Word power

A comment on Matthew 10:13 found on page 61 of the LifeWay Explore the Bible Adult Lesson Guide for last week’s lesson peaked my interest. The comment noted, “Your peace should come upon it relies on the Hebrew conception of the spoken word as, what we may call, a unit of energy. When spoken, a word makes something happen. Thus, when God created the world, He spoke. By hospitably receiving the missionaries, the household would benefit from this desire for their welfare. If not, the spoken word of greeting would have no effect and would return to the missionary.”

This article on Biblical Hebrew notes a similar idea. A spoken word contains “power to fulfill.” Have you ever thought about words as having energy, or power to cause action?

That God’s “word does not return to Him void” (Isaiah 55:11) makes even more sense when we understand that a spoken word has muscle to it.

This can be illustrated using a couple of flashlights, one with fresh batteries, and the other with weaker batteries. Shine each flashlight on a sheet of black construction paper. One flashlight might shine brighter than the other, illustrating their respective ‘power’. If each flashlight was a ‘word’, then its power is determined by how well it illuminates the paper (the result of the word if it was spoken). Facinating!