The life-changing Word

Student Ministries Pastor Aaron Bauer and I are leading our Sunday morning high school Sunday School "Gathering" through First John, chapter 1 at Faith Church in Kent.  

We are walking through 10 verses in 10 weeks and are focusing together on the solid truths about what life-changing believing looks like and on making all these deep things relevant.

Aaron Bauer

Pastor Aaron and I are praying through how to actively engage with the students around 1 John 1.  We want them to be able to participate in genuine spiritual conversations with one another and with their peers in the real world they live in.  Many of our kids know how to give us "the right answers."  We want to hear where they really are. 

What does the LOGOS and the truths from1 John 1 impact Aaron and me?  What difference does it make to our students?  As you read this, what difference does the LOGOS make in your life?

 The presentation of the Good News message and heart belief pivots around the Person, claims, and accomplishments of Jesus.  Was He who He said He was?  Did He do what He said He would do?

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."  

~Luke 24:46-48

Next week, I am taking the lead as the Holy Spirit spoke through John, who identifies Jesus Christ as "the LOGOS Word." 

Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created..."  Moses used the Hebrew plural word, "Elohim," for God.  Right from the beginning, the Bible presents one God with plural parts. The creation story presents the work of the Creator God and the Holy Spirit.  The first chapter of the Gospel of John, verse three, says nothing was created without the LOGOS Word.

John 1:1 says, " In the beginning was the LOGOS Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God." 

Jesus Christ is recognized as the "LOGOS" Word in John 1:1 and John 1:14 where it says, "And the LOGOS Word became flesh and dwelt among us..."

In His high priestly prayer, Jesus said:
"And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." ~John 17:5



John says he is speaking about "the LOGOS word of life," at the end of 1 John 1:1.

John writes again in Revelation 19:13, "He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which He is called the Word of God."  Same word, "LOGOS."

The LOGOS is Jesus Christ, who revealed Himself and His message of saving life to creditable witnesses who delivered His message to us through our totally trustworthy, inerrant Bible.   

The Greek word LOGOS appears throughout the New Testament when the declared message of God. 

Leon Morris, a greatly respected commentator, said the LOGOS, "was not a principle but a living Being and the source of life; not a personification, but a Person and that Person divine.  The Word was nothing less than God."

In A.T. Robertson's "Word pictures in the New Testament," a commentary set known by many seminary students as "ATR," he explains, "LOGOS is an old word in Homer to lay by, to collect, to put words side by side, to speak, to express an opinion. It is common for reason as well as speech. 

Heraclitus used it for the principle which controls the universe. The Stoics employed it for the soul of the world (anima mundi). The Hebrew memra was used in the Targums for the manifestation of God like the Angel of Jehovah and the Wisdom of God in Prov 8:23.

"John's standpoint is that of the Old Testament and not that of the Stoics nor even of Philo who uses the term Logos, but not John's conception of personal pre-existence.  

"ATR"

"There is a possible personification of "the Word of God" in Heb 4:12. The personal pre-existence of Christ is taught by Paul (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:6 f; Col 1:17) and in Heb 1:2 and in John 17:5. 

"This term suits John's purpose better than sophia (wisdom) and is his answer to the Gnostics who either denied the actual humanity of Christ (Docetic Gnostics) or who separated the aeon Christ from the man Jesus (Cerinthian Gnostics). The pre-existent Logos "became flesh," John 1:14 and by this phrase John answered both heresies at once."

Those are the "facts."  How do we deliver these things to our high school students at Faith Church?