The Word
What does it really mean?
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“The Word”, one of those nice groups of two words with so many meanings, implications and connotations (those last two may be the same thing). A quick glance at a concordance reveals that it is in the New Testament, well, a lot. So clearly it’s important that we understand what is meant by “the Word”. But first a few questions for the reader.
Have you ever sat in some sort of meeting or congregation when a scriptural reference to “the Word” is deftly or not so deftly equated to the Bible? Have you wanted to raise your hand and point out that that is not quite what they think the passage is referring to? Have you sat there and said nothing? I have certainly done all three.
John 1:1 is an example of where this interpretation is untenable:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Clearly “the Word” is referring to Jesus here. But in others it is not so clear, say Ephesians 6:17:
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Of course we cannot and should not exclude the possibility of the same word being used in different places with different meanings (or indeed being polysemous in one place). Perhaps “the Word” is at best used too casually, at worst used wrongly, on many occasions.
It also seems to me, I emphasise to me, that at times Evangelicalism verges on an idolisation of the scriptures, the precise thing that they themselves will not allow. So how should we regard scripture? The nineteenth century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote that “the Scriptures are but highway signs: Christ, the beloved, is the way”. And that brings me to the reason I wrote this article:
[Jesus said] You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
John 5:39–40 (NIV)