The Word created the world. The Word dispersed it. And thousands of years later, mankind still runs on the inherent motive power of language. The Word drives the self to become one with another self. It knits a family into a society. Shapes the society into a culture. Establishes cultures as a tradition. And though innumerable are the number of languages that exist today, the life force of language is yet the gravitational force that binds the human ecosystem together in its diversity.
THE WORD AS A LANGUAGE
The sum total of human existence is centred on the fabric of language. The transport of human evolution from the Adamic age to date is founded on the automotive powers of language. The vehicle of language is how we make sense of our world. So what is language? Language is the systemic invention and computation of alphabetic, numeric and symbolic letters in syntax to make simple, collective meaning. Language originates from a word. And according to WordWeb, “A word is a unit of language that native speakers can identify.” Language, as in a word, can be spoken or written. That’s the basics, anthropologically speaking.
THE WORD AS A LIFE FORCE
Read Genesis 1 & John 1.
But, of course, as Christians, we know better. A word is not simply language. A word is not devoid of transcendent meaning nor is a word merely a transactional, lifeless and artificial means of exchange.
The Word is the Logos Himself. It is the creative force that spoke the universe to being. The Word is Jesus Christ; the intelligent utterance that emanates the visible creation to existence. The Word – spoken and written – is the encrypted divine life of God. Just as the human DNA, which auto-runs the cell functionality and therefore individual life to act in integrated consonance to divine encryption, so also is the Word which facilitates the synchrony of individual, family, social and human interaction and organisation. The Word is the program by which we run. Ontologically speaking.
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
Genesis 11:1 KJV
Since God created Adam & Eve, human language has been a cardinal function of human existence. Language is the core medium by which we convey thoughts, express feelings, understand intents and make meaning out of life. Human language is the lubrication that keeps the mankind juggernaut running. God recognised this when mankind began Project Tower of Babel.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:7-9 KJV
Not to belabour the point needlessly, God saw the need to intercept the project. All humanity was gathered as one to build a Tower that would have in effect congregated humanity as a mass society. This was not what God commanded in Genesis 1:26-28 KJV. He did one simple thing to disrupt that – He confounded the one unifying factor that could have made that a possibility: language; and speech.
Befuddled language equals meaningless assemblage. Disruption, ergo, Dispersion.
And since that dispersal of the Nimrod race of mankind, so started the plurality and multiplicity of human societies and therefore language. Alongside Israel; Salem, Egypt, Sodom & Gomorrah, Philistine, Assyria, China, Babylon, Ethiopia, Greece, Iran, Rome, America, Nigeria et al progressively and subsequently sprang up from a common human race to independent nations, peoples, cities and languages.
The Word created the world. The Word dispersed it. And thousands of years later, mankind still runs on the inherent motive power of language. The Word drives the self to become one with another self. It knits a family into a society. Shapes the society into a culture. Establishes cultures as a tradition. And though innumerable are the number of languages that exist today, the life force of language is yet the gravitational force that binds the human ecosystem together in its diversity.
Some of the most important Languages of the Ancient World include Tamil, Sumerian, Akkadian, Farsi, Coptic, Aramaic, Chinese, Latin, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Greek. These languages interwove timelines of cultures, histories, peoples, nations, cities, and languages from one lifetime to another. From 6000 BC in Genesis to 2024 AD today. Language is the transport of the human juggernaut; the wheel that keeps whirling.
THE WORD AS AN ART FORM
Art is as primaeval as the human language. Since man could speak and then write, the potentiality of art as a creative force was immediately possible. The Word is not only transactional, and functional; it is also creative. In fact, the first ability of the Word we get introduced to in Genesis 1 is the creative powers of the Spoken Word. Genesis 1:3 KJV proclaims, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” That, simply, is the word manifested as creation. And all act of creation is art.
The Bible is a prime example of art; a marvellous feat of the Written Word presented as an Art Form. The Bible is a transgenerational literature presenting the story of God and mankind in the most epic fashion. Most mythological classics have drawn from the novel literature of the Bible. While truly the Bible is a masterwork of art, the Bible is not a myth. The stories accounted in the Bible were as real as the daylight. They still are. Why? Remember the Logos breathed his life and intelligence into the world and mankind in Genesis. This software is still running today.
So, the MESSAGE OF WORDS IS ACTIVE EVEN TODAY. This is what theology refers to as LOGOS-RHEMA. LOGOS is the written word of God recorded in the Bible. AND JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY & FOREVER – therefore, THE RHEMA is the spoken word of GOD to individual situations today. What art could be sublimer than this?!
The philosophy behind the Message of Words is in the action they bring, and the Instruction they deliver. A Word – spoken or written – is caused for performative reasons. No word is idle. Not even the soliloquised action. All words act, passively or actively; literally or metaphorically; instantly or indirectly. Words go into action; though actions they perform may not be visibly seen. Just as God spoke light to being, and the light still comes to being each moment across the universe, so also is the potency of the word we speak and write. And they instruct too. The latency of a word directs the hearer and reader on what course to take. It guides the recipient from one direction to the other.
Finally, we have the God-given power to shape our world with our words. Individually, we can use the agency of the Word to:
1. Communicate meaningful language;
2. Create Life; and
3. Tell Our Stories.
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
John 6:63 KJV
