A persistent error soon becomes a serious heresy.

[RileyG]

Say rather that Jesus is the Word of God, and the bible is holy scripture. The former must be first in all things while the latter is our joy here on earth.

Amen.

Thank you.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yet the bible often refers to itself, the gospel, the truths preached by the apostles and Jesus Himself, as the word of God. Yes, it can cause confusion, because Jesus Christ is also the Word. Where there is any possibility of misunderstanding, it's perhaps good to specify "God's Incarnate Word" when speaking of the Saviour, and "God's written word" when the bible is meant.

That said, I maintain there are dual meanings, at a minimum. Most places in Scripture where I have encountered the phrase “the Word of God”, for example, John 10:35, lend themselves to a Chistological interpretation.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Here is every last verse in which the LSB uses the phrase "the word of God" check them, if you want, and see if any of them indisputably refers to sacred scripture rather than to the revelation from which sacred scripture arises.
(LSB) 1Sa 9:27; 2Sa 16:23; 1Ki 12:22; 1Ch 17:3; Mat 15:6; Mar 7:13; Luk 3:2; Luk 5:1; Luk 8:11; Luk 8:21; Luk 11:28; Joh 10:35; Act 4:31; Act 6:2; Act 6:7; Act 8:14; Act 11:1; Act 13:5; Act 13:7; Act 13:46; Act 17:13; Act 18:11; Rom 9:6; 1Co 14:36; 2Co 2:17; 2Co 4:2; Eph 6:17; Php 1:14; Col 1:25; 1Th 2:13; 1Ti 4:5; 2Ti 2:9; Tit 2:5; Heb 4:12; Heb 11:3; Heb 13:7; 2Pe 3:5; 1Jn 2:14; Rev 1:2; Rev 1:9; Rev 6:9; Rev 19:13; Rev 20:4.

 

[The Liturgist]

In addition to 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, there is also 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 11:2 and Galatians 1:8-9

Which is probably why the Sola Scriptura concept of the Lutherans and Anglicans expressly accounts for the role of Tradition.

However the Eastern Orthodox regard the Gospels as the absolute center of a tradition which expands outward to encompass all of Scripture and all of the teachings of the Church, the Body of Christ.

 

[Edwin Wright]

The Douay-Rheims is not reliable.

In Genesis 3:15, it literally replaces Jesus with Mary.

On the contrary, the (original) Douay-Rheims Holy Bible did not change anything but simply translated into Early Modern English, the Latin Vulgate that had been unchanged since it was translated by Saint Jerome circa 385 A.D. The operative phrase from the earliest complete Vulgate (Codex Amiatinus) from circa 700 A.D. reads as follows: “IPSA CONTERET CAPUT TUUM ET TU INSIDIAUERIS CALCANCO EIUS” (see Biblia Sacra - Amiatino - Teca digitale - Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) which translated into Early Modern English reads: “ſhe ſhal bruiſe thy head in peeces, & thou ſhalt lye in waite of her heele.” i.e., “she shall bruise thy head in pieces, & thou shalt lie in wait of her heel.” See The Holie Bible faithfully translated into English, out of the authentical Latin : diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages : with arguments of the bookes, and chapters, annotations, tables, and other helpes, for better vnderstanding of the text, for discourerie of corruptions in some late translations and for clearing controversies in religion : Martin, Gregory, -1582, translator : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. The operative word from the Latin Vulgate is IPSA which is the nominative, feminine, singular of the intensive or emphatic pronoun ipse, ipsa, ipsum, literally meaning she herself. The word EIUS can mean his, her, or its; but obviously in this context, following the feminine IPSA, has to be interpreted in the feminine—hence, “CALCANCO EIUS” means “her heel.” Additionally, the first part of Genesis 3:15 clearly refers to a woman: “I wil put enmyties betwen thee & the woman, and thy seed and the seed of her:” i.e., “I will put enmities between thee & the woman, and thy seed and the seed of her:” Genesis 3:15 is a key verse in understanding the pivotal role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in our salvation. Because Satan sought out the woman — Eve — as the means to undermine Adam (perceiving her to be weaker and more easily influenced than Adam), so Our Lord uses a woman — the Blessed Virgin Mary — as the means of his incarnation to ultimately redeem mankind, and therefore, because of the woman’s pivotal role in our salvation, Satan is profoundly humiliated.

