As Christians, we have been conditioned to automatically think "Word of God" is always and only referring to "Scripture" or "The Bible", it is not. When Scripture refers to itself it uses the Greek word: Graphē which is defined: Graphē: a document, that is, holy Writ (or its contents or a statement in it): - scripture.
Scripture is "holy" writ, so it is a document that contains the writings "from God". 2 Tim 3:16 states that "all scripture is inspired of God". Therefore Scripture is a Holy document, inspired of God.
So why the distinction? Why is important to understand the difference between Scripture (Graphē) and the Word (Logos) of God? Well, because scripture itself makes the distinction and for a very important reason.
Scripture, by it's very definition, required men to be "inspired of God" or "moved by the Holy Ghost", so today, a person must in the same way be "moved by the Holy Ghost" to effectively declare the Word (logos) of God. A "right word spoken in due season" as it states in Prov 15. It goes far beyond just reciting a bunch of Bible verses and somehow thinking that that constitutes the declaration of "The Word of God", it does not. In order to be qualified as "The Word of God" it must be declared under the unction, and at the direction of the Holy Spirit.
I fear this truth has been almost completely lost in the Church today. Instead of pastors and preachers laboring and seeking God diligently, earnestly, in their prayer closets to get their messages fresh from God to declare to Gods people, they instead give themselves to bookish, academic study to craft the message. It may be "sound", it may be "biblical", but it is not necessarily "Inspired of God" given under the unction of the Holy Spirit, and therefore it is not the Word of God. It is not "easy" to understand and declare the "logos", and it doesn't come through the human faculty of the mind or academic study, the preacher must give himself to long seasons of earnest prayer in his prayer closet, there is no other way to obtain the necessary "inspiration from God" and truly understand the mind of God. Only then will he truly deliver God's Word to God's people and at the right time for the word declared. Only then will the preached word be "living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow...". Only then will the word of God "not return void".
E.M. Bounds excellent work, Power through Prayer, puts it very eloquently:
The real sermon is made in the closet. The man -- God's man -- is made in the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor. The pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official -- a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is not to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul's life or Paul's ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's work and is powerless to project God's cause in this world.
This blog will be a collection of messages born out of my own times of earnest daily prayer "in the closet". It is my hope that they will truly be the "Logos", the ancient truths of God, "fresh" from Heaven!
