Two books and one Rx

There’s no accounting for taste, it’s said, or for the kind of books you like or don’t like.

 Just the other day I finished rereading The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz. It’s the fourth book in a six-part series started 20 years ago by Stieg Larsson.

 I had read the first in the series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but gave up partway through the second volume. Both were just too thick with extraneous detail, I thought. Enough Stieg Larsson.

 I received the three Lagercrantz books from Linda for Christmas several years ago and promptly read the first one and greatly enjoyed it (except for the grisly way he eliminated one likeable character). A few days ago I found myself without a book of fiction in hand, so I thought I’d read it again. Same reaction as the first time. I’ll pick up the next book in the series soon.

I was briefly without fiction to read because I’d attempted to read Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway. It’s billed as “A John le Carré Novel.” That’s because it features George Smiley, a character from the le Carré canon, and le Carré and Harkaway are pseudonyms for father and son.

I don’t recall reading le Carré. I don’t believe I’ll try Harkaway again, at least when he’s trying to channel his father.

Karla’s Choice has been widely praised, but I’m not sure why. I found it ponderously slow, simply uninteresting. As for the celebrated George Smiley … not sure why anybody cares.

Both Spider’s Web and Karla’s Choice are densely plotted, but Spider’s Web moves briskly through it, where Karla’s Choice seems to enjoy taking forever getting from Point A to Point B via several irrelevancies in between. Not my cup of tea.

*  *  *  *

 Two weeks ago, Wendy Chrostek, one of the Resurrection pastors, was speaking about the importance of loving relationships in our lives, and she mentioned the final report of Vivek Murthy as U.S. Surgeon General.

 He issued it Jan. 7 and titled it a Parting Prescription for America.

 At a time when health care professionals increasingly cite loneliness as a major social problem in America, Murthy sounded a theme familiar to those who’ve followed his work: We need more connection in our lives.

 Specifically, he encouraged what he called the “triad of fulfillment”: healthy relationships, service to others and finding a purpose in life – all tied to the core virtue of love. 

“Choose community,” he concluded.

I had read similar comments from Murthy before, but I wanted to read more, so I followed links to the report on the website of the Department of Health and Human Services. It had been there briefly, but the report and all mentions of it have now been scrubbed from the site.

Murthy was appointed surgeon general by President Barack Obama, fired by Trump, then reappointed by President Joe Biden. His term ended Jan. 20. What he said will be remembered – even if the institution he once served no longer values it.

Order of love

Vice President JD Vance says everyone who disagrees with him about immigration should Google ordo amoris. That’s pretty good advice. He should take it himself. He might learn how totally he misunderstands it.

Ordor amoris, or “order of love,” is a medieval Catholic concept derived from the works of Saint Augustine.

Vance cites it to justify the cruelty of Trump administration policy on immigration, specifically deportation of suspected violators.

He says: “There is a Christian concept that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”

I’m not sure how the “far left” has inverted this order, but as Vance expresses it, what gets inverted are basic Christian understandings of proper human behavior.

Vance says it is “basic common sense” that your moral duty to your children outweighs those “to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away.”

The way Vance tells it, you love your family the most, and others in a series of expanding concentric circles – and by the time you get to the outermost circles, you have no love left for anybody.

Without mentioning Vance, Pope Francis debunked Vance’s interpretation in a letter to U.S. bishops on Tuesday.

He wrote: “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. …

“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) – that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

The idea of an “order of love” comes from St. Augustine, who lived a few hundred years after Christ and is one of the most influential Christian theologians after Saint Paul.

“All men are to be loved equally,” Augustine wrote. “But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”

That might be a familial connection, but it might be a connection of another kind.

In his book Sources of Strength, Jimmy Carter recalls a conversation with Elroy Cruz, a Puerto Rican pastor he admired. Cruz says: “Señor Jimmy, we need to have only two loves in our lives: for God and for the person who happens to be in front of us at any time.”

