let there be light THE POWER OF WORDS
Toby Lowther
I
n the world around us, words are everywhere. From billboards flashing by on the motorway to every tweet or post we read, language pervades our lives. It is how we express our needs and desires, how we translate our thoughts to others, and at times even the means by which we think. Although we rarely stop to think about it, our ability to freely and effortlessly process and understand language is something even our best supercomputers can only partially replicate. Yet despite the all-pervasive nature of language and its fundamentality to human nature, we often treat it with very little regard. How many times have you heard, “it’s just words”, or words to that effect? The same is true in Christianity. Words are all-pervasive in Scripture as much as in life. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty … And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Gen-
16
esis 1:1–3 NIV) So the Bible begins, and with it, God’s great love-story with humanity. God begins His redemption plan for all creation by “saying” to a wandering nomad in ancient Palestine (Gen 17), and He concludes His plan in the incarnation, sacrifice, resurrection and ascension of His Son, who is called “the Word” (John 1:1). Scripture tells us of the power of our words spoken to our Father (James 5:16) and the importance of our words spoken over others (Gen 12:3; Luke 10:6; Rom 12:14). Whatever our creed or confession, Scripture is full of the power and importance of words. Yet Christians, as much as non-Christians, so often reduce words to a disregarded tool. “It’s just words.” The power of words is born out in the sciences. Consider the case of Speech Act Theory in linguistics: propounded by J. L. Austin, this theory argues that, in certain circumstances,
