1 - The Word of God

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by Robert Zaar — last modified 2007-07-16 01:41

Description:
This first chapter explores the Word of God in Genesis chapter 1 and John chapter 1. Some basic points about scripture and tradition are covered. This chapter also introduces some basics about prayer and leadership.

INTRODUCTION

This course on Mark's gospel presumes you have some familiarity with Christianity and want to go deeper into your faith and walk with Jesus. We will journey with Jesus through Mark's gospel. We will allow Mark to let us build a deeper friendship with Jesus who will reveal God's Love and guidance for us. This journey is not just about coming to a better understanding about Jesus, but to actually encounter the living Christ and build a friendship with Him. It will involve some reading, reflecting and prayer.

The course is broken up into two parts which together cover all of Mark's gospel. This first part will lay the foundation and cover some essential points for the Christian Disciple. A disciple is someone who wants to follow Jesus. The second part will build on that foundation and lead us into the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The course is designed to be completed over a number of weeks with a chapter for each week. Daily readings are also given to help develop prayerful habits and extend the reflection time, and thus deepen the richness of insight gained.

Ideally, there is a weekly meeting where a group of people completing the course can come together and share the insights gained and build friendship with each other. There is also an introductory chapter and suggested group method included in this course.

We are about to study God's Word. The Bible or scriptures is also called God's Word or the Word of God. To gain a better understanding of God's Word, we will start with John's Gospel, which begins with, "In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the Word was God." (Jn 1:1)

How do you understand this passage?

John's gospel is full of connections and depth. He borrows words from other stories and weaves them into his gospel. Thus he weaves the imagery and meanings of the other stories into his own, but in such a way to bring about fresh meanings and connections. His opening line is no exception.

"In the beginning...."

These are also in fact the first words of the Bible and so John is taking us back to Genesis the first book of the Bible to the story of how God created the universe. To be able to understand what John wants us to, we must first have an understanding of the first creation account in Genesis.

"In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth had no form and was void; darkness was over the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters." (Gen 1:1-2)

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the language of the Jews. Like English, words in Hebrew can have more than one meaning. For instance in English the word ring can mean a circle or it can mean to give some one a phone call, eg She lost her ring and had to ring her husband. In another language there would be a different word for each meaning. When something is translated, we loose something in the translation. The core meanings are still gained, but a bit of research is needed for a more complete picture.

Can you give some other examples of a word with more than one meaning?

We start with 4 'ugly' words, 'no form', 'void', 'darkness' and 'deep'. The Hebrew word for 'deep' can also be translated as 'abyss'. In other words, a profound chaos.

"The Spirit of God hovered over the waters"

The Hebrew word translated here for Spirit is "ruah" which also means breath and wind.

"God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light."

"Let there be light" is one word in Hebrew, "Light!" and Light came into existence. We have here in this passage God breathing and then speaking. But already this breathing also is an expression of God's Holy Spirit, because the word for breath is also the word for spirit. In this case the word God spoke was "Light!" and instantly whatever was spoken came to be. God created by speaking his word for each of the remaining 5 days. Then he rested. This word was so powerful it created the whole universe.

We can now study God using this text. The study of God is theology and the person who studies God is a theologian. This text explains that God created the whole universe out of nothing, by speaking. This means God is very powerful. If God can do that, can he then do anything? Obviously there are no limits to his power if he wanted to use it. God is all-powerful. We use the word omnipotent to describe this, 'omni' meaning 'all' and 'potent' meaning 'powerful'. There are other 'omni' words to describe God, do you know what they are?

It is this all powerful word that John highlights at the beginning of his gospel. Now we can go back to John's gospel and pick up where we left off.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (Jn 1:1-5)

John describes this dynamic of God speaking 'the Word', through which all things were created. But he takes us deeper, he indicates that this Word existed with God before it was spoken and that what has come into being in the Word was life and this life is the light of all people. Who is this Word?

We can see further down in verse 14, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." The Word is Jesus. Do you know what name we give the mystery of the Word (God) becoming man (Jesus)?

This is what we celebrate at Christmas. The coming of Jesus to be among us. God with us. The word Emmanuel means 'God with us'. God is always with us.

This passage clearly indicates that Jesus, the Word existed with God and was God. Let us now reflect back to Genesis again. To speak a word we need a speaker and we need a breath to carry the word. Let's put this all together into a table

Speaker
Breath	Holy Spirit
Word	Jesus

If the breath/wind/spirit ('ruah') is the Holy Spirit and the Word is Jesus, then who is the speaker?