Persons in need whose need we are aware of – those are the ones we are called to treat as neighbor, as Jesus illustrates in his parable of the Good Samaritan. Those are the ones we are called to love.

Sorry, Vance, you cannot use the gospel of Jesus to justify cruelty to anyone. And when you try, you only expose how shallow is your understanding of the faith you claim to represent.

Tassels

Jesus wore tassels on his garments to show his devotion to God. But our portrayals of him try to disguise the fact that he was Jewish.

*  *  *  *

A message delivered Feb. 9, 2025, at Edgerton United Methodist Church.

*  *  *  *

Luke 8:43-48 (NRSV)

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, and immediately her flow of blood stopped.

Jesus asked, “Who touched me?”

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are hemming you in and pressing against you.”

Butt Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I noticed that power had gone out from me.”

When the woman realized that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

*  *  *  *

A seemingly minor detail in today’s gospel story suggests the theme for my message today.

Last Sunday, as we were concluding worship, I asked you to consider the tassels on the edge of my clergy stole – are they merely decorative, or do they have more significance than that?

You may note, for example, that the stoles worn by soccer fans – such as those for our two Kansas City soccer teams – have decorative tassels similar to those on my stole. Even your winter scarf likely has tassels.

But the tassels on clergy stoles are definitely more than decorative. They recall the command of Deuteronomy 22:12: “You shall make tassels on the four corners of your cloak.”

Numbers 15:39 explains why. “These tassels will help you remember the commandments of the Lord, so that you will follow them rather than the lusts of your heart.”

Some Christians today follow a similar tradition. We carry a special coin, or a pocket cross like the one inside this little bag, or a pocket Jesus like this one, to remind us that wherever we go, Jesus is always with us and we follow him alone.

The gospels remind us several times that Jesus followed the command of Numbers and Deuteronomy. Jesus wore a cloak that had tassels, or fringes, at its corners.

That’s what the woman in our gospel story reached out to touch. Some Bible translations wrongly suggest that she merely wanted to touch the “hem” of his robe. Not so! She wanted to touch the “fringe” of his robe. She wanted to touch one of the tassels hanging from a corner of his robe.

Why? Because the tassels suggested divine presence and divine power.

Why do some of our Bible translations try to conceal that? Why do they say that she merely wanted to touch the “hem” or “edge” of his robe? Maybe that’s easier because it requires no explanation of what the “fringe” or “tassel” is.

Or maybe it’s a subtle way of hiding the fact that as a faithful Jew, Jesus followed the commands of Numbers and Deuteronomy and wore tassels on his robe.

Maybe it’s a clever way of disguising the fact that Jesus was Jewish.

The tassels are called tzitzit. Any Jew, male or female, can order a set of four from Amazon for only $12 or so and hook one on the belt of the jeans they’re wearing. In this way they keep the gist of the commandment, wearing a tassel as a reminder that they are Torah faithful – children of God who owe their allegiance to God alone.

In all the portrayals of Jesus you’ve seen in movies, have you ever seen Jesus wearing a tassel? I recall one time only, and I can’t recall which movie.

In Matthew 23:5, Jesus chides scribes and Pharisees for wearing tassels that were ostentatious. He does not criticize them for simply wearing tassels because that’s what every Jewish man did – Jesus included. He criticizes them for wearing tassels that were too gaudy.

Usually in movies, the only ones who wear tassels are Jesus’ opponents. That’s a not-so-subtle way of telling you that all Jews are bad because a few were enemies of Jesus. That’s the sordid message that Christians have proclaimed for 2,000 years.

It’s a hateful message whose hateful legacy continues today. It is preached implicitly in many churches. But it is preached explicitly in more and more churches today by those who are openly – even proudly – Jew haters.

These haters may call themselves Christian. I tell you flatly, they are not. They are not Christ followers. They are Christ haters. They are anti-Christ. And we who do follow Christ need to do more than denounce the haters as fraudulent. We also must purge the hate from our own hearts.

