The Bible says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
— John 1: 1
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”
— 1 John 1: 1
We must learn the proper use of words before we can speak properly. And then we must learn to think for ourselves before we learn to speak for ourselves. But we will not do this if we choose to go through life with a herd mentality and only repeat what others say.
Preachers are just as guilty as anyone else of not thinking for themselves and preaching someone else’s wellthought-out sermon instead of having a personal message from the Lord.
Words are the medium for self-expression. Words are used to express publicly our private thoughts. As long as we keep our thoughts they remain private but when we with words speak them into existence they fall into public domain.
In other words, words are a public expression of an otherwise invisible thought.
If we want others to know what we’re thinking we speak and turn our thoughts into words. If we don’t we do not speak and keep instead our thoughts to ourselves.
We speak what we think, whether that thought originated with us or whether it originated with another who gave their thought to us through the medium of words and we made them our thoughts and we became like-minded.
Jesus Christ is called the “Word” because He is the earthly, public expression, the “express image” of the invisible God. (2 Corinthians. 4: 4; Colossians 1: 15) God the Father was pleased with the Word Jesus Christ because He flawlessly revealed the holy nature and character of the Father, in a very wicked and hostile environment.
Through Jesus Christ “God was manifest in the flesh,” (1 Timothy 3: 16) or God became actual to man.
Through the Word and the life He lived John along with the other apostles received the revelation “that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1: 5)
Jesus did say, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (John 14: 9)
Jesus the Word has gone back to the Father in Heaven. But Jesus has a “body” that is the church and that body is to express the life of Christ who otherwise is invisible to the world. And this she will do as she walks in His fellowship and according to His perfect will.
James H. Cagle is a Ray City resident who pastored several churches for a total of 11 years. Email him at pastorjameshcagle@ yahoo.com
