God still speaks, and prophecy is alive in the church. The popular rhema versus logos split is shakier than you were taught, and how you test a word matters far more than what you call it.
A rhema word is the phrase many Christians use for a specific word from God to a person for a moment: a verse that suddenly comes alive, a prophetic word, an impression in prayer that turns out to be true. The experience is real, and we believe God speaks like that today.
The label is where it gets messy. In the Greek New Testament, rhema and logos overlap heavily, so the real question is never which Greek word applies. It is whether what you heard sounds like Jesus and survives honest testing.
So this post clears up what the two words mean, then gives you a way to test a word you believe you heard, because that is where people get helped or hurt.
Here is the popular version first, stated fairly. Logos is the written Word, the Bible, general truth for everybody. Rhema is the spoken word, God's personal word to you right now. Plenty of sincere people teach it that way, and what they are protecting, that God is personal and still speaks, is true.
The problem is that the Greek does not draw the line where the teaching draws it.
Something spoken. Thayer's lexicon defines it as “that which is or has been uttered by the living voice, thing spoken, word.”
It can mean a matter or an event. In Luke 2:15 the shepherds go to see “this thing that has happened,” and the word is rhema. In Luke 1:37, nothing will be impossible with God, and the Greek is literally no rhema.
In the Septuagint, rhema and logos both chiefly translate the same Hebrew word, dabar, which covers a word, a matter or a thing. The translators treated them as two ways of saying one idea.
Matthew 12:36 says people will give account for every careless word they speak, and the word is rhema. Not every rhema in the New Testament comes from God.
Watch the New Testament writers move between the two terms with no sign of switching categories.
We are born again through the living and abiding word of God, and that is logos. Two verses later the word of the Lord remains forever, and that word is the good news preached to you, and that is rhema. Same message, both words.
While Peter was still speaking these words, rhemata, the Spirit fell on everyone who heard the word, logos. One sermon, one sentence, both terms.
The word that is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts of the heart, is logos. Those are exactly the qualities the popular teaching assigns to rhema.
The sword of the Spirit is the rhema of God. In context it is the gospel Paul has been preaching, which we unpack in the sword of the Spirit.
Rhema and logos are close synonyms with different shades. Rhema leans toward the spoken utterance and logos toward the message and its meaning, and the writers swap them freely. Neither word, by itself, tells you whether something came from God.
Logos is the Bible for everyone. Rhema is God's fresh personal word to you, and it carries special weight because of which Greek word it is.
Both words describe what God says, both describe the preached gospel, and authority comes from God in Christ, never from the noun we file an experience under.
God speaks today. The Holy Spirit gives prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom, and the quiet nudge in prayer that turns out to be exactly right. We are not cessationists and we are not embarrassed about it. If you want the longer case, read our post asking whether there are prophets today.
And the rhema versus logos split, taught as a hard rule of Greek, is wrong. It is popular teaching built on a real difference in emphasis and then pushed further than the language goes. We say that as people who love the gifts, because a bad foundation under a good practice eventually costs you the practice.
The bigger problem is what the split does in real life. It creates two tiers: the Bible, which starts to feel distant, and my rhema, which feels urgent. Once rhema becomes a trump card, a person can overrule Scripture, their pastor, their spouse and common sense with four words: God told me personally.
The answer to all of this is Jesus. John calls Him the Word, the logos, and He is the final and clearest picture of what God is like. Every word, written or spoken, gets read through Him. We have more on that in Jesus is the Word.
In 1 Peter 1:23 to 25, which Greek words describe the word of God that saves and endures?
Verse 23 calls it the living and abiding logos, and verse 25 calls it the rhema that remains forever, the good news preached to them. One message, two words.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
The best way to understand how God speaks to a person is to watch it happen in the Gospels, and Luke gives us one of the clearest scenes.
“Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”
Luke 5:5Peter is a working fisherman, fresh off an empty night, being told by a rabbi to go back out. The word here is rhema. It was specific, it cost him something to obey, and it came from Jesus in person. It was not Peter's own wish wearing a spiritual label. He was honest enough to say he did not expect it to work, and he did it anyway.
Mary's let it be to me according to your word, in Luke 1:38, is rhema too, and it shares the same shape: the word pointed toward what God was doing, not toward what the hearer already wanted.
This is also the place to talk about Romans 10:17, the verse most often used to build rhema teaching. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. The word there is rhema, and Paul has already told you what he means by it. Verse 8 calls it the word of faith that we proclaim. It is the preached message about Jesus, carried by people who were sent. It is not a verse about waiting for a private download before you can trust God.
We walk through that verse properly in faith comes by hearing, and we look at what trusting God actually involves in what is faith.
In the Gospels, a word from God comes with the character of Jesus attached. It is specific, it often costs the hearer something, and it serves what God is doing rather than what we were hoping for.
Paul did not tell the church to be suspicious of prophecy. He told them to test it. Those are different postures, and a healthy church needs both halves of his sentence.
“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”
1 Thessalonians 5:19 to 21Start here, not with a verse hunt. Jesus is the clearest picture of the Father we will ever get. A word full of fear, shame, flattery or control does not sound like Him, no matter how many verses come stapled to it.
