Introduction
Good evening!
We’re continuing in our series of Something Old, Something New, and
today we are looking at the Word of God. I know what you’re expecting me to
talk about, and so let me start by saying that I’m not going to talk about it!
Let’s pray…
Let’s begin at the beginning, and let me ask a question. Maybe it’s a
question you’ve asked yourself lots of times. Maybe it’s one which has never
occurred to you. The question is this: What is a word? What are words for? Because
I think often we come to things with a package of half thought out assumptions,
and those assumptions act as a kind of ceiling which prevent us from
penetrating to where God is, from understanding his mind and thoughts. So when
we talk about the word of God, what do we mean? Do we mean what God means, or
do we mean something less than that? And I want to suggest that usually we mean
a lot less than that.
So, what are words?
Well, to us a word is a black and white unit printed on a page. We
speak them, but mostly they are things which are written. Well, that’s
interesting for a start, because it’s only been in recent times that we’ve all
been able to read and write. So before the 15th century and the
invention of the printing press, most people must have understood a word not as
something printed but as a noise in the air. Unless they were Japanese, of
course, and then it would have been a picture in the air. So already you see it
is becoming less simple.
What are words for? Well, we
use them for all sorts of things:
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information – the words in a
newspaper or on a food packet offer us factual information about things we need
to know.
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description – we use words
to describe what a person looks like, or the scene of a crime, or where we
stayed on holiday.
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persuasion – advertisers,
spin doctors, politicians all use words like this. I can sell you a certain
brand of baked beans, persuade you to vote a certain way by the careful use of
words.
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instruction – laws, instruction manuals, cookery books. They use
words to tell us how to do things.
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relationship – I can tell you
how I am feeling. I can suggest what we might do together. I can tell you that
I want to be your friend. I can tell you to go away.
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ideas - and we can use words to express ideas, explore
concepts.
Forget
all that…
Well, words do all those things. But I want to suggest that all that is
only a tiny part of what words mean for God. Let’s try an exercise. Think for
the moment about that door over there. Can you decide to open it, without using
words? Try it. Probably you can; but probably only in a rudimentary way. Now
try thinking about what you are going to do tomorrow. That’s much harder to do
without words. You depend on words to give shape to your thoughts. Now let’s
say the words. I am going to open the
door. But supposing English is not your mother tongue. You’d use different
words. Sto per aprire
la porta. Je vais ouvrir
Now let me make a suggestion. The question was,
what are words? Perhaps the answer is this: words are
the clothes that thoughts wear. Words are not fixed things. They have no
independent existence and no meaning independent of the thoughts they express.
All they are is clothes; the clothes that our thoughts
wear.
And just as we wear different clothes for different occasions, so we
use different kinds of words for different purposes. Look again at the different
things we use words
for – information, description, relationship and so on. We find that each one wears
a different kind of word, because we are thinking in a different kind of way.
Love letters use different words from legal documents, and they join those
words together in different ways. Adverts use different words from instruction
manuals, and again we find that they join them together in different ways. Long sentences, short sentences, precise words, emotional words,
words of command. Words are the clothes that thoughts wear, and they
wear different clothes for different occasions.
Now let’s think a moment about God. The problem is that because we are
used to using words in these particular ways, we tend to assume that God is
doing the same. Most of the ways we use words are rather mundane; and so we
tend to reduce the words of God to that same level of usage. Let me illustrate.
First of all, when we think of the word of God we think first of all of the Bible, because that’s where we find stuff written
down in the black and white shapes we have learnt to call words. In the Bible
we find that words do all the things we expect them to do. For example, the
Bible contains instructions. We
might not always like them much, but on the whole we try and live by them. We
sometimes worry about whether they apply to our culture, but on the whole we
regard the Bible as a kind of manual to live by. The Bible also contains information, historical information particularly, and we value it
for that; but we aren’t always sure how reliable it is, and whether it is to be
taken literally or not. So we worry about whether God created the world in 7
days, and how that fits with the theory of evolution. The Bible also contains relationship – God’s desire to have a
relationship with human beings, and theirs to have one with him. The Psalms, for example. And yet often that relationship
seems a bit remote – a bit like a husband and wife living on different
continents and trying to keep close to one another by correspondence only. It
doesn’t always seem to work. And then there are whole chunks of the Bible we
really have no idea what to do with – how helpful do you find Obadiah, for
example? What do you make of the injunction that we should not lend money at
interest? What about all the bloodthirsty bits of the Old Testament? What about
the descriptions of hell?