Never forget that Jesus was a Jew. If we hate Jews, we hate Jesus. If we hate anybody, we hate Jesus, but especially we cannot hate Jews. Remember that the Bible, from beginning to end, in both Old and New Testaments, consistently declares that the Jews were and are and forever will be God’s chosen people.

God had to choose some people to be his model for other nations. Why did he choose the descendants of Abraham? It was not, Moses once said, because they were more numerous than other nations or more virtuous than other nations.

They were not chosen because they were special. Rather, they were special because they were chosen.

God told Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” to all nations. (Genesis 12:2, 26:4) They were blessed to be a blessing to others. Alas, the blessing of God often feels like a curse to those who bear it.

Some of the abuse stems from the slander that Jews are Christ killers. The notion is so ludicrous that I would not bother to repeat it except that so many people believe it.

Jews did not kill Jesus. Romans did. Yet you never hear Italians called Christ killers, do you? No, only Jews are labeled as Christ killers.

Why is that? Maybe it’s because a mob is reported to have yelled, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”

How does the action of a mob make all Jews responsible? Who designated this mob as representatives of all Jewish people? What right did they have to speak for everyone? How are all Jews accountable for the actions of a few?

And, by the way, how does Pontius Pilate washing his hands absolve him of anything?

Parts of the New Testament, especially the gospel of John, sound venomously anti‑Semitic. That’s partly because we read these passages as outsiders.

Have you ever been involved in a family feud? Feuds between families are bad enough but feuds within families can be especially vicious. Jesus was a Jew. The first Christians were Jews. Christianity started as a movement within Judaism. What we've got here is an increasingly bitter fight between members of the same family.

So, for example, we read in John 20 that after Jesus’ death, the disciples go into in hiding “for fear of the Jews.” How’s that again? The disciples are Jews. They cannot be hiding from themselves. And they are not hiding from most other Jews. They are hiding only from those Jews who are the enemies of Jesus.

In the gospel of John, the word "Jew" is often a code word for an enemy of Jesus. But it doesn't mean all Jews, only those who are opposed to the Jesus movement. In fact, thousands of Jews were part of the Jesus movement. On the day of Pentecost alone, 3,000 Jews joined up.

But many more thousands did not, and some actively opposed the movement.

One of these was a man named Saul, whom we know today as the Apostle Paul. When he became a follower of Jesus, he became a target of his former allies, and their opposition eventually led to his arrest and execution. But who killed Paul? Not the Jews, though some may have wanted to. Paul died in one of the first Roman persecutions of Christians.

Naturally, Christians feared and resented persecution. Even though the Romans were doing it, many Gentile Christians blamed Jews for it. When the persecution ended and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians got a chance to get even. They have been getting even ever since – though, of course, there was never anything to get even for.

When Rome was persecuting Christians, it was widely rumored that Christians were cannibals. After all, they ate the body of Jesus and drank the blood of Jesus, didn't they? Sure sounds like cannibalism, doesn’t it? When Christianity became legal, Christians recycled this blood libel and used it against Jews. That’s what goes on at the Passover Seder, they said. Jews are eating babies, Christian babies.

There is a point during the modern Passover meal when participants open a door and invite Elijah to enter. That custom goes back to the middle ages, when many Jews left the doors of their homes open during the Passover meal so that anyone passing by could see that they were not eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children.

Sixteen centuries later, the Jewish blood libel is not dead. White supremacist groups continue to spread the lie, and it is believed today throughout the Arab world.

Well, at least they’re not accused of eating someone’s pets.

Much of the animosity toward Jews is rather subtle. Easter and Passover are intimately linked because Jesus died and was raised during Passover. But the early church found a way to break the link. The church decided to calculate the date of Easter so that Passover and Easter never coincide.

We wouldn't want anyone to think we were Jews, would we?

