Word studies · Greek · Strong's G3056
λόγος · lógos · appears 332 times in the New Testament
In one line: God's word — His message, and His Son.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
Logos is God's self-expression — a spoken word, a reasoned message, and in John's Gospel the eternal Son through whom God speaks.
In the New Testament logos ranges from an ordinary statement, to “the word” as shorthand for the whole gospel message, to John's use of it for the pre-existent Christ. Running through all three is the conviction that God is a speaking God whose word accomplishes what it says.
Logos comes from legō, “to say,” but it never meant merely vocabulary: Greek used it for the thought behind the speech, and so for reasoning, argument, an account, even a financial reckoning. The Septuagint had already pressed it into service for Hebrew dabar, a word meaning both “word” and “deed,” which is why a biblical logos is something that happens as well as something said.
Greek philosophy used logos for the rational order holding the cosmos together — the principle that made the universe intelligible. John takes that loaded word and says something no philosopher had: the ordering principle of everything is not an idea but a person, and He “became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Logos (G3056) appears 332 times in the New Testament, and stands behind English “logic” and the “-ology” ending of every field of study.
Naming Christ as the Word makes revelation personal rather than merely propositional: Hebrews says God, who once spoke through prophets, “has spoken to us by his Son.” To know what God has to say, in the end, is to know someone.
Treat Scripture as God still speaking rather than a record of what He once said. Read one passage today asking not only what it means but what He is saying to you through it.
something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ)
But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, brings adultery upon her. And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:32But the man went out and openly began to proclaim and spread the news. Consequently, Jesus could no longer enter a town in plain view, but He stayed out in solitary places. Yet people came to Him from every quarter.
Mark 1:45just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word.
Luke 1:2In my first book, O Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach,
Acts 1:1Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”
Romans 3:4Press and hold word in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.