“The Word of God.”

I hear those words often when visiting churches. What does that mean? The Word of God?

If God is Spirit—not a humanlike creature—than God has a spiritual language, not a human language. Surely, the spiritual language speaks to everyone, no matter what their dialect or accent.

I’d have to agree with the scholars who take a metaphorical historical interpretation of the Bible and figure the words in the Bible are not directly from God, but from human beings who were hopefully inspired by God. Readers of these words, including myself, have been inspired, not so much by the words, as by the expression. The writer “expressed,” or “evoked” an image or understanding. And, the heart heard and knew a truth.

The literal words in and of themselves are only tools. Words, in fact, can become powerless. For millenniums, words have been going unheard by people who don’t want to listen, or who are too afraid, or angry, to hear.

Because words can be powerless, there are translations and revisions and rewordings, and it is proven that all power belongs to God, Love, Truth.

^“For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.” I Peter 4:6, ESV