The "Word"

I actually think that "word" in reference in Heb. 4:12 is not Scripture but the message of the gospel. That fits the context very well. And logos has the basic idea of "message" in Hebrews to coincide with the "confession" motif found throughout.

However, I would only capitalize "word" when referencing Jesus. The word of God does not need to be capitalized. Neither do pronouns for God. But I write research papers for academia. I'm not allowed to capitalize these since it is bad grammar.

 

I don't understand how whether or not I use a capital W for "Word" (as in the phrase "the Word of God") makes any difference whatsoever to how alive I consider it to be. I follow the normal rule in English, and start "proper nouns" - names given to specific things, such as "The Cenotaph", "Buckingham Palace", "The White House", and "The Channel Tunnel", "The Royal Albert Hall", "The Metropolitan Opera House", "The Brooklyn Bridge" - with capital letters, but that doesn't indicate that I believe those things to have life.

Hebrews 4.12 says that the the word/Word of God is living and powerful, but I see no basis for your suggestion that a person's belief or unbelief of those words is shown by whether they write "Word" or "word".

 

To quote your own words, Benjamin, "Did I suggest such a thing???"

I neither said nor meant that "Word" is never a proper noun.

So what did I mean? Well, your original post asked, "The 'Word' - Just how alive do you believe It is?" You then asked, "Do you normally capitalize it when referring to the Bible?"

I assumed that the second question was linked to the first - that in your view, a person's belief about the "alive-ness" of the Bible is connected with whether or not they use a capital first letter when referring to it.

It seems from your post 4 that I was wrong in assuming that the two questions in the OP were linked, so I apologise for the misunderstanding.