So I’m sitting in a missions meeting the other night and I hear one of the leaders go on about a “rhema spirit” and thought “hmm… that’s a new one for me, what on earth is she talking about.” It’s apparently some more Bill Johnson (of Bethel Church, not my father) nonsense they were regurgitating about logos [λόγος] being different from rhema [ῥῆμα]. Apparently a lot of neo charismatics are under the belief that logos is written and rhema is spoken and that there is some sort of gnostic implication for choosing to seek a rhema word/spirt. Now I’m no Greek genius (Lord willing I will be someday) but I do make a point to regularly cross reference the bible in interlinear Greek/English (yeah, I’m one of those nerds) so I sensed something to be a bit off given that the authors of the new testament utilize logos as a spoken word with some regularity so I figured I’d explore it a bit and hopefully shed some light on absurd teaching.
LOGOS [λόγος]
Of the two words, logos is by far the more loaded of the two. You see logos had been used for spoken word for a long time but also had further ramifications within mathematics, theology, and philosophy amongst the Greek. It not only had a meaning of word (typically as in spoken message) but carried this massive connotation that it was the answer to the meaning of life amongst Greeks… an unknown factor everybody wanted to find. Some have claimed that logos is strictly written words, but the authors in the bible tend to use other words when they intend a written message such as graphe [γραφή] or grapho [γράφω], Christ when reffering to scripture (ie the old testament) is using grapho.
Here are a few uses of logos I pulled down from Lexham Bible Dictionary. Note that logos is used constantly in the new testament (and Septuagint) so this is just a representative sample:
Matthew 12:36 – translates as account, as in to account for something that happened.
Acts 10:29 – translates as a reason, as in “for what reason [logos] did you want to talk to me?”
1 Timothy 5:17 – translates as preaching… yep, preaching! It kind of comes out as the hard work of the logos, so hats off to those of you preaching.
1 Corinthians 1:5 – translates as a spoken word, it was used to show eloquence.
John 1:14 – is used to refer to the personification of the messiah.
By and large the most prolific usage is spoken word, I’m staring at 330 results and the overwhelming majority are conveying spoken communication, far too many for me to list all of them without entirely overwhelming the reader.
RHEMA [ῥῆμα]
Believe it or not, rhema is the more benign of the two words usually coming out as meaning word, saying, thing, or event. It’s also used quite a bit less frequently than logos. I’m entirely perplexed why people believe rhema constitutes a “fresh spoken word from God” as it just doesn’t have that significance. In fact, you’ll find that word of the Lord/word of God is usually a combination of Theos [θεός] and logos as opposed to a handful of times where Theos and rhema are even used in the same sentence.
Applicability
I think what this says more than anything is that we need to test carefully what teachers, preachers, and authors write or say. I’ve heard the argument that you shouldn’t test because it “dishonours a man/woman of God,” but the bible clearly states we need to test people, prophecies, and teachings to ensure they agree with what Christ and his original apostles (there are no modern apostles) taught so we will not be deceived (1Thesselonians 5:19-22, 1 Timothy 3:10, Acts 17:10-12). Moreover, we must be on our guard for false teachers and false prophets as the new testament authors warn over and over (Matthew 24:9-14, Matthew 24:23-25, Mark 13:21-23, 2 Corinthians 11:12-15, Galatians 4:17-18, Galatians 5:7-10, Titus 1:10-14, 2 Peter 2:1-3, 2 Peter 2:12-22, 1 John 4:1-3, Revelation 2:24-25). False teachings will be utterly worthless when Christ returns as evidenced by 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, we don’t want crawl into judgement with nothing but the foundation nor should we desire such narrow escape those we have a responsibility to shepherd. This is why if anything, I urge you to test every teaching and thoroughly evaluate whether it is in fact Godly or not.