FERDINAND S.

ABING June 25, 2016

TH202

Reflection on Dei Verbum

It has been said that the Bible is the best seller book of all times. It is the most translated

book, having a translation of almost all languages in the whole world and even so many different

local dialects in their own translations of it. Although it has been translated and revised for so

many times yet a diligent student of the Bible can clearly see that the content of the book remain

intact. We can even safely say that what we can read and understand from the Bible today is

the same words that the readers of the Bible 2,000 years ago have read and understood it.

Maybe it was written in other languages back then as compared to ours today, but its content is

just the same. The messages of the written word in the Bible even transcend from generation to

generations so that when we read Moses words giving warnings to the Israelites on how they

should live as a community when they enter into the promise land as if that Moses is also telling

us on how we should live as a community of believers in today’s world. How then all of these

were possible to simply a book called the Bible?

The Bible is the Word of God. It does not just contain the words of God but it is the very

Word of God. This then explains why although the book was written by some 40 different

authors who lived separately in different places and in different times yet the unity and

coherence of the book is unquestionable and it is simply because God Himself is the

overarching author of the book. But why and to whom was the Word of God given to? This then

is the essence of the Documents of Vatican II: On Divine Revelation all about.

God made it very clear to us through His written word that from the very beginning He

wanted to have a special connection to His creation especially man; perhaps because the bible

said that man was created according to the image of God. But when man fell into sin, he was

then separated from God. Sin creates a huge gap between God and man, so huge that it

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became almost impossible for man to even know and recognize his creator, God. Then God, in

His unquestionable wisdom choose to made Himself known to man, thus, the written Word of

God was there for man to know his creator and rebuild that special connection of them that was

broken because of sin. Divine revelation as the bible scholars would say is the manner of God

revealing to His creation that He can be known but only to the extent where He allowed to be

made known by man.

Divine revelation is God’s sole initiative to make Him known to His creation, thus, if He

choose not to reveal Himself then we would not have any chance of knowing God. Our finite

mind can never have any capacity to comprehend an infinite God, but He made Himself known

to us. We may not know God to the fullest but at least we can know Him as much as He

revealed Himself to us.

He first revealed Himself to the people of old most especially to the prophets. The

prophets and other individuals then wrote and preserved this divine revelation perhaps for future

references or for whatsoever purposes. This written divine revelation of God was then pass on

from generation to generation until the time of Jesus and His disciples who later also became

writers of God’s divine revelation of truth. So much so that God wanted to reveal Himself to

man, Jesus then commanded His disciples to preach by the anointing of the Holy Spirit the

Word of God starting from Jerusalem into the whole world. Thus, the preaching of the Word and

the written record of God’s Word goes hand in hand in order to know God and His plan for His

creation.

As a student of the Word of God, we form part of this divine revelation if and only if we

faithfully reveal God to others by preaching the Word of God to them and showing the way to

knowing God and His purpose in our lives. By doing this it becomes our responsibility to

interpret the Word of God as faithfully as it is without applying any bias that may be influence by

our own culture. We need to be told and be reminded over and over again that it will not be our

own word but the Word of God handed down to us in which we preach to the people so that

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they may know God and be connected back to Him. It is then a challenge for us to diligently

study the Bible and interpret it as how its writer would mean it to his original hearers. It may be

true that the church carries out the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting

the word of God; hence, it is the church responsibility then to faithfully carry this mission as she

will be accountable to God if she fails to do it just like the churches in Asia in the book of

Revelation whom Jesus rebuked through a vision given to John the beloved when those

churches failed to live up to what is expected of them. May the Church be found faithful in this

task of interpreting the word of God rightly so that God may continue to reveal Himself to man

as what He is doing in the past through the prophets and His appointed Apostles.

Today lays a fact that people are more interested with something else other than the

Bible. The world has so much to offer just to divert the interest of a person so that he cannot see

the importance of knowing God and His plan for our lives. The enemy then seems to be so

effective with his mission from the very start which is to separate man from God and it is our

responsibility to continue on what the Apostles of Jesus did in showing to the people that God

had revealed Himself and that He wanted everyone to come back to Him. Just like the Holy

Spirit empowered the Apostles in preserving and interpreting the words of Jesus and put it into

writing, the same Holy Spirit is empowering us today for us to correctly interpret His words and

convince people that God is still speaking today through His written word.