The original Douay-Rheims Holy Bible (see The Holie Bible faithfully translated into English, out of the authentical Latin : diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages : with arguments of the bookes, and chapters, annotations, tables, and other helpes, for better vnderstanding of the text, for discourerie of corruptions in some late translations and for clearing controversies in religion : Martin, Gregory, -1582, translator : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive) includes a formal annotation exegeting Genesis 3:15. The following is an adapted transcription (in the original Early Modern English) of that exegesis:

“15. She shal bruise] The Latin text defended againſt Kemniſius and other Proteſtants: Proteſtants wil not admitte this reading, ipsa conteret, ſhe ſhal bruiſe, leſt our Bleſſed Ladie ſhould be ſaid anie way to bruiſe the ſerpents head. And Kemniſius amongſt others ſaith, that al ancient Fathers read, ipſum not, ipſa. But he is conuinced of lying (See Card. Bellarmin. li. 2 c. I2 de verbo Dei.) by Claudius Marius Victor, lib. I in Gen. Alcimus Auitus lib. 3. carm. c. 6. S. Chriſoſtom hom. I7. in Geneſ. S. Ambroſe lib de fuga ſaculi cap. 7. S. Auguſtin lib. 2. de Geneſi contra Manichæus, cap. I8 & lib. II. de Geneſi ad literam cap. 26. S. Gregorie lib. I. Moralium cap. 38. And after them S. Bede, Eucherius, Rabanus, Rupertus, Strabus, and Lira vpon this place, S. Bernard ſer 2. ſuper Miſsus est. And manie others, who read ipſa as the Latin text now hath. [And I would add, since the original Vulgate of circa 385 A.D. as noted above.]

“Both readings yeld the ſame ſenſe: But whether we read, she shal bruiſe, or, her ſede, that is her ſonne Chriſt, shal bruiſe the ſerpents head, we attribute no more, nor no leſſe to Chriſt, nor to our Ladie by the one reading, then by the other: for by the text, I vvil put enmities betvven thee and the vvoman, betvven thy ſeede and her ſeede. It is clere, that this enmitie and battle pertained to the woman and her ſeede on the one partie, and to this diuel, that ſpake by the ſerpent, and al the wicked, on the other partie, and that the victorie ſhould happen to mankind. As Adam was the cauſe, and Eue an occaſion of mans captiuitie: ſo Chriſt is the true cauſe and his mother an occaſion of our reſtauration: VVhich being captiue by Adams ſinne, occaſioned by a woman, ſhould be redeemed, both ſexes, though in farre different ſorte, concurring thereto. And ſo it is moſt true, that Chriſt by his owne power, and his bleſſed mother by her moſt immediate cooperating to his Incarnation (and conſequently to other Miſteries) did bruiſe the ſerpents head, breake and vanquiſh his power. * As manie ancient Fathers do excellently diſcourſe: namely S. Bernard, writing vpon theſe words in the Apocalips. cap 12 [i.e., The Apocalypse 12:1]. A great signe appeared in heauen, a vvoman clothed vvith the ſunne: Albeit (ſaith he) by one man and one woman we were greatly damaged: yet (God be thanked) by one man and one woman al loſſes are repaired, and that not without great increaſes of graces. For the benefite doth farre excede the loſſe. Our merciful father geuing vs for a terreſtrial Adam Chriſt our Redemer, & for old Eue, Gods own mother. Moreouer, as the ſame S. Bernard ſheweth, this bleſſed Virgin in ſingular ſorte bruiſed the ſerpents head, (Our B. Ladie reſiſted al euil ſuggeſtions.) in that ſhe quite vanquiſhed al maner ſuggeſtions of the wicked serpẽt, neuer yelding to, nor taking delight in anie euil moued by him. * S. Ireneus li 3. c. 33. & lib. 5. circa med. S. Epiph. Har. 78. S. Ieron. Ep. 22 ad Eustoch. S. Aug. (or S. Fulgent) ser. 18 de sanctis. de fide & Symb. de Agone Chriſtiane ser. 2. ſuper Miſſus eſt.”

Whereas the ORIGINAL Douay-Rheims Holy Bible (not the Challoner revision) is translated from the Vulgate, the unchangeable Latin being used by Saint Jerome in the fourth century to “freeze” the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts before they became lost or corrupted, the (again, original) Douay-Rheims Holy Bible remains the most reliable translation for English-speaking people worldwide.

 

[AveChristusRex]

The Douay-Rheims is not reliable.

In Genesis 3:15, it literally replaces Jesus with Mary.

