What Does “Spiritual” Mean?

It is somewhat correct to say that a word means what the writer or speaker thinks it means. If you have a misguided notion of what a word means, however, you won’t be much of a communicator. This has become especially true of the word, “spiritual”. Many people use and abuse this word. To be “spiritual” is very in vogue in our society. What can be inferred to be the meaning? First, to be spiritual means that you reject the philosophy that the only things that are real are the things that can be observed or measured. It is a mildly anti-scientific statement, as far as, a scientist would accept a materialist philosophy.

“Spiritual” isn’t always that deep. I wonder if it means for some that they have an internal dialog in their head. In that case, everybody is spiritual. Spiritual truth is often the same as “my truth”. It may be imagined. It may be borrowed from multiple world religions. But it is what you believe about unseen things for the moment.

The Bible has a much more serious and specific meaning for the word “spiritual”.

⁹ But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

¹⁰ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

¹⁴ The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶ “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:9-16 (ESV)

The word “spirit” is used often and in a couple different ways in this text. First, in verse 11 it talks about the “spirit” of a person. Everybody has a spirit. This non-physical part of you is eternal. It interfaces with your body to make you a living human being. See this article for more: https://afterdeathsite.com/2024/03/26/your-body-soul-and-spirit/ The mere presence of your spirit doesn’t make you “spiritual” in this context. In fact, verse 14 says that our natural condition is to be hopelessly non-spiritual. We just don’t and can’t get the things of God.

Then there is “Spirit” with a capital “S”. This is a reference to a person who is without a permanent physical form, that is part of the Triune God. God insists that He in one. Yet the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all are identified as God, treated as God, and have the power of God. It is counter-intuitive. You should expect no less from a being that created all reality and is outside the constraints of the Laws of physics and our reason. We may not like not being able to fully conceptualize something, but we need to accept our limitations.

The Spirit needs to somehow successfully interact with our spirit to make us “spiritual” in this good sense of the word. The text also speaks of the “spirit” of the world. This is not something like a prevailing attitude or worldview. It is darker than that. The spirit of the world is the power of Satan and Satan’s demonic helpers to interface with our brain and exercise influence ranging from motivation to do evil things, to accepting a false worldview, to embracing dark practices. The Canaanites that God kicked out of Palestine so the Jews could move in were “spiritual”. That was their problem.

⁹ “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer ¹¹ or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, ¹² for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

Deuteronomy 18:9-12 (ESV)

So if you consider yourself to be “spiritual”, be careful of what kind of “spiritual” you are. These are ancient practices that you still can find today. The valuable, safe, and eternally necessary type of spiritual is that which comes from God working on you. God connects you to Jesus and the result is eternal life rather than eternal death. It also results in a much broader understanding of who we are and what God is doing in the world. In this sense, I pray you are spiritual.