Scot,
I assume this means Acts is on hold until after Advent?
Good stuff.
John 1:1-14 isn’t often taken as a Christmas text, but It is absolutely central.

Scot, thank you for this post.
If you asked many Christians “what is the Word of God?” they would say the Bible, and pretty much stop there. But I think these five points reveal the Word is a much deeper concept than just the written words of scripture.
Part of the problem is the English definition of ‘word’ doesn’t take into account the full dimension of the meaning of ‘Word’ in the Christian context.

Guess what Christian tradition I hail from?
We change the question from “what” to “who” is the Word of God?
When you say “Word of God,” we think of Christ, the embodiment of God’s message to us first.
We say that the Word is what “proclaims Christ”
We understand the Bible the “manger which cradles Christ”
We receive the body and blood of Christ, claiming the promise or Word, “given for us” and “shed for us.”
We understand the Word as an “event that shatters and reorients life” instead of a “proposition that must be believed”
The favorite Gospel of our tradition’s namesake was John.
Tim

Does anybody know the history of the use of the phrase “Word of God” to refer to the Bible? It seems like this terminolody has contributed to some unhealthy aspects in modern Evangelicalism, sometimes bordering on Bibliolatry.
Probably we are stuck with that usage (unless we are Quakers or maybe Lutherans), in which case it becomes especially important to distinguish the incarnate Word from the written Word (and, in many Reformed traditions, the proclaimed Word). With the latter two having value not in their own right, but only in that they point us to the incarnate Word who is the primary value.

Scot, I like this post. Maybe I enjoyed reading this post immediately after Thanksgiving because it reminds me of the wonder of Jesus’ birth and incarnation. I like what you did with John 1. Good to hear these words again.