Can you see what I’m getting at? Apart from the fact that the word of
God throws up problems for us, it’s as if our understanding of words and what
they are for somehow makes the word of God seem smaller than we know in our
hearts that it ought to be: we reduce it to the kinds of communication we are
used to, and do our best to forget about the bits that won’t work that way. But
if it’s really true that words are the clothes that thoughts wear, we shouldn’t
expect the word of God to fit into the clothes that we are used to using for
our own thoughts. Just as I can’t fit into a child’s t shirt, maybe God can’t
fit his thoughts into these clothes that we wear of information, instruction, relationship. Maybe his thoughts are bigger than that. Maybe
the word of God has to be received a different way.
God’s
thoughts and our thoughts
There’s a bit in Isaiah 55 which says this:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
As the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow come down from
heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud
and flourish... so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return
to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for
which I sent it.
That suggests that God’s thoughts are both a lot more complicated and a
lot more powerful than ours. Often I watch our rabbit and I think how fuzzy his
thinking is compared to mine; it must be rather like being drunk all the time,
as he tries to work out simple cause and effect things like if he runs into
that corner I will be able to pick him up and put him away. Or take birds.
Birds can count, just like us. Except that they can only count 1… more than 1…
So if a bird has 4 eggs and you take away one, she doesn’t notice, because she
had more than one before you came, and she still has more than one now you’ve
gone. Do it again and she still won’t notice, because now there are 2, and
that’s still more than one. She will notice something has happened only if you
reduce her eggs from two to one, because then she counts more than 1… just 1.
Like most things, this matters more if we aren’t aware of it. Perhaps
we are like the rabbit or the bird when we compare our use of words to God’s.
God uses words in dimensions we know nothing about. If we think in one
dimension, he thinks in 3. If our words describe the world, his words create it.
If our words bring comfort, his bring life. The first thing we need to
understand about the word of God is that if we reduce it to the categories we
use words for we reduce it to something much smaller than it is.
The
Old Testament : dabar
So. Words are the clothes that thoughts wear. We
dress our thoughts in words, and we expect God to do the same. The problem is
that he has a lot more kinds of thoughts than we do.
Let’s start with the Old Testament, and our first reading. Psalm 33
talks about the word of God a lot. Sometimes it uses it in familiar ways. But
look at verse 6: by the word of the Lord
were the heavens made. Now this doesn’t correspond to anything we use
language for. We use language to inform, describe, instruct, persuade, relate,
and discuss. But here the psalmist suggests that God uses words in another way:
he actually uses them to create. God’s words have power, power not just to
influence behaviour but to change material reality itself. We get it again in
John: In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning
with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing
came into being. Words are the clothes God’s thoughts wear – but
his thoughts have the power to create the world. It’s as if we can think ‘I am going to open the door’; but when we think it,
nothing happens. The OT reveals a God who when he thinks ‘I am going to open
the door’, that door opens. It’s a whole nother dimension.
A word in Hebrew is dabar. But
dabar turns out to mean both ‘word’
and ‘deed’. When God speaks a word, something happens. God’s words are
not just tools, as they are for us: they are active agents for change. They
bring into being that which they express. God’s thoughts create and consume,
bring life and death. If I were to curse a tree, not much would happen. When
Jesus did, it withered and died. If I were to think a cloud, not much would
happen. When God thinks one, it comes into being. The spoken word of God carries the creative energy of
God. It isn’t just a verbal noise or a mark on a page; it is a living and
powerful thing. One commentator defines the word of God as ‘the vital
expression of his active presence’. God said, ‘let there be light’, and there
was light. God thought mountains and seas, birds and animals, grass and trees;
and they all appeared.
So it turns out that the word of God is a lot bigger in scope than the
word of human beings. We looked at some of the things we do with words. Let’s look at the psalm and see if we can
identify some of the things God does with them.
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creation – the word of
God made and sustains the universe. Vs 6-9: ‘by the word of the
Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He
gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let
all the earth fear the Lord, let all the people of the world revere him. For he
spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm’. So the word of
God here isn’t something printed, it’s not God’s thoughts written down – it’s
God’s thoughts turned into physical reality.
