Internalizing the Word

Inter­nal­iz­ing the Word

I. Intro­duc­tion: How much is God’s Word part of you?
   A. Did you know the longest chap­ter in the Bible is about God’s Word?
         1. Why is it an acros­tic? (and waw as “and,” “then,” “so”)
         2. Why so many words for God’s rev­e­la­tion?
   B. Have you noticed how impor­tant SPEAKING the Word is?
         1. For our under­stand­ing (v. 43)
         2. For speak­ing God’s will to pow­er (v. 46)
         3. For our growth and sta­bil­i­ty, (med­i­tate as muse/talk to self—v. 48)

II.  What val­ue is the Word to you as a pas­tor?
    A. It is source of grace and sal­va­tion (v. 41)
         1. It pro­vides answers under duress (v. 42)
         2. It is source of Truth and hope which we remind our­selves of (v. 43)
    B. It is source of a believer’s lifestyle?
         1. Main­tain­ing God’s instruc­tions (v. 44)
         2. Obe­di­ence to God’s direc­tions equals lib­er­ty (v. 45)

III. You can’t share what you don’t have!
    A. It let’s us speak with author­i­ty (v. 46)
         1. Before pow­er
         2. With­out shame
    B. It gives us authen­tic plea­sure (v. 47)
         1. To offer sound guid­ance
         2. To find delight in the Word which nev­er grows old
    C. To study, reflect and strug­gle (v. 48)
         1. To wor­ship­ful­ly dis­cov­er (v. 48)
         2. To muse/talk/reflect to your­self  (always growing–v. 48)

[Title Slide] Inter­nal­iz­ing the Word – Psalm 119:41–48

Strange­ly enough for a con­fer­ence of evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors, as if it isn’t strange enough for a Cau­casian who doesn’t speak Chi­nese to be address­ing Chi­nese pas­tors, I want to chal­lenge you with a quo­ta­tion from a Roman Catholic pope. Gre­go­ry I, also known as Gre­go­ry the Great, offered a mar­velous metaphor on the Bible. Don’t write him off because the Catholics went through so many years for­bid­ding lay per­sons to read the Bible. He was pope before that start­ed in the 12^th cen­tu­ry. He rec­om­mend­ed the read­ing of Scrip­ture to all per­sons, as do I.

[Slide 2] But where I want to start this morn­ing is with his state­ment com­par­ing the Bible “to a smooth and deep riv­er in which [Click] a lamb could walk and [Click] an ele­phant could swim.” [cit­ed in Bavinck, Her­mann, Reformed Dog­mat­ics: Pro­le­gom­e­na, p. 478.] Because a lamb can walk in it, we shouldn’t be afraid for any­one to read it, but because an ele­phant can swim in it, we shouldn’t set­tle for wad­ing in the shal­low water. I have invest­ed a great deal of my life in study­ing, teach­ing, preach­ing, and writ­ing about the Bible. Yet, the more time I spend in the Bible, the more God opens the depths to me.

I am firm­ly con­vinced that the more time we spend in strug­gling with God’s Word, the more God can bless us. I don’t believe we real­ly make God’s Word part of us until we strug­gle with it. So, I want to share with you from the longest chap­ter in the Bible. It has been called a Torah chap­ter because it is about God’s Word.

[Slide 3] I believe God led me to this chap­ter because it illus­trates the lay­ers, waves, and facets of the way God com­mu­ni­cates with God’s peo­ple. You may have noticed all those fun­ny lit­tle Hebrew let­ters at the begin­ning of each sec­tion. Those are the Hebrew con­so­nants of the alpha­bet in order. Why do you sup­pose this psalm is so long? It is because it uses the 22 Hebrew con­so­nants [Click] to start every line of eight (8) vers­es for each char­ac­ter.

But why is the psalm writ­ten that way? One pos­si­ble sug­ges­tion would be that the repeat­ing of the con­so­nant at the begin­ning of each verse makes it eas­i­er to mem­o­rize. But I believe the best idea is that it was a way for the poet to cov­er the sub­ject as com­plete­ly as pos­si­ble. He want­ed to use every let­ter of the alpha­bet to try to express the com­plete­ness of God’s Word and our expe­ri­ence with God through God’s Word.

