“For LOVE of the WORD.”
Which word? you ask. Do you mean Word or word? Do you mean Word, as in the living Word (Jesus), or Word, as in the written Word (the Bible)? Or do you just mean words, as in language?
Yes. That’s what I mean. That’s exactly what I mean.
For as long as I can remember, I have loved words. I also cannot remember a time when I didn’t love the Word – written and living; I have loved the message of the Word, and I have loved the Person behind it.
By the time I was about thirty, I was arrogant enough to feel like I knew the Bible and Jesus pretty well, but nonetheless I thought I might be able to learn more if I went to seminary. Before my first class was over, I realized I had just jumped into an ocean I did not even know was there. Not long after this world-shaking realization another one came: there was more to love about the Word than “just” its message. There were also the words; there was the language (Biblical Hebrew, to be exact) – and once I started to get the hang of it, it wowed me with its playfulness, its artistry, and its power to reshape a message I thought I knew and to help me better know a Person I thought I knew.
With the kind of motivation only love can generate, I embarked on a long painful journey to learn that language and then to figure out how to read the Bible better because of it. And that’s why I’m here in the blogosphere – because the Word and its words are more than I ever dreamed. And like a girl crazy-in-love, I can’t help myself . . . I have to talk – or blog – about it.
P.S. I also have an online portfolio at http://wendylynnwidder.wordpress.com/. Stop by and see me!
