Bishan church

Does the Holy Spirit work through the word ONLY?

October 10th, 2007

Does the Holy Spirit work through the word only?

To answer this interesting question requires us to understand and have an agreement on what is this “word”?

There are 2 ways I think we can deal with this question. One is by the scholarly way, i.e. by going Greek,. The second way is the layman’s way of questions in applying what we have been taught by our more scholarly brethren, (without even the need to quote book, chapter and verse).

A. Let’s do the easy one first – The layman’s approach.

When you hear or see this “word”, what do you have in mind?
Most of us in the educated world will probably relate it to the written word i.e. the Bible.

So the question then is, “Does the Holy Spirit work though the “word” i.e. the Bible only?”

Let us use what we have been taught. Those of us who grew up in the church would know the following:

1. We do not have a headquarters
2. Each congregation is autonomous
3. We are of the royal priesthood. There is no separate clergy.
4. The gospel is for all
5. God is no respecter of persons
6. Jesus taught the poor and less educated.

The modern church is very educated. We are very fond of study.

If the Holy Spirit works through the Bible only, it means you have to be educated or at least literate.

Does it mean that some of us who are less smart or not well endowed with opportunities, will not know Jesus and His wisdom? Not smart enough to know Jesus by studing a Book?

If so, it looks like we need a separate clergy. A priesthood of educated to enlighten us ignorant folks.

If that is the case then who decides where to be educated? American bible school? Why American and not British? Why angmoh? Who does the validation? Since we do not have headquarters, so how?

Is God showing favoritism to the educated? Or have the educated misread the Word?

B. The “scholarly”way.
This is my presumption to be scholarly.

John 1:1 The Word is used in the English Bible. The Greek word is LOGOS.

LOGOS means principles or concepts. The King James translators “unfortunately” used “the Word” which confuses modern readers like us. If only another word was used. We in this part of the world do not think like Victorians.
(Similar confusion has arisin with English words like worship and wine. There are more than one word in the Greek for each of them respectively.)

In the Chinese bible, LOGOS is translated as Dao4( way, path, principle) instead of Zi4( word or character) or Yan2(speech or word) or Ci2( term or word). At least this is what I gather from my Chinese dictionary.

So John 1:1 in Chinese will be similar to the original Greek,

In the beginning was the Way or Principle…

There is more than one method to convey a Principle depending on the level of the audience.

How to teach good manners? How do you teach the principle of courtesy or etiquette to a child?

Do you expect a young child who has not learn to read or write to understand ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘courtesy’ by reading definitions from a dictionary?

You teach by story telling. You teach by example in an actual situation and with time the child will get “the hang of it”and know under what situation he should say please, excuse me or thank you. They will know even without the ability to define what the words actually mean.

How do you teach the principle of addition?
You can teach either with written words e.g.

In English : One plus one equals two
In Mandarin: Yi jia yi deng er
In Malay: Satu campur satu jadi dua

The actual words vary with the language but the principle of addition is eternal.

You can teach visually or pictorially by drawing one apple , followed by another and articulating the words of the addition principle as mentioned above.

You can also convey the same principle symbolically

1+1 = 2

Or @+& = &+@

Thus a principle may be conveyed in more than one way catering to both the less educated and also the more brainy ones.

There are two other NT Greek words for the English “word”. They are Rhema (utterances, Eph.6:17, Matt. 4:4, 1Pet.1:25) and Graphe (drawings, writings as in 2Tim. 3:16, Jon 13:18)). I suppose graphe is a collection of rhema uttered by God and His messengers, the prophets and apostles.

So does the Holy Spirit work through the LOGOS? YES.

Does the Holy Spirit work through the written word ONLY? NO!

How is the Logos manifested?
1. Written word
2. Living word , Jesus Himself
3. Living epistles ( 2Cor.3:2-3), Christian examples moved by the Holy Spirit indwelling in us. Ro.8:9

I think the layman’s approach in finding an answer to the question is the best. To limit the Holy Spirit to the written word alone means that you have to be educated in order be saved.

The written word is an excellent record to deal with disputes. The Bible is an excellent record for reference through laws, narratives, histories, poetry and letters where the Logos is embedded and revealed to those who have the indwelling.

If we hold the belief that the Holy Spirit work is limited to a book, then God’s treasure is revealed only to those with scholarship.

What do you think?

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