Why do you think Christians eat ham on Easter? The tradition likely started as a way to spite Jews, who are forbidden to heat pork products.

There are many other examples. And the awful fruit of generations of anti‑Judaism was harvested in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

After centuries of hearing that Jews were devils, the people of central Europe were suckers for Hitler's “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.”

Christians created the climate in which Nazi hatred of Jews could take root and grow, and Christians throughout Europe watched mostly in silence while six million Jews were murdered. In Europe and America today, some want to bury these six million – and five million others – even deeper by denying that those deaths even happened.

The heart of anti-Jewish prejudice is not the lie that Jews killed Christ. The heart of the problem is Christian pride. For some Christians, the very existence of Jews is inconvenient. It’s quite embarrassing, in fact.

Most Jews reject Jesus as Messiah because he didn’t fulfill all their expectations for the Messiah. And some Christians are deathly afraid that they might be right. So they have to demonize Jews, they have to demean Jews, they have to create the illusion that Jews suffer because God is punishing them. Whereas the truth is that Jews suffer because hateful humans persecute them.

If Jesus is God’s Messiah, why don’t Jews accept him?

The Apostle Paul wrestles with this question in the book of Romans, especially chapters 9, 10 and 11. They’re vintage Paul, very difficult to read, but enlightening as well.

Paul concludes that Jewish rejection of Jesus is part of God's plan – that just as God could use Jesus' death for good, so God also can use Jewish disbelief to gather more non‑Jews into the fold, and eventually to gather in more Jews, too.

Of one thing Paul is certain. God has not rejected the chosen people. The covenant that binds the Jews and God has never been revoked – for, he says, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

One day, one way or another, Paul says, all Jews will be saved. How all Jews will be saved, he does not claim to know.

He does know that Jews are the natural branches of the holy vine. We Gentiles have been grafted on the way a wild shoot might be grafted on to a cultivated grapevine. We should not be too proud that we have been grafted on, Paul says. Rather, we should marvel at God’s great love for us and all humanity.

Jews follow the Old Covenant, which has never been revoked. Their faith in the Lord our God is as valid as ours. We Christians have no cause to show anything but love to our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Rather, like the woman in our gospel story, we should not be afraid to reach out and touch the tassels of Jesus’ robe and be healed.

And having been healed, it is our duty to oppose all who promote hatred of Jews in the name of Jesus, or in any other name.

For God never defaults on a promise to anyone but is always faithful and is always calling us home.

No apology needed

Should you apologize for preaching the gospel?

That’s the question posed to the Episcopal Church and Bishop Mariann Budde following her address at the inaugural prayer service on Jan. 21.

Donald Trump takes exception to her remarks and demands an apology. The church and bishop have declined.

Rightfully so.

Of course, the usual suspects in the “evangelical” world have erupted in rage that anyone – especially a woman – would dare criticize the “God-ordained” leader of our country. No “evangelical” response that I have seen addresses the heart of the bishop’s message. They only repeat the view that any implied criticism of Trump is leftist, “woke,” and un-American.

These responses are manifestly not Christian.

In her message, Budde speaks of three foundations for unity:

* Honor the dignity of every human being

* Speak the truth to one another in love

* Walk humbly with each other and our God

After hearing Trump’s inaugural address, she added a fourth:

* Mercy, compassion, empathy

How, one observer has asked, can mercy and compassion be regarded as a vice? How, indeed.

Following is the text of Budde’s message. Judge for yourself.

*  *  *  *  *

As a country we have gathered this morning to pray for unity as a people and a nation. Not for agreement, political or otherwise. But for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division. A unity that serves the common good.

          Unity in this sense is a threshold requirement for people to live in freedom and together in a free society. It is the solid rock, as Jesus said in this case, upon which to build a nation. It is not conformity. It is not victory. It is not polite weariness or passive passivity born of exhaustion. Unity is not partisan.