We can see here a Trinitarian image that John leads us toward at the start of his gospel. We see God the Father speaking the Word (God the Son) by the breath of God the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons. Each person is involved in the work of creation. Each person is needed for creation to happen. We can now better understand John's words "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." As we reflect upon God's creative work, we start to reflect on who God is and how powerful God is. Just think about God creating the universe out of nothing. How incredibily powerful that is. Since God can do that, imagine what else God can do...

Omni-what?

Is there a limit to God? The short answer to that is no. God is infinite. There is no limit. God is all powerful. Another word for all powerful is omnipotent (omni - all, potent - powerful: from the latin). Why do we believe God is all powerful? God created the whole universe out of nothing. If God created the whole universe he can do anything. God is infinite. Since he created the universe and was always around, that means he is above time and space, since he created time and space. There was no time when God was not. He has always existed. Since he is above time and space, he has no end as well. He has no beginning nor end. God being beyond time and space is called 'transcendant'. God is above all.

God is also all knowing (omniscient) and present everywhere (omnipresent). Imagine how many atoms you have in your body. Imagine all the atoms in the whole universe. God knows where every electron is in the whole universe every instant. That is nothing compared to his infinite capacity to know. God knows your every thought. "Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether." (Ps 139:4) God knows every thought you will have. God knows the future. This raises an important question.

If God knows so much and is so powerful, why doesn't he fix up the world more?

God will never force himself upon anyone, since he is love, he can only offer, never force. Sin is not of God, but of rejecting God. The world is as it is, because God honours our freedom and truely lets us choose. Every sin is God choosing to accept our free will. God is love. Love must be free for it to be love, otherwise it is slavery. God does not make slaves. Because God is so powerful he can even bring good out of evil. God lets every sin happen because he honours our freedom. God offers us forgiveness and mercy because he can bring good out of evil. God wants to empower you to transform the world. Everytime someone asks, "Why isn't God doing more?" God replys, "Why don't you let Jesus transform you so I can change the world through you?" How does God bring this goodness to us? Through Jesus who is the light and the life of the world.

Jesus is the Word of God

When we talk about the Word of God, we can mean two things, Jesus and the Bible. Christianity is a religion of the Word, not primarily of the 'Book'. The Bible is not the be all and end all of Catholicism, but Jesus is. Jesus is bigger than the Bible - Jesus is God, the Bible is not God. The Bible reveals God to us. The Bible reveals Jesus to us. The Bible expresses God's word to us, so we call it the word of God. But since Jesus IS the Word of God, we should always be mindful that Jesus is the real source of all truth. We are now ready to read part of a Church Document. This is one of most important Church documents, called the 'Word of God'. Church documents are known by their Latin name, in this case, Dei Verbum. Church documents have levels of importance. At times the Bishops of the whole world gather together to deal with important issues - this is called an Ecumenical Council and there has only been 21 Ecumenical Councils, the last one is called 'Vatican II' and was from 1962-65. The highest level of authority of a document that can come from an Ecumenical Council is a 'Dogmatic Constitution'. Dei Verbum is a Dogmatic Consititution. Getting the understanding right about how God reveals himself is very important to the Catholic Church. God reveals himself through God's Word, Jesus.

Jesus was alive 2000 years ago. His message and actions were recorded in the Bible, but were also passed on through word of mouth, and other traditions people had at the time. These traditions have been continuously passed on even to our own day. Such things as the Mass, Ordinations, prayers, service to the poor. There has always been these living traditions in the life of the Church since Jesus to our own day. These traditions also bring a living transmission of the Jesus, the Word of God to us. Jesus the Word of God has been revealed to us through the Bible and through these traditions. The Bible and these traditions can therefore be considered the Word of God. We are now ready to explore the richness of a quote from Dei Verbum.

Dei Verbum - God's Word

I will hightligh key points on the right.

7. In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations.

God uses his all powerfulness (omnipotence) to ensure that the full revelation would be able to be passed on to all generations.

Therefore Christ the Lord in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is brought to completion (see Cor. 1:20; 3:13; 4:6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching, (1) and to impart to them heavenly gifts.

Jesus is the full revelation of God's love and goodness, ie salvation. This revelation is also called the gospel.

The Apostles are to preach and impart graces.

This Gospel had been promised in former times through the prophets, and Christ Himself had fulfilled it and promulgated it with His lips. This commission was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostles did hand on the truth of Jesus, by word and action. What was passed on is called 'Tradition' which comes from the Latin and means 'to pass on'.

