GOD the WORD

GOD
the WORD

Our
Bible, which is often called the Word of God, starts out in (Gen 1:1)
with "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".
Then in the NT book of John we see that it starts out "In the
beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the
Word was God" (John 1:1). We as humans with our "finite"
minds, find it near impossible to understand this simple, but
profound statement. But the fact is there can be only one
"beginning", and there is only "one God". Our
problem with understanding the Bible, stems from the fact that our
English Bibles, no matter what version we use, are all translations
from the original languages God used to have it recorded. Our English
language lacks the ability to always express the complete meaning of
words used in either Hebrew or Greek, the languages used by the
writers of various books of the Bible. Often the translators used the
same English word to translate words that can have several different
meanings. This is the case in point with the word used by John in
chapter one, which of course he wrote in Greek. One meaning for the
word in Greek which our English translators always translated as
"word" is [logos], and another Greek word [rhema], with an
entirely different meaning, is always translated as "word".
Without a knowledge of the original languages, or the use of a good
study Bible, it's no wonder people get confused!

For
your information [logos] means "transmission of thought",
and [rhema] means "communication or utterance". In other
words [logos] is the message; and [rhema] is the communication of the
message! Logos is the Bible in its entirety; Rhema is a verse from
the Bible. Another way of expressing this truth might be, the Bible
is the written [logos]; while Jesus is the living [logos]. An
understanding of this difference is helpful when reading verses like
(Rom 10:17), of course the word in the Greek here is [rhema], and the
NLT does a much better job of translation than the KJV here, where it
says "So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the good
news about Christ". I find that very often people pick out a
particular verse from the Bible [logos], usually a good promise,
and claim it as their own, when it has never been made personal to them
as a [rhema]. This often results in disappointment, and sometimes
even a loss of faith. Yes, the promises in the [logos] are true, but
until the Lord makes them personal to us as a [rhema] we cannot claim
them! He often brings these to our minds in a time of intimate
worship, when God manifests His Divine presence to us. The main thing for us to remember is that Jesus is God, and God the Father has sent God the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to our understanding! Hallelujah!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer