I will resist the temptation to preach at this juncture, but here is a text that cries out for adequate exposition. Firstly, we note that Paul refers to his own proclamation of the Gospel to the Thessalonians as \u201d\u02dcthe word of God\u2019, Paul has no doubt at all that he is speaking God\u2019s very word to them, and you will notice he is not likely referring to pre-existing sacred texts from the OT. No, he is talking about the message conveyed about Jesus. Secondly, notice that he says that this preaching was by no means only, or even mainly his own words, or the words of human beings or human wisdom. What it really was was God\u2019s living word. Notice however he uses the singular. The phrase is \u201d\u02dcthe word of God\u2019 on par with previous things that could be called \u201d\u02dcthe word of God\u2019 ranging from the utterances of the OT prophets, to the sacred texts of the OT themselves. But primacy here is given to the spoken word of God, not to something written\u201d\u201da Good News word of God. Thirdly, Paul says that this word of God (singular) had lodged in the lives of the Thessalonians and it was still\u2019 at work in you who believe\u2019. This word of God had taken up residence in the Thessalonian converts and was doing soul work in and on them. It was a living and active two edged sword penetrating their very being, just as the author of Hebrews was to suggest, and he also was not talking about a text, he was talking about an oral proclamation which penetrates the heart. If we ask the question, did any of the NT writers believe they were writing Scripture, it seems to me that the answer must surely be yes, because in the case of someone like Paul, he believed in the first place that he was speaking the very word of God to his converts, not merely his own words or opinions, and furthermore he saw his letters as just the surrogate for a speech he would have given in person had he been there. Letters are just the literary residue of discourses, with epistolary framework added since they must be sent from a distance.<\/p>\n
It is no mere rhetoric, full of sound and fury but signifying little, to say that analyzing the NT orally, and rhetorically gets us back in touch with the original ethos and character of these oral texts. It remains to be seen whether more students of the NT will heed the call I am making here, change their dominant paradigms, get up from their computers at least for a while, and receive the living Word of God, about which our earliest NT document sought to persuade us. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.<\/p>\n