Jam 4:15 Instead of that you ought to say, "If it is Lord's will, we shall live and do this or that."

I need to learn humility. I wrote "we need" first but decided that was a cop out. This isn't a lecture, it's me sitting here in a nice warm quiet room, comfortably reflecting on nature of human life.

What is nature of human life? Nothing substantial, whether it's you, me or Michael Jackson. We live our lives from day to day and at any moment our breath could be terminated and our next conscious thought would occur before presence of almighty God.

This life which seems so concrete to us is no more solid than a mist or vapor, a fog we walk through while heading towards God's light. That doesn't mean it is unimportant but it is impermanent and insubstantial compared to life awaiting beyond confines of incorporation.

Instead of steadfastly setting our faces towards our own plans and purposes, there I go with that "we" business again. You have to figure this out for yourself, you can't ride on my revelation of impermance.

Anyhow, here's my thought:

I have some things I want to do and accomplish while still in body, but I need to learn to temper my desires with the fact that, "If it is Lord's will, I shall live and do this or that." If it is not His will then I will be moving on to bigger and better things in presence of Lord.

Peace.

Ray and Sharon Stark have been involved in pastoral and missions work for more than twenty years, ministering in the U.S., Haiti, Africa, Mexico, Panama, and India. More Bible study articles and sermon audio can be found at

Nevertheless, majority of Christians earnestly believe what theologians and translators commonly contend John meant in his prologue – that logos or word literally represents person of God, and that He literally became flesh as man Yahshua. They accept this and all its difficult implications as a great mystery that goes beyond human comprehension, unwittingly parroting a circular argument based on text already skewed with bias of point they argue. They rest easy in apparent security lent by popularity and antiquity of their doctrinal views, never realizing how plethora of evidence supporting their views all traces back to a common root: The decrees of post-apostolic consortiums founded on absurd assumption that Scriptures didn’t adequately answer question Yahshua posed to His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” We wouldn’t consider overwhelming display of support for a political issue at a rally for same cause to prove its worthiness. Yet, that is essentially what monopoly of power established by marriage between ancient Catholic Church and Roman Empire in 325 A.D. has rendered Christianity to be in world for nearly 1700 years – a rally for doctrines developed by men bearing no apostolic credentials. The reason most Christians blindly agree that Yahshua is more than Son of God is because voices of dissent have been squashed like fans for visiting team at a homecoming game.

…It is notable that very same power and authority that established ‘orthodox Christology’ also worked long, hard, and violently to keep Scriptures and all dissenting voices away from general population. Before advent of printing press and Protestant Reformation, an earnest seeker of truth would have been hard pressed to find a straight answer to question of who Yahshua was and is outside papal system. If that is hard to relate to, perhaps it would help to consider that theocratic Roman Catholic Empire was not that much unlike Muslim regimes such as modern Saudi Arabia or Taliban in Afghanistan: Religious dissent was a serious crime, fully enforced by power of government.

…Key to what follows is word 'logos', both its generic definition and various concepts it represented as THE logos in minds of John's contemporaries. Of particular concern will be whether or not personification of logos in John 1 was intended as an abstraction or to indicate a literal distinct person. To this end, I will show that concept embodied in logos was commonly personified in literature – Scriptures, Hebrew, and Philosophers – but not with thought of it being a literal person, much less Messiah. Either John was endeavoring to communicate in a rational, coherent way that would be understood by those who spoke language he wrote in, or he was deliberately trying to be vague and confusing by using a previously unknown definition of word ‘logos’. I believe he was trying to communicate high spiritual concepts in ordinary, understandable language, but I don't think he was trying to say what many think.

When we read, “the Word was God…and Word became flesh,” we naturally draw certain conclusions based upon what we already believe and how this reads. IF translators accurately translated text, and IF we understand their words as John's contemporaries would have understood his words, we'd be fine in this. However, being imperfect tools for communicating thoughts that words are, we must at least consider possibility that something may have gone amiss between John’s pen, modern translations, and our minds. Even words passed directly between closest of people often require further explanation, so this is quite reasonable. What IF translations are somewhat lacking? What IF there were some implications related to cultural elements of that time that are not evident in text itself? Discerning what WE conclude about English renderings of John 1 is easy, but discovering what THEY were meant to understand from John's Greek text is quite another, especially in case of this passage. One thing is for sure, true meaning of what John wrote is not what we or anyone else thinks, but what was actually intended at time it was written. On this point, Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary comments:

[In order to interpret Bible correctly] We must first discover what passage meant in day and age of author. …[This is important because] Bible was not actually written directly to us, and it makes sense to put ourselves in shoes of original audience if we are to understand its message properly.1

My primary contention is that Greek word ‘logos’ represented a thing and not a person to John and Greek-speaking population of that day in general, much like term ‘word’ is to English speaking people of this day. For instance, we might say ‘a man is his word’, but no one would take this as meaning that a man’s word is literally that man, even though statement might literally mean that. Although I make no pretense regarding my own bias, this contention is specifically against typical arguments raised from John 1 in support of deity of Christ doctrine, not doctrine itself. Whether or not deity of Christ doctrine is true, John wrote ‘logos’, not ‘Christ’, and meant it according to common usage of word in his time, not ours.

I will offer evidence by way of numerous points that will follow, documented by sources that generally incorporate a bias against my own conclusions. Several of these pertain to translation ambiguities, others relate to implications of word ‘logos’ with regard to religion and philosophy of John's day, and then more show precedent and likelihood that personification of logos in John 1 was meant as a poetical abstraction, not literally. In end, if word of God – logos – did not mean literal person of God, then reading “the word was God…and word became flesh” as a statement meaning that unchangeable God (who is distinctly not a man) actually became a man is untenable.

God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; (Nu 23:19)

For I, Yahweh, do not change; (Mal 3:6)