In this article originally published at Suite101 the author explains the meaning of "Word of God" and draws practical consequences from it.
In a previous article, we have shown the difficulty of identifying Word of God and Scriptures/Bible for that would mean reducing the former to just one of its meanings. In fact, Word of God means first of all the person of Jesus Christ. He is the definitive Word uttered by God, the Logos that took on flesh and whose glory as Son was seen by the apostles. In the second place, Word of God is also the content of the preaching of the apostles, proclaimed, handed down from generation to generation, and recalled in the life of the community of faith -- in prayer, catechetics and worship. In the third place, Word of God is the memory that the apostles had of Christ in written form: the Scriptures. From this understanding of the "Word of God" one can draw three important ideas regarding the reading of Scriptures:
- the reading of Scriptures must bring us to a personal contact with Jesus Christ;
- what is read from Scriptures must be understood with the tradition of the apostles;
- the meaning of a Scriptural passage must also be related to the present reality of the Church.
Let us take these ideas one by one.
The reading of Scriptures must bring us to a personal contact with Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a religion of a book, but of persons. The whole economy of salvation is the story of God seeking human beings in a person-to-person encounter. The role of Scriptures within this economy (already spelled out by Augustine in the first book of the De Doctrina Christiana) is to create a "textual" occasion whereby human beings can -- paraphrasing Dei Verbum -- meet the Father who wishes to commune with his children. Or to put it another way: the Word by which God discloses his heart to humanity is echoed in the human words of Scriptures; therefore, through the words of Scriptures, one is not merely informed, but also invited and challenged to encounter the God who reveals Himself. Jesus Christ who is the definitive Word of Divine Revelation, therefore, is the object of the reading of Scriptures. A reading of the Scriptures which does not lead one to a personal encounter with Him frustrates the very nature of Scriptures itself.
Scriptures and Tradition. Those who uphold the "sola Scriptura" principle misunderstand one basic truth about the person of Jesus Christ namely, that he can only be known through the proclamation of the apostles. The memory of the apostles which recall the words and gestures of the Lord are handed down through a living process, "tradition" (from the Latin "tradere"), which is sustained by an unbroken apostolic succession. Scriptures cannot be fully understood without this living tradition. Scriptures can be likened to a family album. When we open a family album, we look at snapshots of some special events in a family's life. But as often happens, there will be pictures that one won't be able to understand without the help of another who remembers the event behind the snapshot. Likewise, the Scriptures contain snapshots of the community of faith as it struggles with the great questions of its day. Without those who "remember" (those who carry the memory of the apostles), one can simply miss the point of the "snapshot".
Scriptures and the Church. The second point brings us to a third. The Scriptures should be understood within the context of the present life of the community of faith. One has not understood the meaning of Scriptures until one sees it in relation to the concerns of the Church as she moves forward in history. One must read Scriptures from within the Church since it was written within and for the Church, i.e., the assembly of those who have responded to God's invitation in Christ. One cannot read Scriptures in isolation. Like a family album, it can only be understood within the family of the faithful.
