Carpenters work with nails and screws and lumber. Plumbers work with pipe. Electricians work with wire. Preachers work with words. They aren’t the only ones to do this, of course. Carpenters work with words, too. So do electricians, lawyers, doctors, bureaucrats, and auto mechanics. Words are the currency of culture.

But preachers particularly work with words. Words are the raw material for sermons. With words, the gospel is preached, and men repent and believe.

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. (I Peter 1:23-25)

Auto mechanics study engines and tools. Doctors study the human body and medicines. Preachers must know the Word. But knowing the Word requires a knowledge of words. If you love the Word, it is only natural that you would love words. Words are your craft. Despite the inevitable sneers, you are called to be a wordsmith.

So, let me invite you to a snorkel session in the ocean of words. We’ll wait a bit for a scuba dive. For now, we’ll take a look beneath the surface and let the beauty of words delight us. So, wipe down your facemask so it won’t get fogged. Don the snorkel, attach the fins, and swim out where splendor awaits.

I offer five fascinating features of the world of words – three now, two later.

Feature #1: Jesus is the ultimate word.

We know that Jesus is the Word and that the Word is God (John 1:1), so when I say Jesus is the ultimate word, I’m not saying anything unusual. But what does it mean that Jesus is the ultimate word? We’re familiar enough with words. I mean, we know what a word is. We can read. We know how to spell (with help from spellcheckers and auto-correct).

But what is a word? Surely, it is something more than a string of meaningful mouth noises. We might not think much about words until a word strikes us as funny. “Awkward” strikes me like a hairy chicken. “Hilarious” seems strange and exotic to me. “Picnic” looks funny.

We studied vocabulary in elementary school, but do we know what a vocabulary is and what it means? Words have a history. Some of them trace back thousands of years. Still, can we say what they are? Do we know where they came from?

The Bible tells us that.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said… (Genesis 1:1-3)

And there you have it: the everlasting God spoke the first words. But were words a new thing when God spoke? Hardly. “In the beginning was the Word.” So, God didn’t invent words to be His world-building tool. Nor did God utilize something apart from Himself. Jesus is the Word, and the Word is God. We can take it this far without abusing Scripture: God spoke the Word, and the Spoken Word made the world.

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Colossians 1:16-17)

Or, as Douglas and Nate Wilson put it,

God the Father “God-the-Son-ed” light, and there was light. God the Speaker Worded the heavens and the earth, and so they came to be. [1]

All words derive from The Word: some as an expression of His goodness and majesty, others as a corruption of it; some in obedience to Him, some in rebellion against Him. But He is the origin of all Words, the Spoken Word Who speaks, God the Spoken Who is before all words, and by Him all words consist. As the Word, Jesus is the clearest expression of God the Father we will ever see (2 Corinthians 4:4-6).

Feature #2: The world is a visible word.

To illustrate, consider butterflies, a horse’s mane, a boat anchor, an oak tree, pelicans, fruit bats, wooly mammoths, and a mountain stream. What do these have in common? All are incarnate words. I would wager that as you read through that list, you pictured every one of those things. It is, in fact, impossible to separate the word from its visible manifestation.

Of course, not all words are as concrete as that list. Peace, confidence, arrogance, kindness, beauty, and impatience can be hard to picture. We are more likely to think of them in terms of people we know and situations we have experienced. Maybe different faces flashed through your mind as you read the list of abstractions.

Words bring something concrete to mind. Though encouragement is an abstraction, it has concrete meaning. We know the difference between patience and anger or even patience and kindness. We might not know a precise definition of these abstractions, but we know their meaning. We know confidence when we see it. We don’t need to be told when we encounter beauty.

Why do words work this way? Because God spoke the world. And yes, I mean that in the most literal sense possible. At creation, God didn’t express a desire or an idea. He didn’t seed a thought. He spoke, and it was so. You and I might speak a word of encouragement; we might express our love, deliver a sermon, or recite a poem. We speak stories and essays. God speaks worlds.

A world spoken into existence naturally relates to a speaking world.[2] The world speaks because it was spoken. And our world speaks.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalm 19:1-3)

The spoken world speaks. All the material things in this world are the embodiment of words; they are visible words. Most immaterial things also have some visible element (though less concrete)—beauty, grace, hope, delight, even life itself. This is why metaphor works.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Feature #3: The universe is a figure of speech.

