Hey, everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast. And before I came out here today, I was like, I'm going to get myself a treat from the pantry. And I looked in there, and there were two treats that I like. There's one that I kind of like, hot tamales. They're good. But then there was one that I really like, which is here in this foil pack. Maybe you can hear what it is. That's cherry pop tart. Oh, my goodness. Those,

those are delicious. So I opted for the cherry pop tart, even though I also really like the other one,

because it's possible to like two things at once, but just to like one of them more. Likewise.

When we're here at the beginning

of John with this passage, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word

was God, he was with God in the beginning. That word, word, or Lagos, that we've been discussing

is a concept that would have conjured two meanings in the mind of the original audience. And I would

submit to you that there was a large

percentage of John's audience who were sympathetic to you, influenced by, you know, a hot tamales

level appreciation of the lowercase L. Lagos word Greek diminished concept we've been talking about

over the past few episodes. But despite having the capacity to look at that and say like, oh, you know, okay, that's one way of thinking of it.

It's kind of a story that sort of makes sense of existence a little bit.

You know, it's a myth.

This part of John's audience, I think much more would have read those first couple of verses in John and been like, oh, well, yeah, the word being used there reminds me

of how the Greeks think about it, but the concept being discussed there. I mean, come on. It's a nod

to the mighty and powerful word of the Lord from the Old Testament, the word of the Lord

who called being out of non-being.

And J.R. R. Tolkien, he wrote a prequel to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit called the Silmarillion.

I haven't read it for a long time, but I really liked it when I did read it.

And in it, there is this creation epic where the god of Middle Earth, whose name is

Illuvitar, Iluvatar sings existence into existence.

And as I recall it, and again, it's been a long time, that was a beautiful passage and kind of a cool way to artfully nod to the creation account of the Bible that's being alluded to here in John

...