And John?
I may be wrong but I don’t think he spoke English either!
And I was referring to a hypothetical “if we could” speak with Jesus today.
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Exactly. So they cannot be consulted (hypothetically or literally) about the way Word of God is used in English.
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We can speak to Jesus today. What is He saying to you?
If it is anything contrary to scripture, it’s not him!
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He is saying that Scripture is not open to private interpretation nor is its interpretation open to the traditions of men, regardless of how tightly or commonly held those traditions and beliefs may be.
Hate to break it to you, but if you are reading the Bible in a translation, it has been interpreted through “the traditions of men.” Even if you read it in the original language, you rely on lexicons and grammars to teach you Greek and Hebrew and make a bridge to your native language, and those lexicons and grammars are influenced by “the traditions of men.”
No one can get around interpreting. In order to understand anything, we rely on “personal interpretation.” There is no way to implant thoughts directly from a speaker to a hearer and avoid the pesky interpretive process that is understanding language.
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So, if you stood before God himself and asked, “Who or what is the Word of God?” You believe God would point to his son Jesus AND a Bible? Which Bible? Does it include the Apocrypha, or The Shepherd of Hermas, or the Book of Enoch (referenced by Peter, Paul, & Barnabas and actually quoted in the book of Jude… so that makes a few sentences in the book of Enoch God’s inspired Word but not the rest of it?). Does it include only the canon? Which canon?
I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that “The Word of God” is a collection of books and personal letters voted on by Jewish leaders around 200BC and by the church around 400AD (both gross estimates) when the book of John says quite clearly that Jesus is the Word of God, despite which language or translation is used.
I was beaten as a child with a 1/2” dowel because “the Word of God” told my parents to do that if I didn’t eat my brussel sprouts, clean my room to my mother’s exacting standards, got into a fight with my brother, or didn’t do well on a test at school. And we can go on and on about what their beliefs actually were and use all sorts of fancy philosophical terms but when you believe the ink on those pages came verbatim from the mouth of God himself and those words must be followed and adhered to or you’re going straight to hell, you’ve set yourself up for a fall. That is one of the reasons I personally fell away for a time … because I recognized the errors in the Bible and couldn’t fathom why the most powerful being in existence couldn’t keep “his word” free from error.
I believe that Jesus is the Word of God and he himself is living and active, sharper than any doubled edged sword and when he opens your heart, it is he who penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow and it is he who judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Not a book. Not a letter. CAN those books and letters be used by Jesus to do those things? Sure, but I still believe the he alone is The Word of God.
It that makes me out of the mainstream, it won’t be the first time. Nor will it be the last, I’m sure.
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In any language, the words assigned to referents are not based on some kind of absolute truth. They are based on usage among speakers. So, since God speaks English, I think yes, he would say that in English Word can refer to either Jesus or the Bible. Because it can, and I don’t believe God would deny reality on principle like some of his followers are prone to do.
Since in English, Word of God can be used by Catholics and Protestants, it can refer to whatever Bible they are using the label to to refer to. Words are labels, they are not some kind of glimpse into the absolute truth of the universe. They are just triggers that allow us to communicate.
For about the forty-seventh time on this thread, you cannot tell what a person believes about the Bible by the label they use. An atheist could refer to the Bible as the Word of God. Because it’s an English name, not a claim about the doctrine of inspiration or inerrancy.
Because you are importing meaning to the name that is not there just in the name. In English, the Word of God refers to the canon. That is what people understand someone to be talking about if someone says, “I read the Word of God last night.” People who use that label for the Bible have a whole range of beliefs about what the Bible is and what obedience to the Bible entails.
I’m sorry that happened to you. But your parents did not come to those beliefs because of the label Word of God, they came to those beliefs because they were taught specific things about the Bible and about what it meant to obey it. Plenty of Christians throughout history, including very liberal ones who barely believe in inspiration and definitely reject inerrancy, call the Bible the Word of God and manage not to draw any inferences about the need to beat their children. Doctrine about the Bible has to be taught, it isn’t inferred from a name.
Great. Me too. But the writers of the Bible used the term word of God to refer to the Hebrew Scriptures. So, not a book, but a scroll. Christians have a long history going back to the apostles of referring to God’s revelation as the word of God. To the extent that the canon is God’s revelation, it is also the word of God. Capitalizing it as Word of God is just a convention of English orthography for proper nouns.
Again, what you believe about the Bible and Jesus is irrelevant to how English speakers use terms. You can personally choose to never refer to the Bible as the Word of God, and that is your prerogative. But if you deny that the vast majority of English speaking Christians do refer to the Bible as the Word of God, (and in doing so, don’t confuse the Bible with Jesus and aren’t making any declarations about inerrancy) you are simply denying reality.
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Where does that occur?
Actually, I was wrong if I implied that in the NT “word of God” referred to the Hebrew Scriptures. My bad. I think it does sometimes in the Old Testament. But in NT, writers used “word of God” and “word” to refer to the gospel message. In any case, it’s not like “word” was reserved exclusively for Jesus.
