2-12-15- Scripture as the Word

9How can a young person stay on the path of purity?

By living according to your word.

10I seek you with all my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands.

11I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

105Your word is a lamp for my feet,

a light on my path.

106I have taken an oath and confirmed it,

that I will follow your righteous laws.

107I have suffered much;

preserve my life, Lord, according to your word.

108Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth,

and teach me your laws.

109Though I constantly take my life in my hands,

I will not forget your law.

110The wicked have set a snare for me,

but I have not strayed from your precepts.

111Your statutes are my heritage forever;

they are the joy of my heart.

112My heart is set on keeping your decrees

to the very end.

113I hate double-minded people,

but I love your law.

114You are my refuge and my shield;

I have put my hope in your word.

115Away from me, you evildoers,

that I may keep the commands of my God!

116Sustain me, my God, according to your promise, and I will live;

Thoughts: Clearly the Psalmist equates the statutes- the laws of God with the Bible (Old Testament) and the Word of God  The Bible is seen as a strength, a lamp to us in darkness, a source of reliable and sustaining promises.  The Bible teaches us how to please God, be close to God, and keep our way pure.
Our task is to hide the word in our hearts (vs. 11).  This means love it   But we cannot love it or know it by heart without learning the words.  Scriptures gives us the light of God's Word as a light bulb gives us light.  The Bible is a lamp- but the essence of the word of the Lord is the light coming from the lamp.  It brings joy, hope, strength, and real help to us.  

Prayer: Lord, may I treat the scripture with respect as not only a special record but a real source of hope strength and joy for me now.  

5/9/12- Why Scripture is Worth Hearing

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me. (John 5:39)


Do we believe God speaks through the scriptures or not? If God even speaks sacramentally and regularly through scripture (as even Marcus Borg suggests), then the scriptures are to be heard, and heard as the Word of God.  Billions of Christians would testify that God has spoken to their need, to their heart, to their deep desire, to their purpose through scripture.  In other words, God speaks, and is not silent.  For those who do not believe that scripture alone is our ultimate authority, the question then is does God speak in other places, and with the same power and authority?  Even scripture says that the heavens are telling the glory of God.  Romans 1:20 speaks of God revealing even His character in creation.  But while God's voice in creation is useful, it is nebulous.  There are the cute little bunnies but also the nasty buzzards.  Whenever there is truth- theologians say, it is God's truth.  But truth in science is also nebulous and cloudy.  One minute progress tells us of nuclear energy and the next of nuclear bombs.  One day the smallest particle is an atom, the next we know of many smaller particles (such as mesons).  Science not only grows in knowledge, but it changes its mind.
If God speaks, we need to listen.  There used to be a commercial in the 1980s that said, "When E.f. Hutton [the stockbroker] speaks, people listen." If God is known to speak through scripture and even tells us that He does so, we should be all ears.  The scriptures, through whom He has been found to speak, tell us that God has commands for us that help us to live the way we are designed to live.  To break these commands because we have a feeling or "knowledge" brought on by nebulous nature, nebulous science, or an untrustworthy human authority, would be to not listen to our own peril. Scripture has stood the test of time.  It has been disobeyed by many, and disbelieved by many who want to go their own way.  If we don't believe scripture whenever it comes into conflict with another authority- some expert in religion or science- then we are choosing to believe that expert's authority over the expertise of scripture that has proven itself time and again.  

John Calvin: "In short, the sense is, that we do not esteem the law as it deserves, if we do not prefer it to all the riches of the world. If we are once brought thus highly to prize the law, it will serve effectually to deliver our hearts from an immoderate desire of gold and silver. To this esteem of the law there must be added love to it, and delight in it, so that it may not only subdue us to obedience by constraint, but also allure us by its sweetness; a thing which is impossible, unless, at the same time, we have mortified in us the love of carnal pleasures, with which it is not
wonderful to see us enticed and ensnared, so long as we reject, through a vitiated taste, the righteousness of God. From this we may again deduce another evidence, that David’s discourse is not to be understood simply of the commandments, and of the dead letter, but that he comprehends, at the same time, the promises by which the grace of God is offered to us. If the law did nothing else but command us, how could it be loved, since in commanding it terrifies us, because we all fail in keeping it? fa426 Certainly, if we separate the law from the hope of pardon, and from the Spirit of Christ, so far from tasting it to be sweet as honey, we will rather find in it a bitterness which kills our wretched souls." (Commentary on Psalm 19:10)

Prayer: Give me grace, Lord to listen to you more than want my own way.  Give me grace to walk on the same narrow path that has been trod before me.