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relationships - now look at verses 4-5: ‘for the word of the Lord is right and true.. the
Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love’. God doesn’t just think creation, he thinks morality too. The word of
God forms the created order, but it also forms the moral order. It is about
righteousness and justice and love. When the Old Testament talks about the 10
Commandments, it actually says the 10 ‘Words’.
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society – now look at
verses 10-17. The word of God forms the political and social order. God foils
the plans of nations, and makes plans which stand firm for ever. Battles are
not won by the strength of armies but by the purposes of the Lord. God looks
down from heaven and sees all mankind; and he thinks. What he thinks, happens. For Israel God had expressed his thoughts
about the social order in the form of the covenant; when the people lived in
harmony with these words, they lived in harmony with the thoughts and plans of
God.
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eternity – and finally, look at verses 18-22. The thoughts of
God shape the future. Not just the creation of the present, but the unfolding
of eternity is determined by the word of God. These are the thoughts, this is
the future kingdom, on which we pin our hopes and to which we owe our salvation
from death.
Responding to the Old Testament concept of the word of God
So we see that if our words describe, God’s words create. If our words
make relationships, God’s words provide the whole framework in which those
relationships are set. If our words instruct, God’s words govern the entire social
and political order. If our words express hope for the future, God’s words
weave that future into being. Our words are a pale shadow of the word of God.
What do we do with that? Well, think of all those passages in the
psalms where we are told to delight in the word of God. Psalm 119 is the best
example. From beginning to end it insists that we must delight in the law of
the Lord, treasure his word in our hearts, obey his decrees and trust in his
sayings. Read it and it seems a bit over the top. But the psalmist understands
what the word of God is. He understands that the word of God is the thoughts of
God, and that the thoughts of God are reality itself. When he urges us to
delight in the word, he doesn’t just mean that Bible study is fun. He means
that our task is to learn how to live in harmony with reality itself. Our happiness
depends on our ability not to keep commandments or stick to the rules, but to
live in harmony with the principles by which the universe itself is ordered.
It’s like one of those big exercise wheels. If you are running inside the
turning wheel, you have to go at the same speed as the wheel. Go faster or
slower and you will fall. Or it’s like riding a horse. I’ve been watching my
daughter learn to do rising trots. You have to rise up and down in rhythm with
the horse, otherwise you jolt and bump most awfully.
That’s what the psalmist means when he talks about living by the word of God.
That’s why we miss the point completely if we see God’s word as a set of
commands or instructions which we are to follow, as if we were talking about
sticking to the rather annoying speed limit, or reading the Japanese
instruction manual to our new camera, or keeping the school rules – all things
which I find irksome. It isn’t like that. To live by the word of God means to live
by the same rhythm which governs the universe. Only that way will we find
peace in the present and confidence in the future. We have to run at the same
speed as the wheel.
The
New Testament: logos
Let’s come on to the New Testament. If the Old Testament called a word dabar, the New Testament calls it logos, and that’s the word John uses to
begin his gospel. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The
Greek word logos has two meanings.
Firstly it means a word, and specifically a spoken word, a message. And secondly
it means reason, the rational principle which governs the universe. The
philosopher Seneca said that logos
was what put sense into the universe and into man – logos was the mind of God.
So when John sat down to explain the gospel to the
Greek-speaking world, logos was the
way he described Jesus. Jesus, he was saying, is the mind of God become a man.
Remember that words are the clothes thoughts wear. The scriptures are the
written clothes which God’s thoughts wear. But Jesus is the living clothes
which God’s thoughts wear. The Bible is God’s word written, but Jesus is God’s
word living. Jesus is the perfect expression of the thought of God. As John
says, in Jesus
the Word became flesh and
lived among us.
Think back a moment to the things we use words for:
information, description, instruction, persuasion, relationship, discussion. We
looked at the Old Testament and saw that God’s words do infinitely more than
these things. God’s words carry all the creative power of his thoughts. They
form not just the created order but also the moral, social and political order,
and they stretch into eternity itself. But now we come to the New Testament and
we find God’s word has not just acquired a dimension of power which we find it
hard to imagine: it’s actually become a person. It’s easy to feel we are
getting more and more out of our depth here. In a way of course we are. But in
a way it’s just got a whole lot simpler, because we are looking not at concepts
but at a human being.
