Mark 8:36

‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?'

His question was this, is anything worth having or clinging on to if it means losing eternal life? If we gain the whole world, what is it worth if it means that we lose our hope of eternal life? There is life on offer to man, but it is like the pearl of great price. In order to obtain it, it is necessary to sacrifice everything else (Matthew 13:45). At the last, then, who will have made the best bargain? The man who gains the whole world, or the man who sacrifices all that he has and obtains the pearl of great price, his place under the Kingly Rule of God for himself? Herod had gained much of this world, and John the Baptiser only a dark and dreary dungeon, but who would exchange the reward of John the Baptiser for his?

We have here translated psuche as ‘life'. It is an illusive word. It can refer to the inner life, or to the self, or to what we often call ‘the soul', as long as by that we do not refer to a separate entity within a man. For in the end ‘body, soul and spirit' are all aspects of the self. Thus to lose our soul is to lose our essential selves.