          Rather unity is a way of being with one another – that it encompasses and respects our differences that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect. That enables us in our communities and in the halls of power to genuinely care for one another. Even when we disagree.

          Those across our country who dedicate their lives or who volunteer to help others in times of natural disaster, often at great risk to themselves, never ask those they are helping for whom they voted in a past election or what positions they hold on a particular issue. And we are at our best when we follow their example.

          For unity, at times is, sacrificial in the way that love is sacrificial – a giving of ourselves for the sake of another. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth exhorts us to love, not only our neighbors, but to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. To be merciful as our God is merciful. To forgive others as God forgives us. And Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts.

Now I grant you that unity and this broad expansive sense is aspirational and it's a lot to pray for. It's a big ask of our God – worthy of the best of who we are and who we can be. But there isn't much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us.

          Our scriptures are quite clear about this – that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds, which always, in the end, matter more than the words we pray.

          Those of us gathered here in the cathedral, we're not naive about the realities of politics. When power and wealth and competing interests are at stake; when views of what America should be are in conflict; when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is – there will be winners and losers when votes are cast; decisions made that set the course of public policy; and the prioritization of resources.

          It goes without saying that in a democracy not everyone's particular hopes and dreams can be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term. Not even in a generation. Which is to say: Not everyone's specific prayers for those of us who are people of prayer; not everyone's prayers will be answered in the way we would like. But for some, the loss of their hopes and dreams will be far more than political defeat, but instead a loss of equality and dignity and their livelihoods.

          Given this then, is true unity among us even possible? And why should we care about it?

          Well, I hope we care. I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us. We are all bombarded daily with messages from what sociologists now call the outrage industrial complex. Some of that driven by external forces whose interests are furthered by a polarized America. Contempt fuels political campaigns and social media. And many profit from that. But it's a worrisome, it's a dangerous way, to lead a country.

I'm a person of faith surrounded by people of faith. And with God's help, I believe that unity in this country is possible. Not perfectly, for we are imperfect people and an imperfect union. But sufficient enough to keep us all believing in and working to realize the ideals of the United States of America. Ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence with its assertion of innate human equality and dignity.

          And we are right to pray for God's help as we seek unity, for we need God's help. But only if we ourselves are willing to tend to the foundations upon which unity depends. Like Jesus's analogy of building a house of faith on the rock of his teachings as opposed to building a house on sand. The foundations we need for unity must be sturdy enough to withstand the many storms that threaten it.

          And so what are they, the foundations of unity? Drawing from our sacred traditions and texts, let me suggest that there are at least three:

          The first foundation for unity is honoring the inherent dignity of every human being. Which is, as all the faiths represented here affirm, the birthright of all people as children of our one God. In public discourse, honoring each other's dignity means refusing to mock, or discount, or demonize those with whom we differ. Choosing instead to respect, respectfully debate our differences, and whenever possible, to seek common ground. And if common ground is not possible dignity demands that we remain true to our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own.

          The second foundation for unity is honesty -- in both private conversation and public discourse. If we're not willing to be honest there's no use in praying for unity because our actions work against the prayers themselves. We might for a time experience a false sense of unity among some but not the sturdier, broader unity that we need to address the challenges that we face. Now to be fair we don't always know where the truth lies.  And there's a lot working against the truth now. But when we do know, when we know what is true, it's incumbent upon us to speak the truth even when – especially when – it costs us.

          And the third and last foundation I'll mention today, a foundation for unity, is humility which we all need because we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. We say and do things that we later regret. We have our blind spots and our biases. And perhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded, without a doubt, that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong.  Because then we are just a few steps from labeling ourselves as “the good people” versus “the bad people.”  And the truth is that we're all people.  We're both capable of good and bad.

          Alexander Solzhenitsyn once astutely observed that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And the more we realize this the more room we have within ourselves for humility and openness to one another across our differences because in fact we are more like one another than we realize. And we need each other.

