion is an answer to man’s ultimate questions. The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion become irrelevant, and its crisis sets in.” p 3
 
The Bible answers the ultimate questions about who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.
 
 
The Origin of Man
The Bible answers important questions about the origin of man. When we look at the Bible, we see that man is comprised of a consciousness, a spirit body, and a physical body.
 
A Consciousness
Each person on the earth has a consciousness, an individual awareness that is eternal. While the Bible doesn’t come right out and say it – the Bible sees it as an understood truth that doesn’t require elaboration or confirmation.
 
A Spirit Body
The Bible does however confirm that each of us was formed with a spirit body and that spirit body was assigned a gender of male or female.
 
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  Genesis 1:27
 
A Physical Body
The Bible further indicates that Adam and Eve were formed with physical matter.
 
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,” Genesis 2:7
 
The Soul
The Bible wraps all these three aspects into the soul of man.
 
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7

The Soul of Man

A Consciousness​

A Spirit ​Male/Female

A Physical Body

Individual Free Will
The last topic we’ll cover is man’s free will.  In order for each one us to reach our highest potential, God gives us free will. We have seen that as Adams and Eves, we have the potential to be like God. The choices that we make before, now, and in the future form and shape who and what we are. Moreover, where we are here in mortality is based a lot on the choices we made before this mortal life.


Next Week
Next week we'll continue to see how the Bible tells us more about who we are.

---

Confirming with the Spirit

Yeshua dcelared that we can know the truth of all things through the Spirit. As you consider the concepts in these words, see if they give you a sense of peace and contentment.