Read the following sentences and think about what they mean.

• A woman without her man is nothing.
• A woman: without her, man is nothing.
• The man dropped the bullet in his mouth.
• The man dropped, the bullet in his mouth.

We communicate with words, but we don’t always to a good job of it. Sometimes the meaning of the words is uncertain – it can change depending on the way they are said or punctuated. Think about the two words “Yeah, right.” They could be an affirmation that something is true and correct. But if said sarcastically, they would mean the exact opposite. Language can be imprecise at times, leading to misunderstandings, but it is still the most effective means we have of communicating with each other.

Have you ever wondered why God chose language as the way to communicate His Good News to us? God conveys His message of love and a Savior to us with verbs and nouns, adverbs and adjectives, tenses and grammar, sentences and syntax, paragraphs and punctuation and parts of speech. Did you ever stop to think about why God did it that way? Maybe not. Maybe even now you are thinking, “If He didn’t tell us, how would we know?”

Language is a powerful tool, an integral part of our lives. It conveys thoughts, explains, describes, reveals, clarifies. We use words to make ourselves known, to share our heart, to express what we are feeling. We use words in order to understand the world around us when we listen and read. We express ourselves and get the perspective of others with the use of words.

God wanted to make Himself known to us. He wanted us to understand who He is, how much He loves us and what He wants for us. So He used words. But He took it a step further, as John explains.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ” (John 1:1–3)

The name applied to the second person of the Trinity here, the one we usually call “Jesus,” is “The Word.” Jesus came into this world to be the Word of the Father now in flesh appearing. He was sent here to explain and clarify and reveal God.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

God came down to us as the Word made Flesh to help us understand who He is, His love for us, and to accomplish what was needed for us to live with Him forever. And that is exactly what He did. The words of the Bible tell us about that. The Word made Flesh is how we best understand what God has done. He was trying to be precise.

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I’ll share some further thoughts on God’s use of Words sometime next week.