It’s very dif­fi­cult to do in either Hebrew, Greek, or Eng­lish. Alas, with so many char­ac­ters, I doubt it would be pos­si­ble in Chi­nese. But God chose for Psalm 119 to be writ­ten in Hebrew and God inspired the poet to work under this lit­er­ary con­straint. And I firm­ly believe it was inspired in this way to show us that we are not com­plete until we have strug­gled with the whole Word of God to the fullest extent of our abil­i­ty, our tools, our expe­ri­ence, and our time.

You may also know that these Hebrew con­so­nants serve as [Click] num­bers, as well as let­ters. I’m pic­tur­ing some Hebrew 10-sided dice on the slide. Each let­ter rep­re­sents a num­ber: [Click] aleph = 1, [Click] teth =9, and our [Click] waw or vav = 6. Why did I choose to preach on six? Why not choose zayin = 7, that per­fect num­ber of God (3) and the cre­at­ed order (4) in right rela­tion­ship?

Well, I chose it because it because the six is one less than sev­en, sug­gest­ing that some­thing is still miss­ing, some­thing isn’t per­fect. If you’ll par­don a lit­tle Hebrew gema­tria, the sym­bol­ic val­ue of num­bers, it’s also the prod­uct of two (2) the num­ber for human­i­ty (as in male and female) mul­ti­plied times three (3), the num­ber for God as 1) He who caused to be, 2) He who con­tin­ues to be, and 3) He who always will be. That’s the mean­ing of God’s per­son­al name, Yah­weh, by the way.

So, there are times when six, as in the 666 of Rev­e­la­tion, rep­re­sents humans try­ing to be God and, of course, falling short because it is impos­si­ble. I love this “waw” or “vav” pas­sage because it under­scores our need for God’s rev­e­la­tion, what God has shown us in Scrip­ture and in Christ Jesus. It demon­strates why we need the Word of God if we are to have any effec­tive way of lead­ing, shar­ing, and grow­ing as God intends for us to grow.

This part of Psalm 119 is about how the poet needs God’s Word to be able to share his tes­ti­mo­ny and God’s Truth prop­er­ly. The sev­enth, the zayin or “z,”  pas­sage is about how much the poet has depend­ed on God in time of trou­ble and dan­ger. The “mem,” the “m,”  pas­sage is the sec­ond 6, the 12^th pas­sage and it deals with how much the poet has learned from God’s Word, but the “nun” or “n” pas­sage is the sec­ond 7 and it is more com­plete because that is where the poet recom­mits him­self to the Word, promis­ing action. The Word moves from know­ing the Word to Wis­dom, act­ing on it. The third 6, the “resh” or “r” pas­sage is about how ter­ri­ble the poet’s sit­u­a­tion is, yet he still depends on God’s Word. But once again, in the third 7, the “sin/shin” or “sh” pas­sage is where the poet com­mits to fol­low-through with what he has learned.

Of course, the final pas­sage, the “tah” pas­sage, is a sum­ma­ry. It repeats the psalmist’s requests for help to God, has a cen­tral verse affirm­ing the psalmist’s con­fi­dence in God’s Word, reminds God of the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, and con­cludes with con­fes­sion to ensure a right rela­tion­ship with God and clean chan­nel of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

[Slide 4] Now, I know you’re prob­a­bly get­ting impa­tient with me. You might be think­ing, “I thought this fel­low was sup­posed to be a bib­li­cal preach­er and he still hasn’t tak­en us into the text.” You’re right. How­ev­er, I think there is anoth­er ques­tion that needs to be answered before we dig down into God’s trea­sure-trove of the text. That ques­tion would be: “Why are there so many dif­fer­ent words describ­ing God’s rev­e­la­tion in this psalm? I see: [Click] Torah (bet­ter trans­lat­ed as “instruc­tion” than “Law”), [Click] stip­u­la­tions (covenant rules), [Click] “ways” (as in moral stip­u­la­tions), [Click] pre­cepts (or direc­tions), [Click] com­mand­ments (pre­scrip­tions), [Click] com­mand­ments (instruc­tions), [Click] word (as in God’s direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion), and [Click] laws (a slight vari­ant on the word I trans­late as pre­scrip­tions), I believe it is because the psalmist has expe­ri­enced God’s Word in a vari­ety of styles. The Holy Spir­it accom­mo­dates Him­self to our needs, our open­ness, and our lim­it­ed under­stand­ing. By using all these dif­fer­ent terms, the psalmist indi­cates that God speaks to us in accord­ing not only to what we need to hear, but how we need to hear.