Absolutely false, the Douay-Rheims is the translation of translations, the approved and authoritative word-for-word translation of the Vulgate of St. Jerome, proclaimed infallible by the Church and used in its exact Latin form by Mary Herself. The Vulgate was proclaimed “authentic” by the Council of Trent in 1546, who proclaimed: “No one [may] dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it.” (4th Ses., April 8, 1546). Pope Pius XII declared that this [the Vulgate, and subsequently, the Douay-Rheims] means it is “free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals.” (1943); moreover stating that it was free from all errors and SUPERIOR to all vernaculars and that all vernacular translations must use the Vulgate as their basis.

As such, in the Catholic mind [Magisterially], any non-Vulgate scripture is 'lesser' or of lesser quality than that of direct Vulgate translation, which only the 1609 Douay-Rheims can claim. Though I do not pull the ECNS ('extra Ecclesiam nulla salus,' i.e., no salvation outside the Church) card very often, I will say that if the Catholic [and Orthodox Church ab abusu ad usum non valet consequentia] Church is the One, True, Church; and because the Greek and Hebrew were written by individuals who did not pertain to Catholic principles, we cannot trust these translations to provide the fullness of the Magisterial Appeal, though they are not entirely out of the picture for use. The Vulgate is superior to Hebrew and Greek for these reasons. I'll stop there, but I will quote the Rt. Rev. Henry Graham's 'Where We Got the Bible': “…At a single leap we thus arrive at that great work, completed by the greatest scholar of his day, who had access to manuscripts and authorities that have now perished, and who, living so near the days of the Apostles, and, as it were, close to the very fountain-head, was able to produce a copy of the inspired writings which, for correctness, can never be equaled.”

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The Douay-Rheims is not reliable.

In Genesis 3:15, it literally replaces Jesus with Mary.

It is a mistake to judge a bible by one verse. It is even more of a mistake to judge it without knowing why it translates Genesis 3:15 from Latin into English as it does. And even more egregious is to think that the gender of the pronoun replaces anybody with somebody else.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Genesis 3:15 in the Knox Bible says
15 And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.✻

* For ‘she’ and ‘her’ the Septuagint Greek has ‘he’ and ‘his’; the Hebrew text also, as it has come down to us, gives ‘he’, or perhaps ‘it’. But most manuscripts of the Latin version have ‘she’, which plainly gives a better balance to the sentence. That the reference of this passage, in any case, is to the Incarnation, is the general opinion of the Fathers. The Latin here assumes that there is a play upon words in the original, since there are two Hebrew verbs closely alike, one of which means ‘to crush’, and the other ‘to follow eagerly’. But the Hebrew text has ‘to crush’ in both clauses; the Septuagint Greek, in both clauses, has ‘to lie in wait’.​

 

[The Liturgist]

and used in its exact Latin form by Mary Herself.

Who taught you that?

It’s not true, and indeed is contradicted by the ancient Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of St. Luke, which we know from extensive research are original and not translations (although they do quote the Aramaic spoken by our Lord and the Apostles directly on certain occasions, usually also providing a Greek translation) - I have never even encountered a Latin Originalist before, since most of the time we encounter the odd misguided individual who believes in Peshitta Primacy (the Peshitta is a very good translation, with equal standing to the Vulgate as one of the two ancient fourth century translations we can use to validate that our Bibles are using the correct manuscripts, and indeed the tendency of the Vulgate and Peshitta to agree with the Byzantine text type more than the Alexandrian text type is one reason why I prefer it, and dislike the idea of the “Minority Text” (which is basically where instead of the Textus Receptus, you take two of the three extant Alexandrian manuscripts, namely the two completely Alexandrian manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus stolen from St. Catharine’s Monastery in the 19th century and the Codex Vaticanus which of equivalent age and is in the Vatican library but whose providence may be unknown, although I would suspect its one of fifty Greek bibles ordered from Eusebius of Caesarea by the Church of Rome in the early fourth century before the completion of the Vulgate, and in addition to fifty Greek Bibles ordered by Constantinople from the Church of Alexandria (I may have the vendors confused, but with new churches being built in te latter and much increase in demand and additional public chruches being built in the former there was a need for more Bibles, and it would nicely explain why a fourth century Greek manuscript was in possession of the Roman Church.*

