The Word of God is the opening to intimacy with God. It was handed down orally across many generations before ever being written as Sacred Scripture.
Once written down the Word of God came to be the Holy Bible. I have before me texts printed in GOOD NEWS BIBLE, a study edition with essays which serve as introduction to the text. These essays are headed ‘The Purpose of the Bible’, ‘The Bible and History’, ‘How the Bible Came About’, ‘Literary Forms of the Bible’, ‘Biblical Themes’, ‘How to Study the Bible’, and so on. There is a chronology and maps. Once into the texts, readers find an Old Testament and a New Testament, each containing sections known as “Books”. Each of these “Books of the Bible” are headed with a brief introduction and an outline of contents. The contents are our Sacred Scripture, the written Word of God.
Such introductions are helpful and should be studied. However, what the reader really needs is to understand the Word of God as a love story of God’s regard for us, for our people, and for all humankind. Before ever what was written was read or prayed or proclaimed, the Word had entered our sphere of life to spell out its presence in human hearts.
To read or pray or proclaim, or for that matter write about the Word of God, there is required in the one hand sacred texts and on the other hand a touch divine. This is Lectio Divina, reading with LOVE, asking what God is saying to me, to my world, to all humankind. Lectio Divina individually, and in groups of kindred spirits.
As it is written in the Book of Isaiah: “So will be the word that I speak – it will not fail to do what I plan for it, it will do everything I send it to do.” Is. 55.11
