This week Kate Motaung hosts another versatile Five Minute Friday prompt—speak! A hundred people might take speak in fifty different directions.

As a theologian and as an artist-illustrator-designer, sign and symbol are my currency. Signs and symbols of every variety – including written and spoken words, of course – primarily aim to communicate—to point to, or indicate something other themselves. Sometimes speech is clear; sometimes ambiguous. Sometimes people speak in order to confuse!

The scriptures are God's word – God's speech – spoken through human agents; we know Jesus of Nazareth is the ultimate word of God, "spoken" or revealed as a human person to be attended to with all our senses. Typically humans speak words, but sometimes they sing words. Song is melodic speaking! And maybe you've heard references to how particular organ pipes speak?

The theological tradition of the community that brought us John's gospel tells us Jesus Christ, God's ultimate spoken revelation, is the preexistent logos or word. In a manner almost identical with branding for a product or service that includes a graphic logo design, the logos of God points to origins or source, and also to immanence or future.

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:1-3