It’s a lot like the Bible itself. Think about all of the dif­fer­ent styles of writ­ing that God uses to help us hear what God has to say accord­ing to our abil­i­ty to hear. I like the way Her­man Bavinck put it in his mas­sive the­o­log­i­cal work. He said that the deep and abun­dant life expe­ri­ences of the writ­ers of the Bible: “…is so shaped and led by the Spir­it of the Lord that, incor­po­rat­ed in Scrip­ture, it would serve to instruct lat­er gen­er­a­tions. …Hence there is room in Scrip­ture for every lit­er­ary genre: for prose and poet­ry, [Click] ode and hymn, [Click] epic and dra­ma, [Click] lyri­cal and didac­tic poems, [Click] psalms and let­ters, [Click] his­to­ry and prophe­cy, [Click] vision and apoc­a­lyp­tic, [Click] para­ble, and fable (Judg 9:7f)…” [Bavinck, p. 434.]. To his list, we can prob­a­bly add [Click] taunt songs, rid­dles, and litur­gi­cal cer­e­monies. The point is that God didn’t inspire the Bible for us to read it and say, “Been there; done that!” The mes­sage grows stronger as we grow stronger in the Word.

[Slide 5] As a for­mer pro­fes­sor, I’m sure you real­ize I could speak a lot longer on these intro­duc­to­ry con­sid­er­a­tions, but what God has to say is a lot more impor­tant than what I want to say. So, let me share my trans­la­tion of the “waw” or “vav” pas­sage from the Hebrew. And the fact that it is my trans­la­tion does not mean that I con­sid­er myself above the com­mit­tees of schol­ars who con­tributed to the King James Ver­sion, the New Inter­na­tion­al Ver­sion, the Com­mon Eng­lish Bible, the New Revised Stan­dard Bible, the Hol­man Chris­t­ian Stan­dard Bible, or any of the rest.

Just as I’m telling you not to be super­fi­cial in God’s Word, I’m shar­ing that I prac­tice what I preach. God has giv­en me the gift of work­ing in Hebrew, Ara­ma­ic, and Greek, so I take the time to trans­late my text every week. My peo­ple know that [PJT] stands for Pas­tor Johnny’s Trans­la­tion. I do that to be hon­est and not to show off. More impor­tant­ly, I do it so that the orig­i­nal lan­guage can cor­rect my pos­si­ble pre­con­cep­tions of the text.

41) So, may Your rela­tion­al [covenant] love come to me;
               Your sal­va­tion as You promised.

Just as each verse in this part of the pas­sage begins with the waw or vav, you’ll notice that all of my vers­es begin with the word, “So.” This is because the waw is a con­junc­tion that is usu­al­ly trans­lat­ed as the con­nec­tion “and” or the con­tra­dic­tion “but.” How­ev­er, it is also trans­lat­ed as “Then,” and “So,” because it is con­nect­ing ideas and sequences. So, I use “So.” Of course, I’m tak­ing a risk because every “So” can pro­duce a “So what?”

If we read the “he” or fifth pas­sage just before this, we find the psalmist ask­ing for insight and God’s wis­dom so that he will know what is real­ly valu­able in life. He asks God to turn his eyes away from what is worth­less. But the poet is hav­ing some prob­lems. He is fac­ing social insults which could harm him phys­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly, as well as emo­tion­al­ly. So, what the poet is look­ing for in the waw sec­tion is some answers to this social dis­grace or injus­tice he is fac­ing. It rather reminds me of [Click] Job who, after that ini­tial week where the friends did the right thing and kept their mouths shut, had to suf­fer judg­men­tal accu­sa­tions from his so-called com­forters.

