The Word of God
From my writing, Hearing His Voice:
“‘God’s not speaking.’ Well, God has spoken. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
More on the word of God and what it is - beyond just another book - in another writing to come.”
This is the other writing to come. Let me begin with a question: what is your definiton of the Bible? The Christian book? A book filled with historical accounts? Stories? Wisdom? Insight? Now another question: does your connotation of the Bible hold negativity, neutrality, or positivity? Is the Bible just another book? Is it complementary to the Christian faith? Is it a book you could do without? Is it a book you could not live without?
My hope here is to expand your lens to what the book of the Bible is, and what it can be for you, for flourishment, nourishment, etc.
The Bible is the active, living, breathing word of God. Written by people through the Holy Spirit. It is an account of Jesus Christ. His life and death and ressurrection. Who he is, what he has done and will do, and why it matters to us.
When you expand the definition of the Bible from simply another book to the active, living, breathing word of God, you expand your experience from being simply a reader to being a partaker of the story, increasing in the desire of indulgence for who Jesus is, what he has done, and what he has in store for you as a believer.
You begin to detangle and unravel the netting of limitation around what the Bible is and how it can impact your life. To who God is and how the Holy Spirit can intercede and translate from God’s mouth to your heart and mind and soul.
By reading the word and viewing it through this deeper, more meaningful and truer lens, you more frequently enter into the presence of God, the initiator of conversation between you and the Holy Spirit, increasing the abundance of flourishing in your life, becoming more familiar with what that conversation can look like.
I heard somewhere that the Bible is the most in depth book that captures history and spirituality, past present and future, with a plethora of multifaceted aspects of life. I also heard the following from pastor Judah Smith in The Judah Smith Interview in the Bryce Crawford Podcast (a GREAT listen, by the way. discussing the love of God and such real, raw accounts of experience from both of these individuals in their walk with Christ. Super relatable, made me feel normal in doubts and thoughts and discouragements I have felt before):
“There has never been a more preserved, sensational, supernatural preservation of one book in history.
No book has ever divided kings and kingdoms and lords and princes and no book has done what this book has.
This book, mathematically and scientifically, has no peer. It is unprecedented.
All of these things are on the Internet now. Even Chat GPT can prove it to you.
No book comes close to the phenomenon that is the Bible.
So if there is a book to base your life on, I believe this is the one. It’s a phenomenon.
So it’s the best book we’ve got.
This book is not about knowledge, it’s about a person.”
Doesn’t that sound at least a bit more appealing than reading just another book?