Since the Greek New Testament does explicitly preserve important literal quotations in Aramaic, it would not be unreasonable to assume that it would do the same with a direct quote in another language, such as Latin. As it stands it seems very unlikely the Theotokos even spoke Latin (at least before Pentecost) since neo-Aramaic in its Judaean and Galilean dialects (which were sometimes referred to in antiquity as Hebrew, since they were written using the same 22-character subset of the Imperial Aramaic “Square Letter” Alphabet that replaced Proto-Hebraic except among the Samaritans, and in which Hebrew and Old Testament Aramaic was written) were the primary vernacular languages in Judaea and Galilee, with Greek being the language of trade administration in the Eastern Roman Empire, and Latin being used by the military and to a limited degree mainly by those from Rome conversing with other Romans or soldiers recruited from the Western Empire - indeed the inscription in Latin above the Cross of our Lord in addition to a Greek and Hebrew (meaning Aramaic) was recorded in the New Testament, in the Gospels according to Matthew, John and Luke, which says “And a superscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

Thus it is difficult to imagine why St. Luke would mention the use of Latin in an expected circumstance (where St. Mark did not even find it necessary to enumerate the three languages), yet fail to mention a far more remarkable spontaneous utterance of Latin by the Theotokos in Luke 1, particularly given his record of the simultaneous speaking in hitherto foreign tongues on Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, as a sign of the arrival of God the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Paraclete, and more importantly, why all of the oldest extant Greek manuscripts, and the Vetus Syra and Peshitta, fail to mention this, and why the original Latin translation of the Bible, the Vetus Latina, would have translated it differently? And furthermore, if this were the case, why would the Roman Church not prohibit the publication and dissemination and liturgical use of Bibles which translated this phrase from the Greek manuscripts rather than from the Vulgate, but instead, actively encourage them even before Vatican II, and also permit, before Vatican II, the use of bibles in other languages that were directly translated from the Greek, for example, in the sui juris Eastern Catholic Churches?

if the Vulgate possesed a recognized miracle of a word-for-word translation of the Magnificat under such unusual circumstances one would not only expect this, but also a liturgical commemoration for it as exists in the case of other similiar miracles such as the Assumption or Dormition of the Theotokos, which was observed by the Roman Church since antiquity, like in the East, many centuries before officially being recognized as dogma by Pope Pius XII in one of only two recognized uses of the infallible teaching authority affirmed by Vatican I.

As it happens I have never met any Roman Catholic, even among the traditional Roman Catholics, or anyone else, who argued that the Theotokos said the Magnificat in Latin, nor is it documented, as far as I am aware, in any Patristic writing, nor is it recorded in the liturgy or mentioned in the in-line doctrinal commentary or a footnote in the Challoner Douai Rheims.
Speaking of footnotes, no post of mine would be complete without footnotes delving into the wonderful realm of Church History, Liturgics, and best of all, the History of the Liturgy:

* Of course, it could also have been expropriated in the way the relics of St. Nicholas were removed without permission from the Orthodox church in Myra to Bari and the relics of St. Mark the Evangelist were likewise taken from Alexandria, although since that time the head of the first Pope of Alexandria were returned to the Coptic Orthodox Church if memory serves, and also in the 1990s the relics of the three Holy Hierarchs were returned to the Church of Constantinople from which they had taken, including St. Basil the Great, the bishop of Caesarea, to whom is attributed the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil in its Egyptian and Byzantine recensions, and two Patriarchs of Constantinople, St. Gregory the Theologian (who also wrote an anaphora, addressed to our Lord, which remains in use by the Coptic Orthodox and presumably Coptic Catholic churches, on major feasts like Pascha, the Nativity, etc), who also opened the Council of Constantinople in 381 which gave us the current version of the Creed, and St. John Chrysostom “the Golden Tongued” whose Divine Liturgy is a minor variation on the ancient Divine Liturgy of Antioch, the Liturgy of the Apostles.**

** This exists in two recensions, one very similar to that of St. John Chrysostom used by the Syriac Orthodox Church, which also has another variant text of the Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom , and one which is recorded in the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus and which was incorrectly assumed to have predated the Roman Canon as the default liturgy of Rome, but really it seems probable St. Hippolytus was including it since even by the fourth century most of the church was using that liturgy, whereas the Roman Canon is the only anaphora we know of being used in Rome itself, and recently similarities between it and the Alexandrian Rite DIvine Liturgy, which survives as the Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, occasionally celebrated by the Greek Pope and Patriarch of All Africa (presumably in an 1893 recension which makes it highly interoperable with the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil, so that only the prayers of the priest, including the three antiphons, and the Prothesis and certain parts of the Anaphora mainly evident to the clergy, unless they say it aloud as has become popular in some parishes in recent years; if I recall it is set up with the hymn It Is Truly Meet rather than All of Creation, which is useful because the feast of St. Mark would be celebrated after Pascha, at least on the Julian Calendar, although on the Revised Julian Calendar it could be in Lent, but that’s just one hymn to change, perhaps, but insofar as St. Mark is the patron saint of the cathedral of Alexandria I suspect they’d use the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom as is done with the Annunciation; there is also a Coptic Orthodox recension named for St. Cyril, who was responsible for much translation of Greek material into the Coptic vernacular.

