The Sword of the Spirit
One Voice, One Word
During his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus contended that one should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. What might it mean to live by the word of God? Every word has a source, a voice. It is important to recognize how the words of others shape us; that is, we already live by voices of some kind. Words of other people alter our perceptions of the world and ourselves when we choose to acknowledge the legitimacy of their voices; those voices that have power over us are the ones to whom we lend our attention.
To live by the word of God is to be formed and informed by the voice of God. That word gives us a narrative that reveals what is most true of ourselves and of the world. In temptation, the voice of common sense told Jesus to turn stones to bread; it was the word of the Lord that reminded him of the fruitlessness of doing so in that moment. With numerous voices vying for our attention and for authority over us we must have “ears to hear,” lest we become double-minded (James 1).
The church exists in a realm of competing voices as a community shaped by a solitary voice: God. Earthly empires rise and fall through the success or failure of their leaders; the church is what it is, an outpost of the Kingdom of God, in virtue of its reliance upon the word. The church must both heed and communicate that word in a world of many voices. How did the early church survive Roman persecution? In an age of declining membership and wounds (some of which are self-inflicted), how will the church of today endure its own hardships? By heeding one voice, abiding by one word.
“The existence of a community of the Word cannot be erased even in the history of the modern world, whether by its contradiction or silence, or by the weakness, ineptitude, disunity, corruption or baseness of its representatives.” -Karl Barth
—Chet Duke, associate minister
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