Is the bible more than a book?

As God speaks, we live

Father David Jones

Bible

Catholics have two sources of revelation. God speaks to us in two ways.

Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.

Where does Sacred Scripture come from? Sacred Scripture clearly comes from God. God communicates with us, humans. We receive the Word of God.

The first bible was not a book. When God began speaking, there were no books, no letters, no typewriters, no printing presses; just ears, hearts and minds that wanted to know God.

God spoke. Man heard God. Man shared what God said. The first bible is God speaking; the bible is God speaking to his people. When we share what we have seen and heard from God, we share the Good News, we share the bible.

This is called the Oral tradition. For thousands of years the bible was no more and no less than God communicating and people sharing the Word of God. We passed on the stories from generation to generation. Even though we have a book that collects the old stories, this practice of speaking the Word of God remains one of our most powerful and lasting acts as Christian people.

The books of the bible are just that, books of the bible. Bound together for our convenience and access.

The books do not contain God, they just allow us to read what we are designed to hear.

As God continues to speak, hopefully we continue to hear and thus we have the living Word.

Obviously no book or even electronic word-processed document could ever contain God. This is God Almighty. He is not finished speaking, which is Good News. As long as God speaks, we live. That is a promise of biblical proportion.