I can’t count the number of times I have heard the pastor (more than one BTW) say, “Let’s stand to honor the reading of God’s Word.” Don’t think they were trying to sell books.
And this conversation is really going down the rabbit hole.
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With respect @03Cobra, I believe you are mistaken in two counts:
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That the Word of God should be exclusively reserved for Jesus.
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That “Paul would have been horrified by the escalation of his words to the “Word of God.”
This can be demonstrated from 1 Corinthians 14:36–38 (NIV):
Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. But if anyone ignores this, they will themselves be ignored.
Here two things are of note:
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The ‘Word of God’ in this context is the gospel not Jesus.
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Paul explicitly says that what he has written in the previous chapters concerning spiritual gift is the Lord’s command. In these verse at the very least Paul self-consciously sees himself writing words from God for God’s people. The same is true of 1 Corinthians 7:8-11 where Pul goes out of his way to distinguish his opinion from the Lord’s command.
To say the ‘Word of God’ should be exclusively reserved for Jesus and that “Paul would have been horrified by the escalation of his words to the “Word of God.”, is no where near as cut and dry as you might like to believe.
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To be sure! Virtually every English teacher fights these battles (of getting kids to make proper use of words) every day in classrooms. And we tend to be in love with dictionaries as our accepted authorities in these matters. All that said, you would do well to learn from a professional linguist like Christy who has a lot more experience and education in language matters than probably anybody else here. Language is not this immutable kind of thing that is forever catechised into some ‘proper’ form and then presided over for all time by some arch-authority like a dictionary. It is an evolving common usage that actually preceded (and created!) our subsequently evolving dictionaries in the first place - which interestingly enough is exactly Andy Stanley’s point about the relationship of the church and the bible too, if I’ve understood him correctly. And I think some [many?] of us here actually agree with you in that. But you seem to want the English language itself to carry some immutable authority that doesn’t in the end bow to changing common usage; but that just ain’t so! I can understand your point, though, about wanting to resist some sorts of changes because of their reflection (or promotion) of undesirable philosophical shifts in our culture. So I think I’m more with you there. But reality still is what it is regardless of yours or my wishes.
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@LM77
You have confused my posts with the posts of others.
I never wrote that the Word of God should be exclusively reserved for Jesus.
Yes, the misleading substitution of “Word of God” for Bible has led to much idolatry of the Bible.
@Mervin_Bitikofer
You have misunderstood my concern. It is not that I want dictionaries to be unchanging authorities. It is that I don’t think we should make claims for the Bible that it does not make for itself, especially claims that cause people to attribute unjustified characteristics to the text.
Why not call them the scriptures, as they are called in the Bible itself, not something else? Or call them by the names of the men who wrote them, as the people of scriptures did?
“In Greek there is rhema and there is logos.”
I’m a bit surprised this has not been discussed more. I am not a linguist, but appreciate the difficulty in translation, especially in cases like this where two words of somewhat different meaning are translated into another language where only one word exists to carry that meaning.
Logos, according to the sources I goggled, imply a sense of action, and in that context is the root of our word logic. Brittannia.com defines it as: Logos, (Greek: “word,” “reason,” or “plan”)plural logoi, in Greek philosophy and theology, the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.
Rhema on the other hand is used to describe the meaning imparted to us individually by the Holy Spirit through either the written or spoken word. Well, at least some define it such. It gets complicated as different groups define it in different ways.
Be that as it may, the point is that we are silly to think all uses of the English “word” mean the same thing in all situations. And I do not have the energy to run down which word is used where, though that would be of interest, though of course logos is used to represent Christ in John 1 and I read "rhema " is used when the sword of the Spirit is called the word of God, which makes sense to me.
How the Bible has come to us is a much a mystery to me in many ways as any of the miracles recorded on its pages. We have to have faith that God’s message is given through it despite the strange and wonderful way it has come to be. I think that means we have to be open to the Spirit moving though it.
My sincere apologies for a genuine mistake on my part.
Please kindly see my revised post below:
With respect @03Cobra, I believe you are mistaken in saying that “Paul would have been horrified by the escalation of his words to the “Word of God.”
This can be demonstrated from 1 Corinthians 14:36–38 (NIV):
Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. But if anyone ignores this, they will themselves be ignored.
Here it is notable that Paul explicitly states that what he has written in the previous chapters concerning spiritual gifts is the Lord’s command. In these verses at the very least Paul self-consciously sees himself writing words from God for God’s people. The same is true of 1 Corinthians 7:8-11 where Pul goes out of his way to distinguish his opinion from the Lord’s command.
To say “Paul would have been horrified by the escalation of his words to the “Word of God.”, does not appear to be that simply. Here I believe you have (no doubt unintentionally) put your own opinion in the Apostle’s mouth.
Here’s a little word study for you. I stand corrected that the Bible never refers to Jesus as the Word of God, it does once in Revelation. But the rest of the time the “logos of God” is clearly not referring to Jesus.
2 Cor 2:17: Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. - logon
1 Thes 2:12: And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. -logon
Rev 1:2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. -logon
Col 1:25: I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness-- logon
1 Pet 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. -logou
2 Pet 3:5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. logo
1 Tim 4:5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. -logou
Acts 11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. logon
2 Cor 4:2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.-logon
Eph 6:17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. - rhema
2 Tim 2:9 And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the word of God cannot be chained. -logos
Rev 19:13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. -logos
Heb 6:5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age -rhema
Rom 9:6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. -logos
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@Daniel_Fisher,
Thank you for your response. You made me think deeper about this subject. However it does not change the basic issue, which is, the English Bible uses the same word to express two related but different realities.
