In Paul, "Word of God" is frequently "the Gospel" (1 Thess. 1:.6.8; 2:13; 2 Thess. 3:1. See also 1 Cor. 14:36; 2 Cor. 2:17; 6:7; Gal. 6:6; Eph. 1:13; Phl 14; Col. 1:5 among others.), not the written one (since the first written Gospel will be finished some twenty years after the first letter to the Thessalonians), but the contents of his proclamation about the Christ, a proclamation which he is at pains to defend as an extension of the one gospel preached by the apostles (cf. Gal. 1:11; 1 Cor. 15:1 in contrast to those place where he talks of "my/our gospel": 1 Thess. 1:5; 2 Thess. 2:14; 1 Cor. 15:1; 2 Cor. 4:3 among others.)
What all this means is that while one can say, and rightly too, that the Bible/Sacred Scriptures is the Word of God, one cannot reverse the statement to say "The Word of God is Scriptures" without emptying "Word of God" of its true meaning. By examining three biblical texts, we have shown that "Word of God" means also the Second Person of the Trinity and the contents of the apostolic proclamation about Him. This observation is confirmed in the way the Catholic Catechism employs the phrase "Word of God". Out of eighty-four (84) instances, only about 24 instances allow its identification with Sacred Scriptures (nn. 104, 119, 123, 124, 131, 140, 371, 819, 1096, 1100, 1101, 1102, 1133, 1153, 1177 [bis], 1346, 1349, 1480, 2061, 2119, 2205, 2587, 2654, 2686, 2688). Other instances of the phrase either refer to the Second Person of the Trinity, or to the Apostolic Tradition and its Transmission in the liturgy, in preaching and teaching, and the administration of the sacraments.
Additional Links
1. The Catholic Catechism Search Engine I employed for this article is housed at http://www.christusrex.org/www2/kerygma/... 2. The eighty-four instances of "Word of God" in the Catechism can be accessed at
http://www.geocities.com/abetesme/wordof...
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