Someone help me. Why does "word of God" = "Bible" or "Scriptures"?
I've always heard it that way, and taken it as assumed. But I'm taking another look at that assumption. I'm not saying the Bible is not the words of God. But I'm wondering if "the word of God" - that which is living, active, and residing inside us, and presumably is (ho logos theou) - can be substituted for "Scriptures" as we do today.
Are they interchangable? Why or why not? Fire away.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
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If you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, I guess you could say that the Bible is the “Word of God” literally, as in ‘the words in the Bible are actually words God has spoken.’ If you’re not an inerrantist, like me, you probably mean it as an epistemological statement, which is to say that ‘the words in the Bible are the words that I accept the authoritative source of knowledge about God.’ If by Word of God you’re equating the Bible with “in the beginning was the Word” from John 1:1, then I don’t know about that... that would seem a bit dubious to me, but would probably be more supportable to a hard core inerrantist.
Clarifying statement:
Last night, we were looking at 1 John 2:14. John comments of the "young men" that "the word of God resides in you."
I have always heard this to mean "You know the word of God well; you hide it in your heart; you memorize, meditate on, study the word."
But in context, John appears to be making declarative, positional statements of the people he is writing to. (1) The verbs are generally perfect tense (you "have" known, you "have" overcome, your sins "have" been forgiven), and (2) the "hoti" clause that is often translated "that" or "because" can be read as introducing a causal or a content clause ("I'm writing to tell you your sins are forgiven" or "I'm writing to you because your sins have been forgiven"). In context, content makes more sense than causal, supporting the "positional statement" view.
And "the word of God resides in you" seems an odd positional statement to make. The others seem to be generally acts of God.
And then I got to thinking... why do we say that "the word of God is living and active..." must be referring to the Scriptures? That's how I've always heard it... but it occurs to me that there are at least two other possibilities:
1) The John 1:1 Word - Jesus himself.
2) The "word of God" as the broad "message" or gospel (as opposed to specific writings denoted as Scripture by the reader of the letter).
The Bible could be seen as the reliable witness of #2... but to then turn around and claim the Bible as the totality of #2 seems to be a step to far: the logical fallacy that given B in group A, and B not equal to C, therefore C not in A. The fallacy is that C can be in A, but also be distinct from B... "To say 'The Sun is a star. Alpha Centauri is not the Sun . Therefore Alpha Centauri is not a star' is false"
So could you be saying that there might be other writings/sayings/messages out there that are "the Word of God"?
I sometimes say, somewhat glibly, that if C.S. Lewis were writing in the first century AD, his writings would be canonized.
Here's another question: could anything other than the Bible be "inspired" in the 2 Tim. 3:16 sense? What about when a preacher's words are "annointed" and bring great conviction on a congregation...or when a writer's statement is an accurate and powerful articulation of the truth?
In a sense... perhaps. But not Scriptures. Hence, the wondering if "word of God" need be synonymous with "Scripture."
If one reads the phrase "word of God" in a looser sense, as "story" or "message" then that would be a consequence... but it wouldn't turn out to be as consequential, because the big fear with "other writings" is that they introduce heresy. But taken in this sense, I think there's less implicit authority in any given supposed "word."
But this is just me thinking aloud. I haven't really parsed it all.
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