          Unity is relatively easy to pray for on occasions of great solemnity. It's a lot harder to realize when we're dealing with real differences in our private lives and in the public arena. But without unity, we're building our nation's house on sand. And with a commitment to unity that incorporates diversity and transcends disagreement and with the solid foundations of dignity, honesty, and humility that such unity requires, we can do our part and in our time to realize the ideals and the dream of America.

          Let me make one final plea. Mr. President.

          Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. And we're scared now.

          There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families – some who fear for their lives.

          And the people the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals: They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues … and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

          Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being; to speak the truth to one another in love. and walk humbly with each other and our God. For the good of all people in this nation and the world.

Judaism is about love

Judaism Is About Love by Shai Held is the best theological book I read in 2024.

I wish I’d had this book 30 years ago. I wish many Christians had it now.

Here is how it starts (broken up a little by me to make it more readable here):

“Judaism is not what you think it is.

“Judaism is about love.

“The Jewish tradition tells the story of a God of love who creates us in love and enjoins us, in turn, to live lives of love.

“We are commanded to love God, the neighbor, the stranger – and all of humanity – and we are told that the highest achievement of which we are capable is to live with compassion.

“This is considered nothing less than walking in God’s own ways.

“If this seems surprising to you, this is likely because centuries of Christian anti-Judaism have profoundly distorted the way Judaism is seen and understood, even, tragically, by many – probably most – Jews.”

Held’s purpose is not to show how firmly Jesus stands in the Jewish tradition, yet he does so, usually without naming Jesus. On page after page he explains basic Jewish traditions in terms of love, and on page after page it sounds so much like Jesus.

I thought I knew how closely Jesus adhered to the Jewish tradition, and yet I was frequently so astounded after reading a passage that I could only say, “Oh, that’s Jesus through and through; how could I not see this before?”

          Only one suggestion. Now Held should write a popular version of this book for readers who lack the patience to put up with academic conventions. Rabbi Held writes clearly and is mostly easy to read. However, his book is nearly 400 pages long, followed by 100 pages of dense footnotes. As a scholar, he feels it necessary to support every statement with an attribution or a footnote. I have a fair tolerance for such things, but even I felt worn out after reading only a few pages at a time.

          Still, this is a book that deserves to be widely read. It cannot on its own brush back many centuries of lies about Judaism, especially the lies we Christians toss around so easily, even today. But it’s a good start.

          NOTE 1: Before buying my own copy, I checked it out from the Johnson County Library (a truly excellent library system, by the way). After reading just a few pages, I returned the book for others to read and ordered a copy for myself. If you have any hesitation about reading it, get it from the library first.

          NOTE 2: Shortly after reading Held’s book, I tried to read The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology, by Irving Greenberg (also from the Johnson County Library). I simply could not get into it. It was a supposedly accessible work, written for a popular audience, covering much of the same ground as Held’s book, but I found it cold and unreadable.

          Sorry, Rabbi Greenberg. I much prefer Held, even with the many footnotes.

          *  *  *  * *

          Not long ago, I got an email from a major “Christian” publisher about a new study of “God’s eternal blueprint.”

          I was informed that not only was God’s plan eternal, but “The Bible is also eternal. God’s Word ‘was with God in the beginning’ (John 1:2)…” 

          You remember how the gospel of John begins.

“In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.”

          Who was with God from the very beginning? It was God’s Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Christ, revealed in human form in Jesus.

The eternal Word is Jesus. The eternal Word is not the Bible.

          The Bible is far from eternal. Parts of it are a couple thousand years old. It was written by human hands – under inspiration, yes, but still recorded by humans and passed down through human hands over many generations.

          It is not eternal. Only God is eternal. To suggest that the Bible is not only eternal but was from the beginning with God is simply blasphemous.

          This confusion of Word and (W)ord has gone on for many years in “evangelical” circles and, sadly, in mainline churches as well. It must stop.