October 21 - The Word

I promise - I really am going to write new information one of these days.  Thank heavens, though, that I have nearly two years of written material to help me when I'm buried.  I wrote two papers today, read two books and worked through a bunch of stuff.  Tomorrow I will watch a Greek lecture and then begin putting together the notes for a major paper in my NT class.  I have a proctored Greek exam next week (midterm) and that has me shaking in my boots! 

The main reason I'm doing this is because God has given me such a passion for His Word.  This post helps me remember why.

August 18, 2009 - John 1:1-18 - The Word Made Flesh

I've told you that Isaiah 55 is one of my top favorite passages. Well, John 1 is probably the passage that explains the entire Bible to me. It was while reading these words that I finally got it. I finally understood the connection between the Old and New Testament. I saw how Jesus Christ moved throughout the pages of the Bible drawing everything together.

In Revelation 1:8, God says "I am the Alpha and the Omega." Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet and Omega is the final letter. He identified Himself with letters, the beginning and the end (and everything in between) of the alphabet. Words are made using these letters. The Word of God, the Alpha and Omega. God is using imagery that we understand.

I love words. My mother loved words. I can remember Dad and Mom sitting around in the evening debating word usage. Mom loved learning new words, she loved playing with words to see how they sounded and how they might fit with other words to create sentences. She loved to write. Both she and Dad taught us kids that reading was one of the most important things we would ever learn to do. I was reading at a very early age and I still read everything I can get my hands on. Mom always used to say that if there were words in front of me, I would stop everything to read them. My curiosity was always satisfied by reading things.

Words, spoken and read, were used to transmit the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God knew what He was doing when He used the imagery of the Word. Language was the thing that brought everyone together in Genesis 11:1-9 to create the Tower of Babel. At that point, God scattered the people and confused the single universal language and many languages were developed.

When God created the earth, He spoke it into being. Words were used to create the universe. All communication is done through words.

So, when God needed to make Himself understood to the people that He had created, the one way to do that was through the Word. Jesus Christ was the Word, the Word made flesh. The communication from the Father, the Creator of the World is Jesus Christ.

When the Word came to mankind in a form that we could communicate with and understand, He began to teach us the ways of the Father. The Gospels tell us of the words that Jesus spoke as He attempted over and over to translate the hopes and desires that God had for a relationship with His children.

God had given the Law to Moses, but that wasn't enough. John tells us that Jesus Christ brought grace and truth (John 1:17). He is the Word made flesh, come to earth to make the Father known to His people. This is how God communicates with us. The Word.