Why Words? Aren’t There Better Mediums for The Gospel?
“Why was the light of God-given in the form of language? How is it conceivable that the divine should be contained in such brittle vessels as consonants and vowels? This question betrays the sin of our age: to treat lightly the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit. What else in the world is as capable of bringing man and man together over the distances in space and in time? Of all things on earth, words alone never die. They have so little matter and so much meaning. The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language should be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took these Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power, and the words became a live wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hyphens between heaven and earth. What other medium could have been employed to convey the divine? Pictures enameled on the moon? Statues hewn out of the Rockies? What is wrong with the human ancestry of scriptural vocabulary?” ~ Abraham Heschel
Simon Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life! (John 6:68)
Concerning words, Jesus said “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63)
Before we get into any silly distinctions between “The Rhema Word,” and “The Logos,” Let’s entertain the idea that they are virtually synonymous. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” (John 5:24) The heard/spoken “word” there is logos.
The point of this post is to marvel at God’s use of words and Heschel’s quote above. A few questions:
1. If words are as important as Heschel seems to indicate, then shouldn’t we always be improving our vocabulary?
2. What would you say is the distinction between gospel and non-gospel words?
3. What biblical word has most captured your imagination this past year?
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