Our readings this week are Hebrews 4:12–16 and Mark 10:17–31.

Hebrews 4:12 may not be the most frequently quoted verse of Scripture, but it's got to be somewhere up towards the top: "Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword." It often gets cited not on its own accord, but as a support verse—usually in discussions where the Biblical witness itself is being called into question, and often alongside 2 Timothy 3:16 ("All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness").

For my money, though, neither of these verses is really talking about the Bible as we have it. 2 Timothy would require a degree of self-referential awareness (and indeed arrogance) on the part of the author that puts it, and most of the texts it's commonly used to support, outside of its own intention. Hebrews, meanwhile, has something much more, well, personal in mind.

It's an easy confusion to make—we're so used to referring to Scripture as "The Word of God" that we assume it must be the focus whenever we hear that phrase. And in this part of Hebrews, the author is indeed quoting the Scriptures frequently. However, in this particular moment, they are not actually talking about the Scriptures—they are developing an argument about the purpose and identity of Jesus.

The author is building the case that Jesus fulfills the role of the Christ—in their theology, the High Priest and intermediary in our relationship with God—by standing in the place of a new Moses, making it possible for the people of God to finally enter into a state of "rest," of contentment and completion in God, after millennia of waiting.

More than that, they are inviting the reader not only to recognise a philosophical idea but to experience a physical reality—to know the truth of being at rest in God. The way to do that, they explain, is outlined in the Scriptures they are so fond of quoting, twice in fact, in the verses immediately preceding our reading: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."

Today, if you hear His voice—God's voice—do not harden your hearts.

It's worth remembering that in Hebrew, the verb "to listen" is the same as the verb "to obey," turning the act of hearing from something passive into something active—an acceptance that transforms our way of living by opening us to the ongoing presence of a God who speaks in every moment.

It's in that context—of a God who speaks today in a way that we can understand, get to know, and follow—that we find verse 12: "The word of God is living and active." And perhaps in that moment, we realise that the soulmate to this verse isn't 2 Timothy 3:16 but rather the opening verses of John's Gospel:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth."

They’re talking about Jesus, which explains why the Word in Hebrews is next referred to as "him", and why the next name we encounter is His.

Jesus is the Word of God—the manifestation of God's thoughts and innermost being, the words by which He creates the universe, the words He spoke through His prophets, and the voice with which He continues to speak today. Jesus is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Sometimes, when we face up to that reality—as did the young man in our Gospel reading—the realisations we come to about ourselves are not comfortable, and the answers are not easy to find.

Jesus is God speaking into the now. What are you going to say back?