The commission was fulfilled, too, by those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing.

One source of the word of God, Jesus is the Scriptures particularly the four Gospels.

But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, "handing over" to them "the authority to teach in their own place."

This authority Jesus gave to the apostles was passed on to the Bishops.

9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end.

Scripture and Tradition come from Jesus, the Word of God and lead us to Jesus, God.

For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit,

while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles,

and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known.

Scripture

Tradition

is fully and without error passed on to all believers

Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.

Therefore the Catholic Church draws her certainty from scripture and the Traditions of the Church, ie from the sacraments, saints, practices etc.

I encourage you to read the whole document of Dei Verbum on the internet. There is also a sharebook on this site that explains some of it.

We come into the life of God through scripture, but also through the practices of the Catholic Church, through the sacraments such as Mass/Eucharist, and the hospitality of the Church which has been practiced since those first disciples joined Jesus. It is the hospitality of a small group that helps us come into deeper relationship with Jesus as well as the Sunday Mass as well as the practice of prayer. All of these things can seem impersonal at times. But Jesus is always personal with us. Jesus wants to be our friend. It is through each of these means that we build up our friendship with Jesus. Each of these means allows Jesus to help us where we are at. Let us come back to this personal mission of Jesus.

"What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people."

Let us now take a personal journey. Each of us are troubled at times in our life. We experience something of the darkness that may come our way. We may feel empty as if there is a deep void within us. Sometimes we feel like we are in an abyss and unable to get out. We clamour and struggle seeking some kind of order, but it just seems like chaos. I think we can all talk about times like that in our own lives. This is the place where the Bible starts, in Genesis with the 'void', 'darkness', 'emptiness', 'the abyss' and 'chaos'.

God wants to bring his light, life and love into our lives. Genesis explains that in that very darkness God brings light. John goes on to explain that it is there within the chaos that through Jesus, life and light are created. And Jesus comes into creation and eventually takes on flesh and lives among us. God with us, not to condemn but to save and to love.

"But how do I get this new life?"

What Genesis and John explains, is this life comes through the Word of God, Jesus who is also the Scriptures, the Bible. In other words, by reading the Bible, Jesus is formed in us, He comes to live in us, and this new life within us, becomes the light to guide our life by. By reading God's word we are brought into the new life of God and share in God's inner life. Divine life, light and love become ours.

Sometimes as we read the Bible, it will be like a lightning bolt charging us up with new life and clear direction. We will feel God's special presence, His closeness. At other times, He may feel far away - these are times of growth in faith. But we must read it, daily. We want God's word to enter our hearts. That takes effort and time. We need to do it regularly and prayerfully for Jesus to enter deep into our hearts. We want to focus on Jesus, so we will start with the Gospels. We will start with the simplest gospel, Mark.

This course will cover Mark's gospel. That way we can deeply reflect on the whole life of Jesus. It will also open the door to understand more deeply the other gospels and in fact all of scripture.

So as we explore Mark's gospel, Jesus will be formed within us in a new way and we will have a deeper relationship with him. We will pray through the Mark's gospel. Here is a simple method to follow.

PRAYER

I invite you to spend some time in prayer each day. I suggest 5 minutes and the following method. If it is the last thing you do before going to sleep - that is just fine. You may like to place your Bible and this booklet next to your bed to remind you to read and pray.

1) Call to mind God's presence, by making the sign of the cross.

2) Read the suggested passage for the day. Read it slowly. If something catches your attention. Think about it. If your mind starts to wander, go back to reading the scripture. It does not matter if you don't finish reading the whole passage. It is more important to think about God and reflect on his goodness.

3) If something comes to mind, particularly as a response to what you read, to do a particular thing, then make a decision to do it.

4) Finish with an Our Father and the sign of the cross.

Here are the suggested scriptures for this week.

Day 1) Gen 1:1-2:4a

Write down any reflections you have on reading through this passage.

Day 2) John 1:1-17

Write down any reflections you have on reading through this passage.

Day 3) Ez 37:1-14

Notice the words are connected with the breath or wind. That these words are powerful and create life.
Everytime you read God's Word, God is speaking and his Holy Spirit is active in transforming your life, even without you noticing it. In fact most of the time he prefers to work without anyone noticing it, because he is humble, and wants you to grow in faith. But over time you cannot help but clearly see the effects of his grace working in your life, if you keep reading his word.