So, the poet seeks God’s “rela­tion­al” or “covenant” love. This is the Hebrew word, chesed. You see it trans­lat­ed as stead­fast love, covenant love, mer­cy, and maybe, as grace. It is reg­u­lar­ly used in the Bible to indi­cate rela­tion­ship. It is a rela­tion­ship that God ini­ti­ates in love, but it is a rela­tion­ship where God’s peo­ple have respon­si­bil­i­ties. A rela­tion­ship means spend­ing time with some­one and not just claim­ing to know them. [Click] Here’s a father teach­ing a son to fish. It’s a pre­cious image, but what if that son said, “No, I’d rather spend time with my friends?” It wouldn’t hap­pen.

When the psalmist uses chesed, he is say­ing that he wants to be close to God. He needs God’s guid­ance and involve­ment in his life. That’s where sal­va­tion will come from. But this sal­va­tion is not just being deliv­ered spir­i­tu­al­ly, it is also being deliv­ered from the prob­lem cir­cum­stance that he is in, the insult he is fac­ing.

[Slide 6] In fact, that’s exact­ly what verse 42 tells us.

42) So, I can answer one who crit­i­cizes me [unfair­ly]
               BECAUSE I trust in Your Word. [PJT]

The psalmist needs God’s sal­va­tion so that he can have the right response to the one who is attack­ing him, the one who is crit­i­ciz­ing him unfair­ly. Some of you have had to deal with church lead­ers like that. You’ve done some­thing dif­fer­ent­ly than they expect­ed, explained some­thing dif­fer­ent­ly than they pre­fer it, or just upset them with­out real­iz­ing it. What do you do?

Well, if we’re in that covenant love rela­tion­ship, we’re sup­posed to ask for God’s help. And where do we get it? Verse 42 tells us. The sec­ond part of the verse begins with the Hebrew word that sounds like “key.” It looks like this but sounds like the Eng­lish word for “key.” And that’s help­ful because a famous Bible schol­ar named James Muilen­berg has shown that wher­ev­er we see that Hebrew word, ki, it shows the empha­sis for the verse. And what is the empha­sis here? It’s trust­ing, depend­ing, rely­ing upon God’s Word.

[Slide 7] Now, when we get to v. 43, I find it very inter­est­ing. Some trans­la­tions read, “Don’t take away the word of truth” [Ander­son, A. A., The New Cen­tu­ry Bible Com­men­tary: Psalms (73–150) (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerd­mans, 1972), p. 821.]. It can also be don’t “with­hold,” as in “don’t hold it back from me, Lord.” [Allen, Leslie C., Word Bib­li­cal Com­men­tary: Psalms 101–150 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), p. 136.].

I think it’s both. Notice that the “key” clause is that the psalmist keeps on hop­ing in God’s require­ments. He’s say­ing that he doesn’t want this truth removed from him because he is liv­ing like God wants him to live. His life is attempt­ing to match the word. And, by say­ing that He doesn’t want God to with­hold this truth, he is rec­og­niz­ing that he needs God to keep speak­ing the truth afresh. Hear my trans­la­tion:

43) So, don’t remove the Word of Truth from my mouth [to the max?]
               BECAUSE I keep on hop­ing in Your require­ments. [PJT]

We don’t have to have a sex scan­dal like [Click] Robert Mor­ris in Texas or a finan­cial scan­dal like [Click] James Mac­Don­ald in Illi­nois to risk our min­istries by not being faith­ful to God’s require­ments. If we want to be able to speak God’s Word, we have to live it.

Many inter­preters take the “word of truth” to sim­ply be the poet’s tes­ti­mo­ny of his expe­ri­ence with God. Yes, it is that, but com­ing right after the empha­sis in verse 42, “BECAUSE I trust in Your Word,” I take it that the poet is talk­ing about God’s Word. Again, I believe it’s both. We have to be hearers/students/doers of God’s Word in order to apply our expe­ri­ences of life as a tes­ti­mo­ny of what God says.

My father was a pas­tor and one of the things he stressed when I first start­ed preach­ing was that if I didn’t expe­ri­ence God’s Word in a fresh way myself, those that I preached to were not going to expe­ri­ence His Word afresh. Even though part of my ser­mon prepa­ra­tion dis­ci­pline is trans­lat­ing the text, there are times that I fin­ish and do my com­men­tary work and still have to admit to God that I don’t have any­thing to say unless God shows me what I’m sup­posed to say. Some­times, in the light of that last phrase, I have to spend some time con­fess­ing and fig­ur­ing out what I need to do to get back right with those com­mand­ments before I real­ly hear what I need to hear from God. AND, I need to hear before I can share.

