The Word of God is Living

By Elizabeth Prata
To the Christian, the word of God is like a green lawn, undulating, rolling out blade after blade of perfectly manicured grass, thriving and living, each blade a perfect truth to be discovered, examined, applied, praised.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
Underline is mine, it's what I'm focusing on in this essay.
To the non-Christian, the Bible is a dead letter. It can be ignored, dug up. Parts of this lawn they deem unworthy are excised. Thomas Jefferson did that with the Bible he created. He took a knife and snipped out all the parts that offended him. He disbelieved the supernatural parts and cut those out, keeping the moral parts he liked better. It's called The Jefferson Bible.
I have had conversations online and in real life with people who disbelieve the parts of the Bible that say homosexuality is a sin. They come back with statements like "Oh, science has proven people are born that way. We know better now." Or, "We've advanced since then."
I ask, "Does God make mistakes?" The answer is, of course not. But to them who deny the verses decrying homosexuality or any clear teaching of scripture, see their lawn-of-scripture as having dead spots. Those parts are NOT living. There's some 'expired' parts of the Bible and those parts are dead.
But ... the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us. (Acts 7:38).
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Peter 1:23)
And not only is the word living, it is active. It is like fire, and it smashes rock. (Jeremiah 23:29). It demolishes strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4). It separates joints and marrow. (Hebrews 4:12). It makes the heart burn within us. (Luke 24:32).
The word of God is active. It does not die, for Jesus who is the Word cannot die. The word never expires. There are no dead spots in the Bible.
It is alive and at work in the hearts and minds of all who hear it, to the good of those who love Him and to either the conversion of those who as yet hate Him but will love Him after repentance, or hardening the hearts of those who hear him (Hebrews 3:15).
But no part of it is dead, no part of it doesn't speak truth to this very day.