Transcript The Word of God –Meanings of “the Word of God” –How God communicates with us –Understanding God’s Word –How we should respond to God’s.

The Word of God
–Meanings of “the Word of God”
–How God communicates with us
–Understanding God’s Word
–How we should respond to God’s Word
–God’s promise for those who “listen and act”
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
In the beginning was the Word:
The Word was with God and the Word was
God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came to be.
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The Word of God
The Word was made flesh,
He lived among us and we saw his glory
The glory that is his as the only Son of the
Father
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son
Who is nearest to the Father’s heart
Who has made him known.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
The Word of God through whom all things
were made and who became flesh, is the
same Word who is in the beginning.
The Word exists before creation
God was never without his Logos
The Word here is the eternal Word – the Only
Son – who was with God before all ages
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
This is the cosmic dimension of the Word:
Anything that exists does not exist by chance
but is willed by God and part of his plan.
Psalm 33: By the word of the Lord the
heavens were made, and all their host by the
breath of his mouth. He spoke and it came to
be, he commanded and it stood forth.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
Contemplating the cosmos we come to realise
the unique position occupied by us,
humans, in creation.
Also: the natural law: Listening to the word of
God leads us to value the need to live in
accordance with his law, written on human
hearts.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
This same word became flesh
Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, is truly
the Word of God; He became one of us, he
dwelled among us.
As we profess in the Nicene Creed:
For our salvation he came down from heaven
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the
Virgin Mary and became man.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
Turning back to Genesis:
In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth. God’s Spirit hovered over the
waters. God said: “Let there be light” and
there was light.
St John: through him all things came to be.
All things, all creation, the book of nature is
part of the many voices in which the one word
is spoken.
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The Word of God
God also made his
voice heard
by the power of his
Spirit:
he has spoken
through the prophets
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The Word of God
God has spoken
most fully in the
mystery of the
incarnation, death
and resurrection of
his Son.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
Hebrews: At various times in the past and in
various different ways, God spoke to our
ancestors through the prophets; but in our own
time, the last days, he has spoken to us
through his Son, the Son that he has
appointed to inherit everything and through
whom he made everything there is.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
The word of God is also the word spoken by
the Apostles in obedience to the command:
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to
the whole creation.
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The Word of God
Meanings of “the Word of God”
The word of God is thus handed on in the
Church’s living tradition.
And finally, the word of God, attested and
divinely inspired, is Sacred Scripture, the Old
and the New Testament
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The Word of God
HOW God communicates with us
•Adam and Eve :heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden Gen:3:8
•God spoke to Noah about the coming flood
•Abraham was 90 yrs old when “the Lord
appeared to him and spoke with him.” Gen
17:1
•God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night,
and said, “Jacob, Jacob. And he said: Here
am I .” Gen. 46:2
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The Word of God
HOW God communicates with us
Exodus 33:11 The Lord would speak to Moses
face to face as a man speaks with his friend.
Joshua 1:1-2 The Lord said to Joshua son of
Nun, “Moses my servant is dead. You get
ready to cross the Jordan into the land I am
about to give them.”
Manoah the father of Samson. His wife came
to him one day to inform him that God had
spoken to her through an angel…..
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The Word of God
How God communicates with us
•Samuel in the temple. Eli, the priest told him
what to say, when he heard God’s voice: “
Here am I. Speak, Lord, for your servant is
listening. (1 Samuel 3:4)
•Isaiah was called, “Whom shall I send?” He
answered: Here am I, send me (Isaiah 6:8)
•God speaks to us directly or in visions,
dreams, through angels, prophets…. And
finally through his Son.
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The Word of God
Understanding God’s word
•Paul to Timothy: Do your best to present
yourself to God as one approved, a workman
who does not need to be ashamed and who
correctly handles the word of truth.
•Jesus to the disciples on their way to
Emmaus: “Then, starting with Moses and
going through all the prophets, he explained to
them the passages throughout the scriptures
that were about himself.” (Luke 24:27)
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The Word of God
Understanding God’s word
Although we can all benefit from reading the
Word of God in the Bible, we should make use
of all the means available (tools of modern
exegesis) as well as listen to the teaching
authority of the Church to discover the truth of
God’s word spoken to us.
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The Word of God
How to respond to God’s word
• In love God made a covenant with us, his
people. The covenant is not a contract
between two equal parties, but a pure gift.
•By this gift of love God bridges every distance
and makes us his ‘partners’.
•We appear as people to whom the word
speaks, challenges and calls to enter a
dialogue of love through our free response.
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The Word of God
How to respond to God’s word
• In this dialogue we come to understand
ourselves and we discover an answer to our
heart’s deepest questions.
•God responds to the yearning present in the
heart of every person.
•God speaks and acts in history for our good
and salvation.
•Jesus came that we might have life in
abundance.
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The Word of God
How to respond to God’s word
• Both the Old Testament and the New contain
many lines showing us how to respond to
God’s word.
•One strong line from Isaiah indicates how
God expects his word to bear fruit: “..so my
word that goes out from my mouth: It will not
return to me empty, but will accomplish what I
desire and achieve the purpose for which I
sent it.”
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The Word of God
How to respond to God’s word
• The parable of the seed is explained by
Jesus himself: Luke: 8:11-15 “The seed is the
word of God. (..)
•As for the part in the rich soil: this is people
with a noble and generous heart who have
heard the word and take it to themselves and
yield a harvest through their perseverance.”
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The Word of God
How to respond to God’s word
• A little further in St Luke (8:21) “My mother
and my brothers are those who hear the word
of God and put it into practice.”
•Matthew 7:24-25 “Therefore, everyone who
listens to these words of mine and acts on
them will be like a sensible man who built his
house on rock; rain came down, floods rose,
gales blew and hurled themselves against that
house, but it did not fall; it was founded on
rock.”
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The Word of God
God’s promise – our reward
• John 6:45 “They will all be taught by God,
and to hear the teaching of the Father and
learn from it, is to come to me”
•This teaching will lead to faith…
•John 6:47 “I tell you most solemnly,
everybody who believes has eternal life.
•John 6:61 “The words I have spoken to you
are spirit and they are life”
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The Word of God
God’s promise – our reward
• John 10:10 “I – the Word made flesh – have
come that they may have life and have it to
the full.”
•John 12:49-50 “…what I had to speak, was
commanded by the Father who sent me, and I
know that his commands mean eternal life.”
•John 14:23 “If anyone loves me he will keep
my word, and my Father will love him, and we
shall come to him and make our home with
him.”
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The Word of God
ADVENT – eagerly awaiting the Word made flesh
• For thousands of years, people were
looking forward with great hope to the
coming of the Messiah. Their hope was
fed by the God’s own words spoken to
us through the prophets.
•We look forward to celebrating that
great turning point in history when the
Word became flesh and dwelled among
us.
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The Word of God
ADVENT – eagerly awaiting the Word made flesh
The Lord made his
word short, he
abbreviated it. The
Son himself is the
Word, the Logos: the
eternal word became
small, small enough
to fit into a manger.
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The Word of God
ADVENT – eagerly awaiting the Word made flesh
He became a child, so
that the word could
be grasped by us. Not
only does the word
have a voice, now it
has a face, that of
Jesus of Nazareth.
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The Word of God
ADVENT – eagerly awaiting the Word made flesh
Warmest Christmas
greetings to you from
all of us at Our Lady
of Fatima Parish,
Tawa – New Zealand!
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