I also find that Hebrew phrase that many trans­la­tions don’t con­sid­er. It could be trans­lat­ed as “very much.” I trans­lat­ed it as “to the max,” mean­ing it’s a big deal. Hav­ing God’s Word removed from our mouths IS a big deal. But if we’re spend­ing time in God’s Word, prayer­ful­ly study­ing dili­gent­ly, and then liv­ing accord­ing to this book, we don’t have to wor­ry about that removal.

[Slide 8] But let’s not think that liv­ing the way God wants us to live is a bur­den­some thing. Look at the next two vers­es.

44) So, I will uphold [lit. “keep” or “pre­serve”] Your guid­ance [“Torah”] con­tin­u­al­ly,
               to the hori­zon and then some [“for­ev­er and ever”].

45) So, may I walk in a wide hori­zon [“in free­dom”]
               BECAUSE Your direc­tions [“pre­cepts”] I searched out. [PJT]

In verse 44, the phrase usu­al­ly trans­lat­ed for­ev­er and ever, real­ly means “as far as I can see.” Of course, for the believ­er, we see our life as the hori­zon line, but we know that we par­tic­i­pate in eter­ni­ty beyond this life. I trans­lat­ed it this way to make a point. We aren’t just fol­low­ing God in a giv­en cir­cum­stance and count­ing on sal­va­tion as “fire insur­ance” to get to heav­en in eter­ni­ty. We are to fol­low God all our lives and that is prepa­ra­tion for the glo­ry of eter­ni­ty. But I use the idea of hori­zon as well because v. 45 hints at wide-open spaces as well.

In verse 45, I empha­size “hori­zon” because the actu­al word used here means “wide” or “spa­cious” and reminds us that God’s will is not a tightrope on which we walk pre­car­i­ous­ly, but a hori­zon of oppor­tu­ni­ty God pro­vides for us. I don’t know if this will work for all of you, but as a native Cal­i­forn­ian, one of the spe­cial events in my child­hood was going to Dis­ney­land.

Bear with me as I share this illus­tra­tion because I think it illus­trates some­thing about God’s will. One of the rides at Dis­ney­land I looked for­ward to was called [Click] the Autopia. Even though I wasn’t old enough to dri­ve, we were able to take these lit­tle cars around the track. Notice that here in 1955, the track has high curbs and big bumpers, but the cars were free to swerve and mean­der all over the track. Even­tu­al­ly, though, there were too many acci­dents, so they reduced the chance of acci­dents like in [Click] this mod­ern pho­to. See that guiderail in the mid­dle of the track? It keeps the car on the mid­dle of the track. There is very lit­tle room to actu­al­ly oper­ate the car. I know that in my teens, my friends and I would take our hands off the wheels and let the guiderail take us around.

Even in video games, there are cer­tain types of race games that we used to describe as “being on rails.” That meant that you didn’t have the free­dom to vary from a pre­de­ter­mined path if you want­ed to win the game. Well, God’s will doesn’t work like that. It’s a hori­zon, not a guiderail. Of course, the free­dom depends on not being entrapped and the only way to keep from being entrapped in world­ly cares and anx­i­ety is to align our lives with God’s Word.

[Slide 9] If we are aligned with God’s Word, we get to keep on shar­ing. We engage in con­fes­sion­al preach­ing. We tell the con­gre­ga­tion what is hap­pen­ing in our lives and what God’s Word is help­ing us do about it. I trans­lat­ed this with an extra adverb to say that the psalmist pledge to con­tin­u­al­ly speak God’s tes­ti­monies strong­ly, vivid­ly, and con­spic­u­ous­ly. That’s because the verb is in an inten­sive tense. It’s the tes­ti­monies of what God has done in our lives and beyond. But, we don’t just share with our con­gre­ga­tions, we are to speak the truth to pow­er.