As the Wilsons argue, “Everything is metaphor.” “All things are therefore cognates.” A cognate is of the same nature, derived from the same source, descended from the same cause or being. Everything in our world is a cognate of everything else because everything in the world is made of the words of God. God’s Words are the common element of everything. That includes mankind, though God made Adam out of another created thing, and Eve out of Adam.

Not to chase too far down a rabbit trail, but the Hebrew word for “dust” is adama. So God named Adam (literally “Man”) after the stuff he was made of. We could nickname him “Dirt.” But naming is another subject, relevant to our discussion but maybe a bit off-topic.

Everything in our world is made of the same stuff.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:3)

So, when we say that “the universe is a figure of speech,” we mean that in the most literal sense possible. A “figure of speech” should be taken literally. It is any form of expression with a remarkable or artful shape. Our language always has form. When we use metaphors, we make speech visible. Language brings an image to mind (as we’ve discussed). If I say “zebra” or “toilet” or station wagon,” specific images pop into your mind. Even so, a figure of speech or thought is some way that language captures a visible image and connects a word to some material thing. Think of a figure of speech as a memorable arrangement of words – the kind you can visualize.

Consider the way these classic insults give a memorable shapeliness. Mark Twain once described a certain public figure as “a man without a country; no, not a man – man is too strong a term; he was an invertebrate without a country.” Henry James seemed to attract this kind of sophisticated insult.

It’s not that he ‘bites off more than he can chew,’ but he chews more than he bites off. (Clover Adams)

Henry James had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it. (T. S. Eliot)

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty. (Oscar Wilde)

And Walter Winchell remarked about one critic: “He always praises the first production of each season, being reluctant to stone the first cast.”

As you can see, nothing draws out the artistic in us quite like the art of smacking down a poser. The point isn’t to add to your repertoire of insults but to point out some delightful turns of phrase. Figures of speech “involve unusual patternings of language, such as repetition or juxtaposition of similar words or constructions.”  Figures of thought “involve artful changes in ideas, feelings, or conceptions.”  They allow you to use striking resemblances between your subject and some object in the material world.

This works because of the common element between everything that exists – “all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Metaphor works because everything is connected. So, we don’t have to make the connections; we only have to recognize them. If I say, “When you speak to elected officials, they blow the sweetest smoke up both nostrils,” you get the picture. If I say his speech reminded me of a long gravel road, you understand that, too.

“A metaphor is that which is fully identified with something distinct from itself.” [3] In this sense, metaphor reflects the Trinity and works because Jesus is the Word. Remember again what John says of Him: He was with God, was God, and was in the beginning with God. He is fully identified with the Father, who is also distinct from Him. Thus, again, we see that Jesus is the ultimate word, the ultimate metaphor.

In fact, every word is a metaphor. Look at the definition again. A word is not the same thing as the material (or immaterial) object it names. If I wrote “skylark” on my paper, I didn’t write the bird. I referred to the bird, but I didn’t write it. A very accurate picture of a skylark isn’t a skylark. It’s a metaphor – something fully identified with and yet distinct from the bird. The word isn’t the bird. Yet, “skylark” has no meaning apart from the bird. And if I see the bird, I have seen a skylark. Thus, words themselves are metaphors.

Why does this matter? Two things. First, the Bible is filled with poetry and metaphor. Poetry is compacted writing, and the Bible is highly concentrated. Sixty-six books in my library would fill three shelves. I have preached for an hour on one verse of Scripture. Entire books have been written about the armor of God. This is the beauty of words – that a word fitly spoken can trigger hours of fruitful meditation. Metaphor speaks beyond the words, which is why the blood of sprinkling speaketh better things than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:24), and why the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. And second, preaching is communication, and the stuff of communication is words. We want to master words so we can master our craft. Jesus didn’t teach theological systems. He taught parables. And the people knew His doctrine. Even so, the preacher should learn to use words that stick to the ribs. Love words, and they will repay you richly.

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[1] The Rhetoric Companion, p. 125. Note: if you wish to sharpen your wordsmithing skills, get this book!

[2] My debts to the Wilsons in The Rhetoric Companion are obvious to anyone familiar with their work, especially in Lesson 25 on “Metaphor and Style” (pp. 123-127), but also in “The Poetry of Argument” (pp. 83-87).

[3] The Rhetoric Companion, p. 124