Greetings friends! One of the best things about being a pastor is that I get to spend my time absorbing wisdom from many sources. Among the best sources of wisdom are the members of the Edwards Church congregation, gathered in a variety of different groups. So in this my first attempt at a blog, I will periodically lift up nuggets of wisdom that have emerged out of our shared conversations.
This week I’ll start with the Tuesday morning and Wednesday night Bible Study groups. We have just begun studying the Gospel according to John. It’s a fascinating, beautifully written, complicated gospel, and so our conversations are fascinating, beautiful, and complicated.
A few weeks ago we started with the very beginning of the gospel, which is in the form of a poem. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….” (The Word, later in the poem, becomes identified with Jesus.) We talked about how the original Greek “Logos” could be translated many ways–word, story, wisdom…. One person said, “I have always thought of it as “Intention.”
“In the beginning was the Intention, and the Intention was with God and the Intention was God.” I am intrigued. What does it mean to understand Jesus as God’s Intention?