46) So, I will keep on [con­spic­u­ous­ly] speak­ing Your tes­ti­monies,
               in the pres­ence of kings, and I will not be ashamed. [PJT]

Speak­ing the truth to pow­er reminds me of such heroes as [Click] John Knox of the Scot­tish Ref­or­ma­tion. He spoke the truth so force­ful­ly to Mary Queen of Scots that she once said, “I fear his prayers more than the com­bined armies of Europe.” Knox didn’t win Mary over, but because of his faith­ful­ness, five days after Mary’s death, Knox was able to preach the coro­na­tion of James VI of Scot­land, who in turn, became James I of Eng­land. You might remem­ber this monarch. He autho­rized the King James Ver­sion in 1604 and it was fin­ished in 1611. Knox didn’t get to see the full result of his preach­ing, but God reward­ed his faith­ful­ness in con­crete results.

I also used the word “ashamed” here, even though it could be trans­lat­ed “humil­i­at­ed” as in Mitchell Dahood’s Anchor Bible trans­la­tion. I used it because I was remind­ed of the Apos­tle Paul who was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He believed that he had legal stand­ing to preach anywhere—to the philoso­phers on Mars Hill, the Are­opa­gus in Athens, or appeal­ing to Cae­sar him­self in Rome.

[Slide 10] And now, I come to the por­tion of the pas­sage where I am bur­dened that so many mod­ern min­is­ters fail.

47) So, I will delight [even “take sport in”] Your com­mand­ments
               which I love. [PJT]

I was already intrigued by the idea of tak­ing delight in God’s com­mand­ments, what God has said. Yet, did you know that this verb can also mean to “take sport in?” On the slide is a soc­cer play dia­gramed. Play­ers would look at that and know what they were sup­posed to do when that play is called.

But to delight in and take sport in what God has said means we have to dis­cov­er what God has said. We have to look at it from many angles. When I was a young pas­tor, the edi­tor-in-chief of Chris­tian­i­ty Today wrote a hor­ri­ble book called The Bat­tle for the Bible. Why was it hor­ri­ble? It was hor­ri­ble because he want­ed to affirm the author­i­ty of the Bible by claim­ing that words have only ONE mean­ing.

That’s naïve. [Click] Words change their mean­ing in the con­text. Words have dif­fer­ent nuances. Even the word “day” in the Bible can mean a lit­er­al 24-hour day, it can mean any part of a day, it can mean an era, or, accord­ing to Peter’s epis­tles, mean 1,000 years or more. Sal­va­tion can refer to eter­nal res­cue from hell or from a more imme­di­ate dan­ger.

Bernard Ramm once likened trans­lat­ing the Bible as being sim­i­lar to falling in love with a for­eign woman. You might not be flu­ent enough in her lan­guage to trans­late her let­ters for your­self, but you get some­one to trans­late them as soon as you get them. But then, you teach your­self as much of her lan­guage as you can so you can read them for your­self because you want to under­stand every word. For the Bible, we have many won­der­ful trans­la­tions, and I use a lot of them. I com­pare a lot of them. But I trans­late because I don’t want to miss any pos­si­ble nuance.

I like to read the orig­i­nal lan­guage out loud to lis­ten for sim­i­lar sounds that might help me find an empha­sis. I look for [Click] rep­e­ti­tion because rep­e­ti­tion means empha­sis. I look for changes in word order because those changes can show an empha­sis.

Find­ing rep­e­ti­tion doesn’t always require the orig­i­nal lan­guage. You can also look for [Click] pat­terns of sim­i­lar phras­es or ideas. Schol­ars speak of an inclu­sio where a pas­sage starts and ends with the same idea or phrase. You can look for a series of phras­es where there is an incon­ve­nient­ly short or long line. For exam­ple, in Philip­pi­ans 2, the hymn to Christ is giv­en in bal­anc­ing rhythm, every­where except the mid­dle. The mid­dle says, “Even death on a cross.” Since that hymn is all about what Christ gave up for us and what God did in lift­ing Him up, that cen­ter­piece is very impor­tant. Its awk­ward­ness reminds us that fol­low­ing Him may require some­thing as rad­i­cal as death on the cross for us.

We look for [Click] forms. Is this pas­sage giv­en in a debate struc­ture? Is this a mir­a­cle sto­ry? Is this an entrance litur­gy? Is this a hymn? Is this a prayer? It helps to under­stand how the author or edi­tor of the book was try­ing to shape the pas­sage. That way, we can know that we are on the right track. Exam­ine [Click] par­al­lels of sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions, prayers, or promis­es in the whole Bible (and also out­side the Bible).

