August 11 | Hebrews 4:12

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DAILY READING

Hebrews 4:12

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REFLECTION

By Pam Mann

Should this verse be rated R for violence?  The phrase, sharper than any double-edged sword, holds a threat of violence, doesn’t it. No doubt the first readers of Hebrews had more awareness of potential violence than they wanted, likely having fled their homeland for safer locales. Perhaps, as some bible scholars suggest, this double-edged sword is the gladius, a Roman short sword. Or, maybe, as other scholars propose, this double-edged weapon is the Jewish priest’s sacrificial knife. Hebrews focuses a lot on priests and sacrifices. Whether you envision a Roman soldier or a Jewish priest handling their blades, it’s an unsettling scene.

Wait. Where in this verse is the comfort that we want from scripture? Could it be that the Word of God also brings carnage to our souls? Hmm. In the scriptures, do we not find both extremes? There is both tender encouragement to the broken-hearted and also utter destruction to the ways of sin. A double-edged sword allows its wielder to slice easily to the left or the right, and, most deadly of all, to thrust forward piercing even through armor, as a single-edge blade never could.

Because the Word of God is alive and active, opening it and prayerfully reading it could be dangerous to your status quo. You open yourself up to transformation. It could do violence to your sinful thoughts, unkind speech, and selfish habits. It could cut away your callousness and make you a more caring, nurturing family member or co-worker.

Both the Roman soldier’s short sword and the ancient priest’s sacrificial knife are foreign metaphors for us. Perhaps we modern readers should ponder the heart surgeon’s scalpel as the metaphor for what God’s Word can do in our lives. We could name many people whom we know who  are now are alive, thanks to the surgeon’s blade. The scalpel is not two-edged, but it is life-giving in its careful slicing into cardiac tissue.

This is because the surgeon not only cuts but also sews. I have heart surgery, but abdominal surgery which freed me of ovarian cancer. When my surgeon visited me in the

recovery room, I asked her to describe to me her process of freeing me of my massive 5-pound cyst. She explained that, after slicing through connective tissue and freeing the cyst, it took two hands to lift the cyst out of my abdomen. The good news, she said, is that the enormous mass came out intact. No cancer tissue broke loose to infest my body.

Is the writer of Hebrews telling us that the Word of God is alive and active in our souls as a scalpel in a trained surgeon’s hands? Is our regular habit of prayerfully opening our spirits to God’s Word better than the blood tests I had for five years to check levels that might indicate a return of cancer? Is meditating on God’s Word actually excising ungodliness from our souls?

Yes. That’s exactly the point. The Word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword. A steady diet in God’s Word brings death to the old nature and life to the soul that longs to rise with Christ to walk in newness of life. Sure, on the surface, it looks like any other book on the shelf or any other app on our phones. But we know better. We know Jesus and the power of His living active Word.

PRAYER

Bring on the double-edged sword, Lord Jesus. Cut away the cancer of sin. Set us free for life in Your name.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PAM MANN

I first joined UALC when my husband (then my fiancé) and I were college students involved in youth ministry. God has used UALC to nurture our family’s faith, even in our years outside the U.S. I’ve participated in UALC ministries with kids, art, prayer, exercise, ESL, and Bible teaching. I do all the fun church things.