Alpha and Omdga

Isn't it wonderful when, during the course of an otherwise normal day, you are offered a nugget of truth?

The Youth are finishing a Bible Study that has been going on through the school months for 3 years now! Looks like by the end of the 2011 school year we will have finished ALL the books of the Bible. Of course, that means that right now we are beginning the Book of Revelation.

In preparation for last Wednesday night's study, I was reading through a commentary on the book. Now I have heard Jesus called the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last for my entire life. Long ago, I packed this information away and have since thought very little about it. This commentary offered a new dimension: Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In order to form words, one must use the alphabet...and thus Alpha and Omega help make up the "Words" of God...another name for Jesus.

Amongst Jewish Rabbi's it was common to use the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet to denote the "whole" of anything. Jesus' followers would have known this.

Alpha and Omega speak to the eternal nature of God, affirming the Deity of Christ. Because of this, Christ has the power to carry out the Father's plan of redemption. Perhaps, unlike me, you had already taken your thoughts on the Greek letters to their natural conclusion, but I had not.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1