Logos is a Greek word often translated as Word or Word of God in the Bible. I believe it is a powerful and important word to understand. Sometimes it is interpreted as Voice. (See The Voice translation of the Bible, John 1.) It is a word that is almost always related to speaking. It could mean a message or a communication or a meaning or a main idea. In John 1, Jesus is called the Logos. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Or “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” This verse is saying that Logos was being declared or spoken to all of creation from the very beginning. It is truth spoken. Where do we find this truth spoken? Many think you open the Bible and find it there. But, I believe it is so much more than that, and ultimately, it is found in Jesus.
I’ve been struggling to write this blog, and so I’ve been putting it off. The way my thinking of the Bible has changed and grown over the past many years is a process that is hard to put into words. But I want to try. My thinking about God and my relationship with the Bible began to change when I thought about the use of “the Word” in the Bible as meaning “Jesus” or “God’s Voice” instead of “the Bible.” I think we have limited the meaning of this word, “Logos.” Logos cannot be contained within the pages of a book and it cannot be limited by language and our interpretation of language. God speaking is God revealing the character of God to the world, which started at the beginning of creation, continues to this day, and found its apex in Jesus.
Perhaps I can put it a different way. Logos is a Voice, something to listen to. It is a deep whisper sighing, a fervent song floating, an indistinguishable murmur coaxing. Is it too ambiguous? Can we trust the Voice? Yes, I think we can trust this Voice, for it is the Voice of God. Some think we need something more concrete, a list of rules to follow, and that this is found in the Bible. But the Bible too can be ambiguous and confusing and untrustworthy. What we need is a deeper connection to this Voice, to the Spirit of God, growing stronger and clearer and louder as we search and seek and find.
Logos is not just God speaking into the universe, speaking to all people with a general, impersonal message. Logos is also God speaking to us individually with life-giving words that are personally and uniquely meant for us. This is a Voice we can follow, not just words on a page, but Jesus Himself. When we think it is a book we follow, we end up choosing which verses we want to follow and which we want to ignore. Of course, we can choose which voice to listen to as well, and which to ignore. We think and we read according to our preferences, and often according to our biases, and this has caused a myriad of divisions and problems within the church. Listen to these words from the late Rachel Held Evans in her book A Year Of Biblical Womanhood: “If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to liberate or honor women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, you will find them. If you are looking for an out-dated, irrelevant ancient text, you will find it. If you are looking for truth, believe me, you will find it. This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not “what does it say?”, but “what am I looking for?” I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7) If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm.”
What am I looking for: a way to back up my opinions or the way to know God? Am I looking for something to argue and defend, or a way of life? Am I looking for a way to crush the opposition or a way to heal? I’m not going to interpret the Bible perfectly, and you’re not going to interpret the Bible perfectly either. I’m not going to hear the Voice perfectly, and neither are you. But I can start to ask the question, how am I approaching the Bible? How am I approaching listening? What am I looking for? I want to be growing aware of my prejudices and biases and opinions that influence the way I read and listen and think. May I be changing and growing, and not standing still.
There is this spirit in me (and in you), this inner knowing, that connects to the world around me, to other people, and ultimately to the Greater Good (God). May this spirit be influenced and led by the One Eternal Spirit. There’s a push and a pull in me that wrestles and doubts and questions. May the pull of the Logos outweigh all else. There are moments when I say, “Aha!” May those moments be God-given. There are times when I leap inside with a resounding, “Yes!” May that be in response to the Truth of the Voice. I also think of this Voice as a Drumbeat. It’s a Beat echoing throughout the Universe, but your soul needs to get quiet enough so you can hear its reverberations. It’s a Rhythm we can join. We can even be a participant, matching our unique rhythm to the Paramount Rhythm. It’s the basis of the Song that connects all things, draws all things, heals all things. And this is just the tip of the greater meaning of Logos.
This explains why I have become very careful with my use of the term “Word of God.” This Word, I believe, is so much more than the Bible. It is so much more than a list of rules. It is so much more than a handbook. Fundamentally, it is Jesus. Therefore, when I read the Bible and come across the term “Word of God,” I cannot see it as being a reference to the Bible we have today, because this book wasn’t even in existence when it was written. In my understanding, it must be referring to God revealing God in so many different ways, or God speaking to us in whatever way God chooses, or God becoming a human in order to show us what God is like. This is the deeper meaning of Logos.
