Background
When I was asked to do a lesson on "The Word", I thought, uh oh... I'm good at trivia, and tangents, but... I'm no (LB/KN - very wise person I know) and what a broad topic!!! Really?!?!
But, I wasn't worried. I love God's word. It's my favorite book. I read at least a chapter every day. Sometimes, I do in-depth studies. Sometimes I make lists. I love using Excel to analyze what God is showing me, it has helped me to see new things.
I love that God expects us to use Reason. In Isaiah 1:18 he says "Come now, let us reason together." Thanks God! I needed that. I know I'm not like most people, and I felt that was directed at me.
Diversity
That reminds me how much God loves diversity among his people. The church has people from every nation, socio-economic status, political perspective, love languages, varying levels of baggage... Saul enjoyed hanging out with the baggage...
According to the Holmam bible, in Exodus 12:38, "An ethnically diverse crowd also went up with them". I think this is showing that God always had a plan for the gentiles. Every nation must be saved.
I mean, we just have to look around to see that God loves color. God gave us rainbows and duck-billed platy-pusses, giraffes and toucans, and penguins. So of course, in the bible, He gives us historical parts, poetry, songs, wise sayings, prophesy, allegories and more. Different parts speak to different people at various times in their lives.Sometimes, when I read something in the bible, it's like I get to ease-drop on God's conversation with someone else. I know it will be relevant for me one day, if not today.
But then I realized it was time to get busy and make a lesson about "The Word". So I followed the trend and went to the internet, where I found that there are: 783,137 words in the NIV bible, found across 68 books, and 1,189 chapters.
According to Bible gateway's niv 1984 version, there are 964 occurrences of the word "word" in the bible.
There are 502 occurrences of the phrase "the word" although, some of those are "the words". Japanese don't mind plural, so we'll ignore that for now. Most of these references are directly to the word of God, but not all.
Hmm... that's not much help in narrowing down my lesson.
Our Foundation
So I went back to the basics.
Heb 4:12 teaches us that the bible is living and active and goes deep. DEEP. Did you know the word even impacts stones? In Judges 24:27 it says '“See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”'
Jesus also talked about stones being able to cry out in Luke 19:40, but I'll have to meditate on that later.
It's POWERFUL! In Isaiah 55 10-11 we read: "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 that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 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." God compares his word to water that makes food to grow.
Brief personal history
You see, I started studying the word to beat back the Bible thumpers at my school. That is a story for another day, but these people appeared to believe scripture without reason, they said they took it on faith, but I noticed they wouldn't swim outside the point they wanted to make. They 'studied' but didn't appear to understand, so I read to learn how I could turn it back on them. I'm sure they knew more than I picked up on, but if you are going to open a door like that, someone will step through.
Where was the external proof that this God's word was really God's word? I could tell that more than one person had wrote it. But the lame "Inspired by God" would lead me to snort.
Joke's on me though, God turned this back on me.
Attaining Wisdom
In a conversation with a good friend recently, I was reminded that we get the wisdom of God with the Holy spirit, but how do we get wise?
We need to read the word so He has material to work with. He's a gentleman, he doesn't like to force things on people. I think he's very respectful of what we want and are interested in, and I can give you a lecture on Saul if you want to see why I think that way. But that would be another lesson. (See the last blog post).
In Jeremiah 8:9, it says "The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?" We can't be wise without embracing God's word.
Not long after I was baptized, I started studying, not just reading and I thought "Holy cats, how am I ever going to know as much as ML (a very wise person I know)?" But the Holy Spirit inspired me that if I just read everyday, I will eventually get there. The key for me is writing down (need to do that more!) and meditation.
The Value of Meditation
K will discuss meditation, but my best insights come from chewing on a scripture and asking the Holy Spirit questions. I like to read a story, about Saul for example, and work over the events with the Holy Spirit. There's not a lot of detail, but by engaging in a thoughtful dialog (or a think and wait for inspiring response) I learn a lot from a few short passages.
So... the key is to read as much and as often as you can so there is more material for the Holy Spirit to easily leverage. He can inspire without it, yes, but let's make his job easier. I don't want him to grieve.
I believe this is how we act on Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."
Source of "The Word"
But I digress. The obvious thing to discuss when given the topic of "The Word" is "The Word".
In Genesis 1, the first thing God does is Speak. You could argue that he Observes while he's hovering, but the first significant action that causes a reaction is Speaking.
In fact, the word, Universe is Uni = one and verse = sentence. Kind of neat how God slips little tidbits like that into our modern language.
In Deuteronomy 30:14, it says "No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. "
What? this is Deuteronomy, before Judges, before Samuel, before Kings... God wrote it on their hearts that long ago? I think that I'll set that aside to meditate on later.
In 2 Kings 3:12 we see that the word of the Lord can go with people. YES! wait... is that Jesus? It could be... there is speculation that the Spirit of the Lord in the old Testament is actually Jesus. In fact, in John 1:14 the word becomes flesh.
And so, here are many scriptures about the word to meditate on later:
- Numbers 3:16, 51 - it commands
- Deut 30:14 - it is in us, it must be obeyed
- 1 Sam 15:23, 26 - it can be rejected
- 2 Sam 12:9 - it can be despised when we do evil (by David!)
- 2 Sam 22:31 - it is flawless, a shield
- 1 Kings 13 - it predicts the future
- 1 Kings 19:9 - it appears
- Psalm 17:4 - it keeps us from violence
- Psalm 18:30 - it is flawless (flaws abound, but it's in us, not God's word)
- Psalm 33:4 - it is right and true
- Isaiah 28:14 - a scary one.... talks about our flawed view of the word
- Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:25 - it stands forever
- Isaiah 50:4 - it sustains the weary
- Jeremiah 6:10 - it is offensive to some
- Amos 8:12 - Men will search and not find (YIKES)
- Zechariah 4:6 - Victory from the spirit
- The parable of the soils is all about the impact of the word on us
- Mathew 5:16, mark 7:13 - we can nullify the word of God (can we really)?
- Luke 11:28 - blessed if we hear and obey
- John 1:1 - WORD!
- Acts 12:24 - it increases and spreads
- Acts 19:20 - it grows in power
- Acts 20:32 - it gives us inheritance
- Romans 10:17 - it brings faith
- Eph 1:13 - it marks us with the Holy Spirit
- Eph 6:7 - it is a sword
- 2 Tim 2:15 - it can be handled incorrectly
- James 1:18 - it gives birth to us
- 2 Peter 2:19 - it is like light in our hearts
- Rev 12:11 - it gives us proper perspective over life
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Word is many things. It is powerful. It is flawless. It creates. It is Jesus. It lives.
I encourage you to seek to find how God's word best speaks to you. And let the Holy Spirit build your wisdom as you meditate on His word.
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