“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” —Luke 8:15 (niv)
I was playing Boggle with a friend. I’m good at finding real words in the jumble of letters on the game board, but after I’d outscored her three rounds in a row, she interrupted me as I was reading my list of words. “Do you even know what that means?” she asked. “No,” I replied, “but I know it’s a word!” She looked at me skeptically and said it was ridiculous to use words that I didn’t know.
We played on, but later this gnawed at me, and I went to the dictionary. One way the dictionary defines word is as a sound or a series of letters that “symbolizes and communicates a meaning.” My friend was right. Without meaning, a word is merely lines and squiggles.
This is as true of the Word as a word. While reading Scripture, I may gloss over it—reading without really absorbing or understanding or even trying to understand, my eyes glancing over a string of words without comprehending what makes them words and how together they form the Word.