That leads me back to the question, what is the role of the Bible then? If it’s not the Word of God, what is it? An irrelevant ancient text? A human-made creation? A book full of myths? Is it true or not? Or is it as some claim, an inerrant book to worship and follow, which has all the answers? I believe the Bible is a beautiful, inspired book full of prose and poetry, stories and history, written down to express a part of the story of God through the ages. The Bible is deeper and richer than most of us give it credit for. It’s a book that can be wrestled with, explored, and discovered. But, it’s not our instructional manual for life, that would be God. David Dark, in his book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, writes, “The Bible ceased to be (for me) a catalog of all the things one has to believe (or pretend to believe) in order to not go to hell. Instead, the Bible became a broad, multifaceted collection of people crying out to God = a collection of close encounters with the God who is present, somehow, in those very cries.” I love those words to describe the Bible: a broad, multifaceted collection of people crying out to God. And George MacDonald writes, straight out of 19th century Scotland: “The Bible is to me the most precious thing in the world, because it tells me his (Jesus’) story. But the common theory of the inspiration of the words, instead of the breathing of God’s truth into the hearts and souls of those who wrote it, are in danger of worshiping the letter instead of living in the Spirit, of being idolators of the Bible instead of disciples of Jesus. It is JESUS who is the Revelation of God. Jesus alone is The Word of God.”
My gratitude goes to George MacDonald for helping me to listen to this deeper Voice. I credit him with starting me down this path of discovering the “Word of God” not as a book, nor a doctrine, nor a dogma, but as God incarnate, as Jesus, as the Voice of the Creator, as the Spirit of God. The Bible is not to be worshiped, nor placed on a pedestal as the Ultimate Truth, nor thought of as the Book with all the answers. No, it is much richer than that, more full of deep truths God is waiting for us to discover. If we give our worship to God alone, trusting God’s Eternal Spirit to lead us in ways the pages of a book never could, we will realize the Bible is much more than we thought. But our Guide through those pages needs to be the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God’s revelation. George MacDonald also said, “Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” not the Bible, save as leading to him.” This book, written by imperfect people, translated by imperfect people, is an imperfect book. So, is it useless, fit to be thrown in the trash? Of course not! It is to be read and pondered and contemplated, letting God’s Spirit guide and lead into understanding. We must remember that we come to the Scriptures flawed, and therefore we must stay humble and open and listening. We come searching for the One, True God, searching for a glimpse of the Eternal, searching to know God’s heart. If this is our intent, we can be confident that we will find. But let’s not dishonor the Bible by using it to defend our positions, our beliefs, and our egos. Let’s not do it the disservice of using it as an Ouija board: asking it a question, closing our eyes, and letting a finger fall on a random verse for our answer. Let’s not take a verse out of context, ignoring ten other verses in the process. Let’s not read the Bible daily hoping we will gain extra points with God, the scorekeeper. That isn’t faith. That isn’t God. That isn’t following.
This Logos is deep waters. Sometimes it’s overwhelming and full and rushing by. Sometimes it’s a trickle, perhaps even drying up into a wadi until the next rains come. Sometimes it’s murky, filled with silt and algae. At other times, it’s clear and you can see straight to the bottom. Sometimes it rushes over me and sometimes it keeps me buoyant. But I can always trust the One behind it. As George MacDonald again puts so well, “Do you suppose that I believe in Jesus because it said so-and-so in a book? I believe in him because he is himself. The vision of him in that book, and I trust, his own living power in me, have enabled me to understand him, to look him in the face, as it were, and accept him as my Master and Savior, in following whom I shall come to the rest of the Father’s peace.” I come to the Bible trusting the Voice of God. This Voice shows me the Creator, the Eternal One’s character. This Voice guides me in living and following. This Voice speaks to my soul. I sit in openness, not just listening to the many voices in my head telling me who to believe, how to interpret, and what to believe, but trusting that God is working in and through me and will not let me stray from the Path.
And so, I will continue to seek. I will continue to search after God. Once again, George MacDonald speaks: “I can hardly wonder that so many reject Christianity when they see so many would-be champions of it holding their beliefs at arm’s length – in their Bibles, in their theories, in their churches, in their clergymen, in their prayer books, in the last devotional page they have read – all things separate from their real selves – rather than in their hearts on their beds in the stillness. ….God is nearer to me…than the thought roused in me by the story of his perfect Son…..It is the live things God cares about – live truths, not things set down in a book, or in a memory, or embalmed in the joy of knowledge, but things lifting up the heart, things active in an active will.” This is what I want to care about. This is Who I want to follow. And so, I will continue to do as it says in Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice (Logos) in everything you do, everywhere you go; God’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God!” I’m running!
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