Day 4) What does friendship with God mean? I think it has been best described by the Bishops of Vatican II when they wrote, "In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4).Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself." (DV 2)

Friends share what they have. A divine friend shares divinity. This quote clearly states that God wants to share his divinity with us! What do you think divine nature is like?

Jesus wants to be our friend and have fellowship with us. He invites us. He does not demand. He invites us. Out of his love he speaks to us as friends. He wants to live among us. He wants to fellowship with us to share his divine nature with us. Let me make this as clear as I can:
God wants to share ALL that he has with us. The universe is not the most important thing he has. The most important thing he has is himself. This is far more important than anything. God wants to share his very self with us, because he loves us. God invites us to share ourselves with him.

How does God share himself with us?

Day 5. The Beginning of the Gospel Mk:1:1-6

What are your intitial reflections?

What do you think a prophet is?

A Prophet

In biblical terms a prophet is not all about telling the future, but about being God's spokesperson. They speak for God. God calls the prophet to be his messanger. God chose lots of different people to be his prophets throughout the time of the Old Testament. Essentially they called back the people to God, to follow in God's ways. Sometimes they gave warnings to the people. Isaiah is one of the great prophets who warned the people to keep following God. But the people did not listen. At the time the greatest country in the area was the Babylonians. They came and destroyed Israel and the temple in 587BC. They took most of the Israelites captive back to Babylon. This was a crushing defeat for them and they reflected deeply on what went wrong. It was at this time that most of the Old Testament took it's final shape. They realised they had sinned and this was the reason for their defeat.

After 50 years a new nation had conquered the Babylonians, the Persians. King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Israelites to return to Israel and Jerusalem. Just like the journey of freedom from Egypt to Isreal, from slavery to freedom which Moses led. So too did the Israelites go from Babylon to Jerusalem, from captivity to freedom. Isaiah refers to this journey to prepare for, "Prepare the way of the Lord.", This is what he was refering to as author of this passage. But God as author of scripture was also using it to refer to Jesus as the Lord, and as John as the person preparing for it.

How do you think you can better prepare for God to work in your life?

Day 6 At the Jordan Mk:1:7-11

What are your initial thoughts on this passage?

'The heavens were opened'. Many believed that for some reason, God was no longer sending prophets to the people. There were many centuries without prophets performing miracles. John the Baptist performed no visible miracle. But he did draw many back to God and proclaim the truth. For this Jesus called him the greatest of the prophets. So when the heavens opened it was a sign that now was the time of new grace being poured down upon the people. What was this new grace?

Has Jesus done anything yet? No. Yet the Father says, "You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." God, the Father loves Jesus. Jesus doesn't have to do anything to earn the Father's love. The Father just loves him and is pleased with him anyway. Just as he loves you and delights in you without you having to do anything to earn that love from the father. He gives it freely, all the time. He forgives all your sin and wants you to experience his love. Take a few moments to reflect on that.

How do we come to experience that love from the father?

One way to experience it is to reflect on our baptism. This is the baptism of Jesus. The water was the sign and instrument of bringing about God's grace. It physically cleaned Jesus. But it also represented the spiritual clensing of sin, of our sin. The Holy Spirit was given to Jesus in a new way. The Holy Spirit is given to us in the same way as Jesus. The Father loves us, the same way he loves Jesus. Reflect on these thoughts for a moment.

What other parallels are there regarding the water and spiritual parallels you can think of?

Day 7 The Temptation Mk:1:12-13

What are your initial thoughts?

Pretty strange. You receive God's Spirit and you would think you would be in heaven. But the Spirit leads to the desert where he was tempted. Why for forty days?

The forty days is like the forty years the Israelites had in the desert. They were tempted and purified in preparation for coming into the holy land. Jesus obviously passed the test. Sometimes we feel, "What is God doing? Why is everything going wrong?" But this can be all part of God's plan. The key is to learn to rely on God and trust him. It makes the journey easier. Jesus knows what it was like to be tempted. If the angels came, then he even needed the help of angels to get him through. So too do we need the help of others, just like Jesus. Sometimes we can think we can do it all on our own, with just the help of God. But God sends others to help us and wants us to rely on them as part of His plan. Sometimes we need to seek the help of others to get us through. It is all part of God's plan.
When you are tempted, pray. Seek the help of others if need be.

If the sharebook has a MSWord, PDF or Open Office version, then the respective icon will appear and when clicked will take you strait to the document.
Dei Verbum

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