Power of The Word

About this poem

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Like the Griots or storytellers, historians, poets, musicians, and praise singers of Ancient Western Africa and the nearby Levantine region of Middle Eastern biblical cultures, the Tanach and the New Testament as Holy Scriptures began to be articulated first in voice, by hymns, songs, and music. The Psalms, found in the middle of the Holy Bible, is a book of poetry with 150 chapters, and bears a Hebrew title, תהלים, or “tehilim” which means “Cultic Songs of Praise,” translated in Biblical Greek as “Psalmoi” meaning “sacred songs sung to musical accompaniment. ” In a larger and more significant sense, the entire Holy Bible as “The Word” that is mentioned in John 1:1, started out as sacred words sung or spoken as oral literature in the hearer’s native tongue, before they were preserved for humanity in written form and translated in several languages. It is in one’s native language and tongue that the Holy Scriptures are best heard, received, and acknowledged orally and transformatively. more »