Additionally, the Liturgy of the Apostolic Tradition, the other ancient recension of the liturgy of Antioch, which on close inspection is very similar to the other but missing the parts said by the choir and the deacon except for immediate responses to the celebrant, has used by the Church of Ethiopia since the fourth century, as taught to them by the “Seven Syrian Sages” sent there to instruct the newly converted Abyssinian church in liturgical art (who had the advantage of speaking Classical Syriac Neo-Aramaic, a Semitic language like Ge’ez and one of the first two Semitic languages in which the Bible was translated into in antiquity, first the Old Testament at some unknown time by the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia who had been converted as a result of the relationship between St. Solomon the Prophet and the Queen, which produced Prince Solomon, the first of the Solomonic dynasty).

 

[The Liturgist]

It is a mistake to judge a bible by one verse. It is even more of a mistake to judge it without knowing why it translates Genesis 3:15 from Latin into English as it does. And even more egregious is to think that the gender of the pronoun replaces anybody with somebody else.

Indeed. The idea that the Douai Rheims or the Vulgate modifies Genesis 3:15 to explicitly mention the Theotokos is simply false. The Challoner Douai Rheims renders the verse is as follows:

“ I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”

It is admittedly a textual variant, but not one worth getting excited about.

 

[The Liturgist]

Genesis 3:15 in the Knox Bible says
15 And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.✻

* For ‘she’ and ‘her’ the Septuagint Greek has ‘he’ and ‘his’; the Hebrew text also, as it has come down to us, gives ‘he’, or perhaps ‘it’. But most manuscripts of the Latin version have ‘she’, which plainly gives a better balance to the sentence. That the reference of this passage, in any case, is to the Incarnation, is the general opinion of the Fathers. The Latin here assumes that there is a play upon words in the original, since there are two Hebrew verbs closely alike, one of which means ‘to crush’, and the other ‘to follow eagerly’. But the Hebrew text has ‘to crush’ in both clauses; the Septuagint Greek, in both clauses, has ‘to lie in wait’.​

Indeed, this provides a valid rationale for using the Latin gender translation, which is at variance with the Aramaic and Greek versions, but either way everyone agrees this verse is in reference to the incarnation, and in so far as our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ crushed the Serpent and was the offspring of our most glorious lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary, both readings are correct.

 

[Tyler52]

In the Gospel according to saint John the Word is called God, he was with God in the beginning, and he made all things, in truth nothing that was made was made without him. He became flesh and dwelt among us; he is the one who has seen God because he is God the only Son.

Some people mistakenly call the holy scriptures "the Word of God". And because of this mistake a few have come to think of "the Word as the Bible, and some of those few call the Bible God. This last is a serious heresy, the heresy of idolatry. The holy scriptures are a book, printed with ink on paper, bound in leather or something like it. How can anybody confuse a book with God. The holy scriptures are not eternal, nor omnipresent, nor omnipotent, nor are they able to save or grant grace. The holy scriptures can make a man wise if the man reads them and opens his heart to receive the Holy Spirit's teaching in them.

Christians must avoid this error, the bible is not The Word, the bible is holy scripture.

The Bible is God’s written word to us, that’s why it is the word. However Jesus is not the Bible and the Bible is not Jesus. Jesus is God, the Bible is His word, and Jesus read the Bible, He cannot read Himself. I’ve never personally met anyone who believes that Jesus is the Bible. Unfortunately, I think the problem here is that Protestants (like myself) just don’t catechize new converts, or even children outside of Sunday school. And then, many just don’t think they need to go to church and think that they can do it on their own. This is further incentivized by jobs That seek or expect you to work seven days a week, or even just on Sunday. We as Christians need to unite and seek to reclaim our right and duty to worship on Sunday every Sunday, and have a realistic unity among one another. May God make it possible.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The Bible is God’s written word to us, that’s why it is the word. However Jesus is not the Bible and the Bible is not Jesus. Jesus is God, the Bible is His word, and Jesus read the Bible, He cannot read Himself. I’ve never personally met anyone who believes that Jesus is the Bible. Unfortunately, I think the problem here is that Protestants (like myself) just don’t catechize new converts, or even children outside of Sunday school. And then, many just don’t think they need to go to church and think that they can do it on their own. This is further incentivized by jobs That seek or expect you to work seven days a week, or even just on Sunday. We as Christians need to unite and seek to reclaim our right and duty to worship on Sunday every Sunday, and have a realistic unity among one another. May God make it possible.

