Recently I was talking with a few of my Kaxuyana friends. We were working on a first draft translation of the parable of the Good Samaritan. As we talked through many issues in the text I was stuck by a stark contrast between the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven and the ways of man.
Have you ever stopped to think how about important a word can be? It so happens that this universe was created by the very WORD of God! Moses was to speak to the rock; much of the book of Proverbs is dedicated to the power of the tongue, be it destructive or constructive; Christ claimed his divinity by fulfilling the prophetic word spoken centuries before; Christ makes it plain the man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the God; and John begins his gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God!”
We talked about the power of the Word of God, the very Word that we were translating, and that through it He calls the “lost sheep,” through it He plants in the hearts of man the kingdom of heaven which can in time produce a hundredfold! As I thought about all the ways a Kaxuyana uses a word, and the importance of a “word” in their culture my mind traveled back to the importance of the words spoken by their shaman. And then it struck me. What a contrast!
In this world system, man is doomed to try and manipulate, tame, and coerce the spiritual world, God included, through words – symbols spoken into the wind which carry their meaning across time and space. The only hope a shaman had of making sure his words hit their mark was by speaking them perfectly; the more perfect they were, the straighter the arrow flew.
But oh, how different it is in the kingdom of Heaven. It is not our word but His which exists and crosses time and space to do the bidding. It does not begin with us but with Him. It is not spoken into the wind, but into time. It does not miss its mark and it just happens to be eternal. By it we are redeemed, by it we are found, by it we are washed, by it we are restored, by it we are resurrected, and by it we live!
“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12