A Creative Word

Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.

RICHARD ROHR

We hope it never comes to this.

But if during the course of your life, you find yourself held hostage, crisis negotiators say there is one thing you can do that may very well save your life. And it isn't necessarily to disarm your captor.

Your best bet is to talk about the weather.

Or your child. Or your job. Or your favorite band.

This may seem like an odd or even silly piece of advice, but time and again, professionals have seen people survive hostage situations through the simple act of small talk.

This is because conversation personalizes and dignifies us. People are far more likely to kill or harm what they perceive as an object rather than a person. Objects don't make small talk or chitchat. Objects do not talk. Objects, such as rocks and paper clips and orange peels, just sit there quietly and have no feelings, no breath, no story. But people talk.

Our ability to speak with power and intention is one of God's richest gifts. Without words, how else would we resolve our conflicts? God gave us words so that we would not have to turn to 0violence. The richness of language is God's way of giving us tools to resolve our human relationships and also to be vulnerable and honest with Him. Words are an essential part of our humanity and what it means to be made in the likeness of God. They enable us to not only avoid or resolve conflict but also to bless God, bless our neighbor, communicate our feelings, sing our praises, and shout our joy.

If we are to study the biblical importance of words, we must look at the first words — God's. His speech is the beginning and end of a theology of words.

God Talks

The first thing God does in the entire Bible is speak:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ... And God said, "Let there be light." (Gen. 1:1, 3)

So begins Scripture's story of God and creation. Within the very first verse of the Holy Scriptures are three critical components of the nature of words.

First, and most importantly, God's words are fundamentally creative in nature. What is God's first act in the Bible? God said. He talked. Words were spoken. And what was the result of God speaking these first words? Light. The result of a word from God was all the light the world has ever needed.

But God does not stop there — God continues speaking. As a result of his continued speaking, the vault is created to separate the waters. Then the dry ground and the water in the air. Then vegetables and trees. Then the moon and the sun. Then the stars. Then the fish and the birds. Then the beasts of the land. Then humanity.

Each movement of creation begins demonstrably with a simple "And God said ..." The lingering message conveyed by this rhythm is that God does not create the world with slaves, angels, subcontractors, or even His hands. God creates the whole wide world with nothing more than His words. We live in a spoken world. All the created universe that one can see, taste, touch, and smell is created in one single chapter by a few words from God.

Words are in and of themselves creative. God does not ramble some magic formula or make a massive inspirational speech to a creation that already existed and just needed a little direction. There was nothing. Then there were words. Then there was everything.

The simplicity of this action demonstrates the power of God and the nature of words: they are paramount to existence. There is no such thing as an empty or harmless word. Speech is always powerful — whether it builds up, distorts, or tears down. Everything in the world is the result of words. It began with a series of words.

But the opposite is also true. Words can undermine all the good things that God has begun. This is precisely why the Hebrew tradition tells us, "The tongue has the power of life and death" (Prov. 18:21). Words can create and, as we will see, destroy.

Molecular physicists have theorized that every atom — if we could see it at its most basic level — is a vibration. In his book The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene suggests that, simply yet scientifically speaking, matter is music. Biblically speaking, all matter is actually embodied sound — what Christians might describe as the words of God. God spoke the world into existence. In one sense the universe is God's voice in physical form.

The second thing we notice about the nature of words is that all of this is done with just a few words.

In our own culture the assumption is often that we need more words to get things done. Edward Everett was the keynote speaker at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. He talked for over two hours. Immediately afterward, and so quickly that photographers didn't even get a good picture, Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address. It was a simple 272 words, and it took no more than two minutes.

God created everything with a few words. Likewise, Lincoln summarized the struggle of the whole Civil War. This speaks to the value of intentionality, not the number, of our words. We need intentional words, not more words themselves. Words are creative, even when they are few.

"Let your words be few," the author of Ecclesiastes writes (Eccl. 5:2), and later, "Of making many books there is no end" (12:12). That has not been the habit of human beings. Jesus even tells us that we will "give account" for every word we speak (Matt. 12:36). James counsels us that "everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry" ( James 1:19b). Even Jesus chastised the Pharisees for thinking their prayers would be answered because of their many, rather than humble, words. Where we tend to multiply words, God opts for a few creative ones.

The third and final thing we'd like to point out is how words themselves have the power to liberate and set others free. God's creative words not only made and animated us as humans, but they created freedom and space for us to live into our full humanity. God's plan is, in the phrase of our friend Wynand de Kock, "to make space for life." In the narrative of God speaking in Genesis, we hear a phrase repeated over and over: "Let there be ..."

God's creative process has been a point of great discussion among biblical and theological scholars. The famed Karl Barth argued that "Let there be ..." speaks to God's great patience. While God...