Christy,
How do you know that the vast majority of English speaking Christians refer to the Bible as the Word of God? How do you know when they are speaking that they capitalize the W?
How do you know that they are not confusing Jesus the Word and the Bible the word? Have you asked them if they know the difference?
How do you know that they are not expressing an opinion about the “high view” of the Bible?
As I tried to make clear the issue of the Words of God and the word of God is not about a dictionary definition of the Bible. It is about theology and distinguishing between Jesus the Word and the Bible the word. This is an important issue for me and it seems for others, although maybe not so much for everyone.
You have made you position clear. That is all you can do. I don’t really understand why you have to attack the views of others who think differently.
Because it is listed as a synonym for Bible in references of the English language. You can find it all over Christian writing for hundreds of years. (See this thread.) I have never once met an English speaker who was confused by a reference to the Word of God in a context that clearly meant the Bible.
You don’t obviously, because capitalization is a convention of written language and doesn’t determine meaning in context AT ALL. Which just goes to show that whether or not someone capitalizes Word of God in writing tells you nothing about what they mean by it in speaking.
It is clear from the successful communication that occurs and the fact that never once in my life have I been talking about the Bible and used the name Word of God, and had someone say, “Wait a minute, are you talking about Jesus?” And all of my conversation partners, including my young children, have been smart enough to figure out when I am clearly talking about a book and when I am talking about a person. This is not rocket science.
Because using a name does not express opinions. That is how language works. If someone says, “The Bible is God’s word,” that maybe is expressing an opinion or making a claim. But if someone says “The Word of God says to love your neighbor,” Word of God is just a label for Bible and nothing about that statement expresses an opinion about the Bible. It could be truthfully uttered by an atheist.
You keep making the bare assertion that it is about theology. But you have offered zero evidence to counter all of my perfectly rational examples, that no, it’s not. It’s about English usage.
I’m not “attacking your views.” I have said repeatedly that I respect your right to call the Bible whatever makes your conscience happy. I am just telling you that if you insist Word of God means things it clearly does not mean or doesn’t mean things it clearly does mean based on the way the label is used (and I’ve provided tons of examples), then you are simply denying reality. And you really don’t have a right to impose your alternative reality on the rest of the English-speaking world.
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OK. Then my direct claim was wrong as it relates to the New Testament. My bad. I correct myself above and below.
In Mark 7:9-13, when Jesus is referring to the Jewish law he uses “word of God.” All through out the Psalms, when David and others are praising the Law and God’s commands they use the expression word of God as well. So there is definitely a link between God’s revelation in the Law and the Prophets and “the word of God.” I don’t think the phrase was completely synonymous with Scripture. The apostles on the other hand used “word of God” to mean all God had revealed, in the Scriptures and through Christ, and in their own preaching. So to the extent that the New Testament records “the word” that they were preaching, it is God’s word to us.
In Colossians 1:25 Paul describes his mission as “I have become its [the church’s] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—”
The apostles chose people to run the distribution of food to widows because it wasn’t right to “neglect the ministry of the word of God” because they were distracted by these administrative tasks.
Hebrews 13:7 reminds believers to respect their leaders who “spoke the word of God” to them.
What is the “word of God” that the apostles were preaching? Well, we have lots of recorded speeches in Acts. All of them rely heavily on summarizing or directly quoting the Hebrew Scriptures and presenting Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophesies and the continuation of God’s story of the redemption of his people begun with the covenant.
Peter: Acts 2:14-41
Peter: Acts 3:12-26
Peter: Acts 4:5-12
Stephen: Acts 7:1-51
Peter: Acts 10:28-47
Paul: Acts 16:13-41
Paul: Acts 26:2-23
It is clear that whatever concept the early church had of what constituted “the word of God,” the revelation God provided in the Hebrew Scriptures was a big and necessary part of it.
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What they were typically preaching was the good news of Jesus Christ.
They supported that good news, the Word of God, with some OT scriptures. The Word of God was not the Bible and is not the Bible, and consistently referring to the Bible as the Word of God leads people into error — like the error you made earlier about the Hebrew Scriptures being called the Word of God in the New Testament.
You really like keeping score, don’t you Vance? Christy did something that I don’t recall hearing you do much (if at all?) here, though I won’t go back and search. She quickly owned up to her mistake.
So let me ask you this: Is it characteristic of Christ, to dispute about words and seek to trap people? And even if you succeeded in pressing your case (something you have not yet done, since Christy’s “mistake” does not affect her main point about the linguistic realities to which you seem impervious) - even if you eventually succeed; would such “gotcha” success win people to your way of thinking?
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It seems quite clear that Jesus is using “the word of God”, λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, to refer to the Old Testament in Matthew 15:6. He’s not referring to himself!
(We could allow for a double entendre there, though, which is not entirely unlikely since God frequently engages in word [or Word] play. 
)
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