I see your point about poor catechises.

 

[The Liturgist]

The Bible is God’s written word to us, that’s why it is the word. However Jesus is not the Bible and the Bible is not Jesus. Jesus is God, the Bible is His word, and Jesus read the Bible, He cannot read Himself. I’ve never personally met anyone who believes that Jesus is the Bible. Unfortunately, I think the problem here is that Protestants (like myself) just don’t catechize new converts, or even children outside of Sunday school. And then, many just don’t think they need to go to church and think that they can do it on their own. This is further incentivized by jobs That seek or expect you to work seven days a week, or even just on Sunday. We as Christians need to unite and seek to reclaim our right and duty to worship on Sunday every Sunday, and have a realistic unity among one another. May God make it possible.

I myself favor maximizing weekday services as well. Worship should be primarily on Sunday but also on weekdays. In the Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox churches weekday worship is extremely common (the Armenians are unique in that they only celebrate Holy Communion on Sundays and major feast days, and the Syriac Orthodox do not like to celebrate the Eucharist on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday except for Maundy Thursday in Holy Week which is very important, but these churches have other services like matins, vespers and so on, and that type of service, variously known as the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours or Daily Prayers or Canonical Prayer, ought to be celebrated more frequently - one of the great accomplishments of the Anglicans which alas has slipped a bit except at a few cathedrals and larger parish churches like St. Thomas Fifth Ave in New York is high frequency or daily celebration of Evensong, which is basically a combination of Vespers (afternoon or evening prayer) and Compline (night prayer).

 

[Iseetrees1980]

I'll always call it The Word of God. Because thats what The Bible itself calls it.

 

[soldier of light]

In the Gospel according to saint John the Word is called God, he was with God in the beginning, and he made all things, in truth nothing that was made was made without him. He became flesh and dwelt among us; he is the one who has seen God because he is God the only Son.

Some people mistakenly call the holy scriptures "the Word of God". And because of this mistake a few have come to think of "the Word as the Bible, and some of those few call the Bible God. This last is a serious heresy, the heresy of idolatry. The holy scriptures are a book, printed with ink on paper, bound in leather or something like it. How can anybody confuse a book with God. The holy scriptures are not eternal, nor omnipresent, nor omnipotent, nor are they able to save or grant grace. The holy scriptures can make a man wise if the man reads them and opens his heart to receive the Holy Spirit's teaching in them.

Christians must avoid this error, the bible is not The Word, the bible is holy scripture.

Jesus said that those who have his words are the ones who love him. I dont separate God from his word. I love his word. It's the mind of Christ for those who love him. The holy spirit reminds of the spoken word and teaches us. As far as I'm concerned the Word is both the spirit and the scripture together.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Jesus said that those who have his words are the ones who love him. I dont separate God from his word. I love his word. It's the mind of Christ for those who love him. The holy spirit reminds of the spoken word and teaches us. As far as I'm concerned the Word is both the spirit and the scripture together.

As far as you're concerned?

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John *bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.​

(John 1:14-18 LSB)

The Word is Jesus Christ.

 

[soldier of light]

As far as you're concerned?

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John *bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.​

(John 1:14-18 LSB)

The Word is Jesus Christ.

You act like that's the only Word in scripture There are two and one is the written word. When Satan tried to tempt Jesus the Lord did not say I am the Word. No, he said it is written.

 

[soldier of light]

As far as you're concerned?

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John *bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.​

(John 1:14-18 LSB)

The Word is Jesus Christ.

The written word is the gateway. Jesus said whoever keeps his words will be loved by the father and they will come in and live with that person. (John 14)

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

You act like that's the only Word in scripture There are two and one is the written word. When Satan tried to tempt Jesus the Lord did not say I am the Word. No, he said it is written.

The Greek word for "word" is logos and it means a spoken work, it does not mean a written word. In Greek the word for written words is graphe.