Binding the Word in a Bound Book

Today's problem in the bibliocentric Americanized Christian culture may be that we have restricted and limited the Word of God to pages bound in a book we call The Bible.

Not even the Bible calls itself the Word of God! Why do we?

The Bible defines the Word in Hebrews 4:12. If words in the bound book have this effect then yes, the magic of God's Word has happened. Of course, the Word can also happen in a countless number of other ways as well.

So, like Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:9,  don't bind the unbounded Word by binding it in a bound book!

For the Love of God can we put the Bible where it Belongs?

Paul's writings predate our New Testament. The standard of spiritual measurement he knew then would agreeably be no different today. Right?

So how is it that the Bible has trumped, yea, usurped the position of the Spirit in the role of giving us God's perspective? The Spirit is the timeless agent of God's thoughts and activity.

The Bible, in its best and healthiest role, reveals how God's Spirit has been the agent and motivating force starting when the Spirit brooded over the chaotic earth through the initiation of the chaotic presence of Jesus on earth. The darkness of the cross and the subsequent resurrection catalytically propelled people into a new mode of earthly living driven by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. 

No New Testament. 

It seems we need to put the Bible in its proper place, using it to challenge us to live in our time and place under the direction of the same Spirit of God testified to by the humans who we read about in the Bible.

The Bible is not God and was not intended to be the divine "Word".