But I urge you, broth­ers and sis­ters, don’t just look at the text from one angle and think you have it. We have to use all the tools God has giv­en us. I don’t just read interpreter’s from my evan­gel­i­cal per­sua­sion. I read Jew­ish inter­preters and Catholic inter­preters, as well. I don’t just read com­men­taries, but I read in the­ol­o­gy, ethics, and phi­los­o­phy as well. Trust God to help you dis­cov­er what’s impor­tant and throw out the garbage (and even in well-mean­ing stud­ies, there is some­times mate­r­i­al that isn’t worth it).

[Slide 11] And when we are deter­mined to obey God with what­ev­er we find, when we are will­ing to speak no mat­ter what it costs us, and when we are will­ing to exam­ine, study, and even “play with” the scrip­ture vers­es until we get all we can from them, anoth­er response is nec­es­sary.

48) So, I will raise my palms as per Your com­mand­ments
               which I love and I will pon­der Your pre­scrip­tions. [PJT]

That response is wor­ship. I real­ly don’t like the New Inter­na­tion­al Ver­sion of this verse. “I will reach out for Your com­mand­ments, which I love.” Oh, that’s pos­si­ble, but the verse lit­er­al­ly says, “So, I will raise my palms to Your com­mand­ments or for Your com­mand­ments.”

Now, even in wor­ship, there are two ways to raise your palms. You see both of them here and both are legit­i­mate. On the left is an exam­ple of hands raised in expec­ta­tion. We use this form when we need some­thing from the Lord, when we are express­ing our help­less­ness with­out God’s inter­ven­tion. On the right is an exam­ple of hands raised in wor­ship, but I doubt if many peo­ple know what it means. It is actu­al­ly a priest­ly ges­ture. It is the way your hands are shaped when you are pass­ing along a bless­ing. On the left, you are receiv­ing from God to meet your need. On the right, you are receiv­ing from God in order to reflect it and send it along to those around you.

As pas­tors and teach­ers, we need to pray as though in the first posi­tion to receive God’s instruc­tions. But we need to preach and teach as though in the sec­ond posi­tion to pass along God’s instruc­tions.

Yet, there is a kick­er. Look and what the psalmist promis­es the Lord in that last phrase. “I will pon­der Your pre­scrip­tions.”  I chose “pon­dered” rather than the stan­dard “med­i­tate,” so that I could empha­size the idea of going over and over some­thing in one’s mind, as well as repeat­ing it ver­bal­ly. One mean­ing of the verb is “to com­plain.” Now, I don’t think the psalmist meant to “com­plain” about God’s pre­scrip­tions (I’ll explain that in a moment), but I think this verb is to remind us that we don’t read and for­get, we don’t read and say, “Got that!” Rather, we are sup­posed to look at Scrip­ture from every pos­si­ble angle, prayer­ful­ly seek­ing the refresh­ing word God has for us. And, of course, for teach­ers and pas­tors, the refresh­ing word we are to deliv­er to our peo­ple.

Also in verse 48, I chose “pre­scrip­tions” instead of “com­mand­ments” or “laws.” Yes, that is the noun which would be used for “com­mand­ments” or “laws,” but it also means some­thing “pre­scribed.” Don’t think I’m water­ing this down. If my doc­tor gives me a pre­scrip­tion, I don’t decide that I can’t afford the med­i­cine and not take it. At least, I don’t want to if I want the best med­ical care I can get from my doc­tor. In much the same way, if we want to expe­ri­ence the most from the LIFE ETERNAL that Jesus made pos­si­ble for us, we need to fol­low the pre­scrip­tions God has giv­en from us in His Word.

I am deeply bur­dened that too many church­es have pas­tors who seek what is rel­e­vant and prac­ti­cal before look­ing in the Bible for a proof text to sup­port their ideas. Rather, we ought to be spend­ing so much time in the Bible that we dis­cov­er what is rel­e­vant and prac­ti­cal there. Please for­give my depen­dence upon Eng­lish and be assured that I have unpacked this psalm to the extent God has giv­en me the chal­lenge to do so. May God give us all the pow­er to “take sport in His Word” and pon­der it till we know what His peo­ple need to hear.