Not a proof text lifted out of its setting, but the whole arc of the story as Jesus clarifies it. God will not tell you to do what Jesus refused to do.
Paul says the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation, in 1 Corinthians 14:3. Correction can come in a real word, but it comes to restore you, not to crush you.
Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said, in 1 Corinthians 14:29. Proverbs 11:14 puts safety in an abundance of counselors. A word that cannot survive the people who love you is not ready to be acted on.
Peace, love and freedom, or anxiety, secrecy and pressure? Deuteronomy 18:22 says that when a word spoken in God's name does not come to pass, the Lord did not speak it. And real words survive patience. A word that insists you act tonight and tell nobody is a warning sign on its own.
Acts 21 is messy in the way real life is. Believers in Tyre, through the Spirit, told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Then Agabus bound his own hands and feet with Paul's belt and said the Holy Spirit was showing what awaited him there. The prophecy was true. The conclusion the room drew, do not go, was not the one Paul accepted, and in the end they said, let the will of the Lord be done. A true word still needs wise handling.
For more on the skill itself, read discernment in the Bible, and if you are learning to recognize His voice in quiet moments, the still small voice is a good next step.
This has to be said plainly, because the people hurt by it usually have the least power in the room.
God gave me a rhema that someone here is supposed to sow a thousand dollars tonight. It gets used on widows, the sick, and people desperate for a breakthrough. God does not sell outcomes.
God told me you are my wife. It sounds romantic until you notice it removes the other person's choice. A word that overrides somebody else's will does not come from a God who has never forced anyone to love Him.
I got a rhema, so I am quitting the job, stopping the medication, and my spouse and the elders just lack revelation. Counsel is not unbelief. It is one of the ways God protects the people He speaks to.
A leader who says God told me what you should do with your life, your marriage or your money is claiming a position Jesus never gave anyone. In the New Testament, prophecy is weighed by the church, not handed down over it.
None of that means you stop listening. It means you stop letting anybody, including your own hopes, borrow God's name to get what they want. Our post on false prophets covers the pattern in more detail.
Some of you are reading this because somebody spoke a word over you that did not come true. A healing that did not happen. A marriage you were promised. A child you were told was on the way. You may have spent years wondering whether your faith was the problem.
It was not. When a word spoken in God's name fails, Scripture puts the weight on the one who spoke it, and Deuteronomy 18:22 even says you need not be afraid of him. God is not disappointed in you, and your grief is not unbelief. If you would like someone to pray with you, ask for prayer here. Real people read every request.
I want you to hear God. I think He speaks more than most of us notice: through Scripture, through the church, through prophecy, through the quiet nudge to call somebody on the exact afternoon they needed it.
You do not need a Greek category to receive any of that. You need to know Jesus well enough to recognize His voice. In John 10 the sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice, and they know it from living near him.
So keep your Bible open, stay close to people who love you enough to question you, and hold the words you receive with open hands. The true ones will still be standing after you test them. And if you are on Long Island and want a church where the gifts are welcome and the testing is too, come visit us on a Sunday.
For related reading, see the gifts of the Spirit, what prophecy is in the Bible, and what we believe.
A rhema word is a real way Christians describe God speaking, rhema and logos overlap in the Greek so the label proves nothing, and every word you think you heard gets tested by whether it sounds like Jesus, agrees with Scripture read through Him, builds people up, and survives the counsel of people who love you.
Tell us what you heard. Someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you and help you weigh it.
A rhema word is the phrase many Christians use for a specific word from God for a particular moment, such as a verse that suddenly comes alive, a prophetic word, or an impression in prayer that proves true. The Greek word rhema simply means something spoken, a saying, or a matter. At Sound of Heaven we believe God speaks like this today. We do not believe the Greek label gives a word extra authority. Every word gets tested by Jesus and by Scripture.
In popular teaching, logos is the written Bible and rhema is God's personal word to you right now. The Greek does not support that sharp split. Rhema leans toward a spoken utterance and logos toward a message or its meaning, but the New Testament writers use them interchangeably. First Peter 1 calls the gospel logos in verse 23 and rhema in verse 25, and Acts 10:44 uses both words for the same sermon. Both words describe what God says.
Test it the way the New Testament tells the church to test prophecy. Ask whether it sounds like Jesus, whether it agrees with Scripture read through Him, and whether it builds people up rather than frightening or controlling them. Let people you trust weigh it, as 1 Corinthians 14:29 describes. Watch what it produces over time, since Deuteronomy 18:22 treats a failed word as one God did not speak. Pressure to act immediately and in secret is a warning sign.
Romans 10:17 does use rhema: faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But Paul defines the term a few verses earlier, calling it the word of faith that we proclaim. He is talking about the preached message of Jesus, carried by people who were sent. The verse is not teaching that you need a private revelation before you can trust God. Faith grows by hearing about Jesus and finding Him trustworthy.
The word itself, if it is from God, is not wrong, but our hearing of it can be. Prophecy in the New Testament is weighed rather than simply obeyed, which assumes a word can be partly right, misunderstood, or mixed with our own hopes. Paul says to test everything and hold fast what is good, which means some things will not be kept. Hearing imperfectly is part of learning. Refusing correction, or using God's name to control people, is the real danger.