When we look at this human being we find that when he
spoke, his words carried the same power that God’s words carry in the Old
Testament. A certain centurion understood this. He asked Jesus to heal his
slave. No need to come to the house, he said: just speak the word, and I know
it will be done. It was. Jesus did the same with an official’s son in
So Jesus healed with a word. He had the same power
over creation. Be still!, he said to
the wind and the waves on the
Now all this goes way beyond anything we use words for. If words are
the clothes that thoughts wear, we can be in no doubt that Jesus thinks the
thoughts of God and not the thoughts of man. We can be in no doubt that Jesus
does the 3 dimensional thinking of the creator, and not the 1 dimensional
thinking of the creature. If we think and speak in black and white, Jesus
thought and spoke in colour. But what does that do for us, apart from tell us
how limited we are?
Responding to the NT concept of Word
I think it does some amazing things for us, and the key to it all is
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit who in
the Old Testament is often described as Wisdom, and who in the New Testament is
described as the Spirit of truth, the counsellor, the advocate. The Holy Spirit
is the bridge between our use of language and God’s use of language. Jesus said
that he would send the Holy Spirit to us, and that
through his power we would do the works that he himself had done. In other
words, that the Holy Spirit would make our words come alive in just the same
way that God’s words are alive, and that Jesus is alive. Let’s look at what
this means in practice.
1. Evangelism
When you explain the gospel to someone, what happens? The gospel is the
good news of salvation. Well, if I explain the gospel to someone, my human
words have no power whatsoever. Human words explain ideas, they describe
experiences, they give information. But they have no
power to effect change. God’s words, on the other hand, do something. They do bring about change. So when I explain the
gospel, I must pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to fill my words, to turn
them from human words into God’s words, words which will land in the person’s
spirit and bring about lasting spiritual change. It doesn’t depend on me.
2.
Healing
Now think about healing. Tonight we will pray for healing with anyone
who needs it. What will happen? Well, sometimes people are healed. How? It
certainly isn’t because any of the team members have the power to heal people.
It can only be because as we speak the words asking for healing, the Holy
Spirit breathes the power of God into those words. So for just a moment, as we
speak, we cross the barrier from man to God, and our one-dimensional human
words become three-dimensional words. They become words which express the
thoughts of God rather than just our human thoughts.
3.
Deliverance
Jesus spoke, and evil spirits were made to flee. We can do that too, by
the power of the Holy Spirit. Many of us have experienced deliverance from
evil, either by praying for others or by being prayed for. It’s an astonishing
experience to listen to an evil spirit which has been afflicting a person speak to you in words of defiance, and to tell it
to get out in the name of Jesus. ‘Who are you?’ one asked me once. ‘No one at
all’, I said, ‘but I stand here in the name of Jesus Christ. Get out.’ It did;
because as we read scriptures to it and spoke to it, the power of the Holy
Spirit filled our words and gave it no choice.
4.
Growth
There’s one more thing. I started by saying I wasn’t going to talk
about what you were expecting me to talk about. Maybe you weren’t. But when we
talk about the word of God, we often think we are talking about the Bible,
because it is in the Bible that we find the word of God written down. We’ve
seen that it’s a whole lot bigger than that. But let’s end by going back to the
Bible. What happens when we study the Bible?
Well, in the Bible we find the written word of God. Not just
information, description, instruction, persuasion, relationship and ideas, but words
which are the clothes for God’s thoughts. Words which let us
into another world, a world in which words carry power. When we enter
into that world, we can take the words we find there and sow them, like seeds,
in our own lives. The words we find in the Bible, because they are the thoughts
of God, and not black and white marks on paper, are alive. We are to sow them in our own lives and watch them grow and
bear fruit there. Jesus told a story about it. The word of God is like a seed
sown in our hearts. If our hearts are receptive, it will grow. And as it grows,
we will change, we will become more like Jesus, we will grow into the people
that God means us to be, living the life he has planned for us. We will be like
the rider moving in rhythm with the horse, the runner keeping step with the
motion of the wheel.
So when you do your Bible study, don’t look for facts, or rules, or
concepts. Look for God. God’s word is where and how God reveals himself. It’s
the footprint of his living thoughts. It isn’t about words as we know them,
limited, one-dimensional things. The word of God is everything which expresses
who God is. You may encounter it as a leaf in your garden, as Christ in your
heart, or as scripture in your Bible. Wherever you encounter it, recognise it
as the living presence of God. Engage with it, and you will engage with reality
itself.