That word is "word, and the way that the translators of the Bible lets us know of these two uses is by capitalizing Word when using it to refer to Jesus Christ, the Logos of God and the Second Person of the Trinity. When referring to the Biblical “word from God” word is not capitalized. This helps us to understand that the Bible is not absolute or divine.
My research revealed that while English has only one word of word, the Greek NT uses two, Logos and Rhema. Logos is more specific and philosophical. Rhema means “message,” so this is more like the meaning that you are giving to word and prevents the confusion in Greek that we find in English. Of course Hebrew has is own words for “word.” 5 are used in the OT.
Logos is not just an honorific for Jesus. It reveals to us Who Jesus is and He is more than the Biblical word of God. He is the Alpha and Omega of our faith.
Well, sure. I’m not personally disagreeing with you there. But nor do I intend to ignore current conventions of how these words get used, thereby causing myself to be misunderstood by … nearly everyone. I’ll pay attention to both current convention for the sake of clear and accurate communication, as well as to philosophical agenda - i.e. pushing for clarification for the sake of promoting good and needed cultural shift (or reform). I sense that you lean toward residing more on the latter posture. While I just want to be cognizant of both.
That would be “in your opinion”. Everyone in the congregation understood what the pastor was saying and there was no idolatry intended, implied or even hinted at.
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Your quote from 1 Cor raises another point. Paul calls the words he is writing the “Lord’s command.” You then say he wrote “words of God for God’s People.” The question this raises is to Whom does the word “Lord” refer, Jesus or God the Father. I would say that it is most likely Jesus, because that is how Paul usually referred to Jesus, but of course we know that Jesus is God and “the Lord” or “the LORD” can also refer to the God of the OT.
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EDIT: Please could a moderator move this post to the thread " Should “Bible” = “Word of God”?". Many thanks.
Dear Roger, I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, on this occasion, you are reading your theological view into translation practice. As far as I am aware, there is a simpler reason why translators render ‘λογοσ’ as ‘Word’ or ‘word’: English grammar. Let me explain.
In the first instance, Word is capitalised because it is being deployed as a proper noun, that is, a title for a person. This is further illustrated by the observation that λογοσ is not capitalised in any critical text of John 1 of which I am aware. Again, this appears to make arguments for theological inferences from capitalisation somewhat moot since it again illustrates that the capitalisation is about grammar, not theology. (@Christy knows more about this area than I, so I welcome her correction if I am mistaken).
In the second instance, ‘word’ is not capitalised because it is being used as a noun - a classification of a thing. That is words (spoken or written) whose ultimate source is recognised as being God (the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or generically, God). This noun might refer to the gospel message, the Hebrew scriptures, the writings of an apostle, etc.
TLDR: I do not believe there is any hidden theological meaning imbued by translators in their choice of ‘W’ vs. ‘w’, merely a desire to express good English grammar.
That said, if you wish to prove me wrong, perhaps you’d be kind enough to provide evidence from the prefaces to Bible translations? If they intend to help “us to understand that the Bible is not absolute or divine.” by this translation method, no doubt they would let us know there.
Paul does specifically say that some things he wrote were commands of God. He also specifically says some things he wrote are his own opinion.
So when we call the Bible, in its entirety, the “Word of God,” we disagree with Paul and the text of scripture.
Would you be more comfortable with the following?
Paul would have been horrified by the escalation of all of his words in his letters to the status of the “Word of God.”
As one who has heard the Bible referred to as the Word of God in church from my youth, I disagree that everyone knows what the pastor means.
Some actually assume he means that every word in the Bible is the Word of God.
Yes, I lean towards not making claims for scripture that scripture does not make for itself.
I guess “Word of God” is better than “Words of God” which seems to be popular in certain belief systems
Richard
Since I was only talking about my experiences that would pretty much exclude yours. So we should be able to agree that some people think one way and other people think a different way. So what is your point? People that don’t agree with you are wrong?
To the best of my recollection, this is the first time we have met Welcome.
Let me begin with a piece of advice. For God’s sake do not “go out on a limb” by making an unfounded accusation against someone you don’t know. You are just asking to have it cut off, which I must do. That claim is totally false.
I will agree that the reason that the Word is capitalized twice in John 1:1 is because of grammar. For me the purpose of grammar is clarify the meaning of a sentence. It is clear that the Logos in v. 1 is Jesus Christ from the context and I hope that we are in agreement that Jesus Christ, the Word, is God. Thus the capitalization or grammar helps us to identify the Logos as Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ as the One and Only Son of God, which it says in v. 18.
Agreed. There is no hidden meaning in the use of W. This makes clear something which is quite obvious in the text, that is, Jesus Christ is the Logos, Who is God.
The reason I am arguing with @Christy is because she seems to think that it is perfectly proper for Christians to use the Word of God as the name of the Bible, (when it is not,) and I do not. The Decalogue says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Calling Jesus and the Bible both the Word of God for me comes too perilously close to crossing this line, if it does not. Furthermore I have studied the history of how the evangelicals made the Bible the Word of God, that is God’s Absolute Word, and have seen the negative influence it has had on the Church.
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