Table of Contents
Crazy title, I know, but the question is important. In the Greek language there are three different words commonly translated into the English word “life”. Let’s carefully go though each of these Greek words and examine how their meanings differ. From the insights we gain, we’ll better understand this person we are and the components we’re made of.
Bio (βίος)
The first Greek word we need to study is this word Bio (Βίος). We get our English words “Biology”, “Biodegradable” and “Biometric”, as well as many others, from this Greek word Bio. You’ll recognize immediately, the prefix Bio has something to do with “life”. “Biology” is the science, study or field of life. In the Greek this word does relate to “life”, but not in the same way it does in the English.
Let’s walk through a few verses from the Bible where the original Greek uses this word.
41 As Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury, He watched the crowd putting money into it. And many rich people put in large amounts. 42 Then one poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amounted to a small fraction of a denarius. 43 Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more than all the others into the treasury. 44 For they all contributed out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
Mark 12:41-44
Jesus was impressed with this poor widow’s gift because her gift was 100% of what she needed to sustain her earthly, mortal life. Someone willing to give away the only resource they had to sustain their life is either lacking sense, or depending on God for His provision. Jesus saw this as an example of the latter.
The word in the Greek translated “she had to live on” at the end of verse 44 is the word Bio.
When you meet a new friend at a party and start in on the small talk, we sometimes will ask, “How do you make your living?” The long way of asking the same question would be, “What work do you do that earns you the resources to supply the day to day needs for you and your family?” This is the Greek Bio form of life. This is the kind of life that the soul is after. We dream about winning the lottery so that we will no longer have to strive for the living we require to meet our needs. We are envious of richer people around us who have a large supply of living. When the soul feels insecure about its future because of a job loss or a drop in pay, that anxiety is intense. The soul just doesn’t die that easily– it is going to raise a lot of warning flags when the money in the bank account gets low.
Jesus has some very interesting things to say about this form of life– mortal, biological life. For example, what follows is a single verse from the interpretation Jesus gave His disciples when they asked for the meaning of the parable of the sower:
The seeds that fell among the thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature.
Luke 8:14
Jesus said the seed is the Word of God, but that Word can be choked by a soul’s obsession with resources that sustain earthly life. Does this mean we all should sell everything and become homeless on the street? No, but it does mean that when our souls call the shots and demand a constant focus on a soul’s needs, then that state of existence will prevent finding “abundant life”, the fruit of God’s Word.
When a person’s soul is completely in charge, setting every priority based on the soul’s desires, attempts to wrestle that control away from the soul will fail. Persons in this sort of soul bondage don’t make a good soil for the Word of God to grow in.
Here is one last example of the soul’s infatuation with earthly, mortal, sustaining life. In the story of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15, the prodigal demands the inheritance the son would have received upon his father’s death– in advance– before his father has died:
The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Luke 15:12
In this verse the word “property” is the Greek word “Bio”. The father had labored hard all his life, gathering, collecting and saving wealth to ease the burden his sons would bear when the father could no longer work. This prodigal son asked for his father to give it to him and the father did. This story is meant to highlight what happens when souls are allowed to focus selfishly on their own physical and material prosperity– this kind of life or living is obviously required, but the soul’s evil lust for it leads to both temporal and eternal dissatisfaction.
Bio is the life that sustains the soul. It is the material resource our bodies run on and the soul makes hoarding life a priority.
By way of trivia, to gauge the importance of this word in the New Testament Greek, four different related forms of Bio are used a total of 15 times.
Zoe (ζωή)
The second Greek word in our list is the word Zoe. Like Bio, use of the word Zoe has drifted into the English language through words like “Zoology” and “Zoo”, both words relating specifically to “animal” life. “Biology” is an umbrella term for the study of all of the various forms of life.
Just in case you are curious, the Greek word Botane (βοτάνη) is the term for vegetation, or more precisely the food foraged by livestock. We get our English word “Botany” from this Greek word. It only occurs once in the New Testament, in Hebrews 6:7:
For land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is tended receives the blessing of God.
Hebrews 6:7
Back to Zoe– Like Bio in the Greek, Zoe doesn’t carry the same essential meaning that it caries as an English prefix. In the Greek, Zoe is divine, spiritual, eternal, abundant life. Zoe is the life that Jesus offers. Zoe is the eternal life that matters. Here are some examples… I won’t discuss them all in detail since I believe you’ll see immediately what I am talking about.
13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matthew 7:13-14
Just then, a man came up to Jesus and inquired, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to obtain eternal life?”
Matthew 19:16
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:4
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:22-23
All the instances of “life” in the above verses are translations of the Greek word Zoe.
Remember our little note of trivia about the word Bio and its forms found in the New Testament? The word Zoe and all its forms are found 135 times in the New Testament. The significance of this form of Life cannot be over emphasized. What you do with any offer of eternal, abundant, life is forever important. Jesus said,
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.
John 10:10
Zoe life is the life given to us by God through our spirit when He breathed into us an eternal spiritual life… but that life was forfeit when we were separated from God by sin– read all about it in the chapter titled “What Went Wrong?“
Psuche (ψυχή)
The last Greek word we need to discuss is the word Psuche (Ψυχή). Like the other terms, Psuche has also drifted into the English language through words like “Psychology”, “Psychosis”, and “Psychoanalysis”. The English prefix “psycho-” actually means what the Greek word means– relating to the soul.
We’re somewhat at the mercy of the translators with this word, since there isn’t a consistent rule as to when to translate this word into the word “soul” or the word “life”– it’s a judgment call.
Let’s review a few verses from the Bible where this word shows up.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
Matthew 6:25
This is a very interesting statement by Jesus during His famous “Sermon on the Mount”. Jesus had just spent a lot of time talking about Bio kinds of issues– pride, money and earthly treasures. Jesus is winding down the sermon and uses this verse to begin making a point. When your soul begins to panic and think the world is about to end because you are running short on the material resources that sustain you, then put your soul at ease by reminding yourself that God knows what your soul needs. There has never been a truer statement: God is the lover of Men’s souls. God cares for each one of us more than we’ll ever know and it pleases Him when we acknowledge the awesome job He does providing for us.
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28
I’ll be honest with you. This verse is somewhat of an anomaly in my well thought-out model. This verse teaches that the soul is eternal. If the gift of salvation is refused by the soul, it will suffer along with the body in hell. Personally, I believe my model is still useful, but just keep in mind that where the body goes, there also goes the soul since the soul is the operating system for the body. In addition, understand that Jesus was talking to a crowd that had in their mind a model of human components that considered the soul to be the only life they knew since they were living in separation from the life-giving Spirit of God.
If this answer seems like I might be fooling myself in order to preserve the model I am so proud of, you could be right. And if you understand that last sentence, then I’m proud of you– you’re discerning the differences between the soul and the spirit, the zoe kind of eternal life and the bio kind of soul sustaining life. In the present state of this fallen world, it is all too easy to deceive oneself, well because ego.
The Take-away
Our souls are obsessed with material living that comforts and sustains our body’s existence. But our eternal God is not going to rest until we are restored to the abundant life we were created to experience eternally with Him. Jesus is the answer to how we can be set free from the bondage we suffer under the corrupt soul master we serve. The good news is you can find peace for the soul and new life for the spirit from a living well of water, freely through Jesus.
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