Alright, well, we were on a great streak there for a few days, this devotional and me...but today took a left turn.  In reality, the gist of what is being communicated is great, it is just the nuance associated with this idea that gets under my skin a touch.  So, let’s talk about it.

Here is the passage being cited:

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

Alright, so, here is the rub for me...the Bible seems to be framed up by so many people as this super sacred thing, called God’s Word, and honored and revered as God-breathed, inerrant and without error or omission.  I understand all of that, but we have to keep in mind that WE, people, not God, came up with all of that.  We have to humbly accept the fact that people wrote the stories that are in it...yes, I believe God led these people, and yes I believe God helped to direct the putting of all of this together, and yes I believe that the Bible contains everything God intended and nothing He didn’t; my issue is how we act like ‘the Bible’ is the center of our faith.  It isn’t...and I truly believe God didn’t intend it that way either.  The Bible is A tool that God gave us.  He also gave us the Holy Spirit.  He gave us Jesus.  He gave us a whole host of tools.

Besides that, here in this passage, when it starts with ‘the word of God’, it isn’t talking about the Bible...the Bible didn’t exist that the time this was written.  Heck, the Bible didn’t exist for a few hundred years after this was written.

As for this passage, I DO believe God’s word is amazingly powerful, and I DO believe the Bible contains some of those words...but that isn’t what the Bible is...the Bible is a story about God’s love for His people, about His plan of redemption.  I think God’s word is much bigger than that.  It is the answer to a prayer.  It is a nudge I feel when I asked God to help me and I get a sense, in the moment, that He is there.  God’s word is that moment of clarity in the midst of chaos, the sense of peace...God’s word is way bigger than the Bible.  Or, at least that is my sense of the matter.  I know I am picking on some of the words here, and perhaps I am in the minutia with this, but some of these ideas that pervade the Christian church bug me because I think outsiders to our faith look at some of these ideas, without the veil of our faith, and they see some of THESE ideas as being a turn-off to faith, and I don’t want that.  It is always true that groups of people, whether Christians, cyclists, runners, comic book readers, classmates at school, fraternity brothers, etc., get kind of an inside language that becomes invisible to them, it is just a part of how they operate, and they become blind to some of the silliness that can become a part of that language...they sometimes can’t see it for what it is.  That’s really all I am getting at.

God’s word does everything this Hebrews passage says, and way more.  God’s word has certainly shaped me over time.  I am a different person, headed in a different direction than when I submitted my life to Jesus roughly 18 years ago.  I am better for it, no doubt.