Recently, it seems like I have come across several articles focusing on the "Word of God." Most people that I spend time with use the phrase "Word of God" or "God's Word" to mean the written Scriptures (the Bible). Yet these articles have seemed to challenge this commonly held understanding of what the Word of God really is. One has even said that the Bible is an idol, while another claims the Bible is the anti-Christ and posts videos on YouTube of his child tearing pages out of the Bible. 

The most common reason for saying that the Bible is not God's Word is that the Gospel of John says that the Word became flesh. In other words, the Word of God is a person, not a book. 

Yet when I hear these types of statements I am left wondering if this is what John actually meant. It seems to me that John was simply saying that the Word that created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1 became a human being. In other words, the creator became a part of creation. 

But does this mean that the Word of God cannot be the Bible? Is it such a strange concept that God's Word is something that is written down? 

When I read the scriptures, I notice many times when the word of the Lord came to a man, then that man would speak the message that was given him by God. I also notice that there were times in scripture when God gave his word in written form (the 10 Commandments to name one instance). Does this make the written Word of God any less authoritative than the spoken Word of God? Can we say that Jonah's preaching was the Word of God while also saying that the 10 Commandments are not? I don't think so.  

When I read the Gospels, I am reading about the life and teachings of Jesus. At the end of His time on earth, Jesus tells His disciples to teach everyone to obey all that He had commanded them. How are we today supposed to obey all that Jesus commanded? Where do we find His commands? We find His commands in the Gospels. So why can we not refer to the Gospels as the Word of God? Just because they are written down?

Why cannot the epistles be referred to as the Word of God? Peter claimed that Paul's writings were Scripture. In other words, what Paul was writing was as much Scripture as the writings of Moses! 

I understand the trend of trying to pull away from calling the Bible the Word of God. It seems to me that many people have begun to worship the book rather than the author of the book. But just because some have poor understanding does not mean that we must go to the opposite extreme and claim that what we find in the Bible is not the Word of God.