Psalm 119:130 – Light

When your Word is revealed, light shines,
giving understanding to the naive.

This is a very important verse to me, and I think it is often misunderstood.

I was raised on Bible-based materials. I studied that way in school. I spent a good deal of time with it in school. I had a disagreement with my mother about when I first read the Bible through. She said it was when I was around 9 or 10 years old. I recall reading it all the way through in my early teens. As an elementary student at a school with a Bible-based curriculum I memorized Bible passages in large quantities, including the chapter I’m writing about, all 176 verses of it.

When I went to college and determined to study the Bible I majored in Biblical Languages, thinking this was the way to get back to the sources. With the weight I put on the value of scripture, I wanted to be as accurate in my knowledge as I possibly could because knowing the words contained in scripture was, I thought, of great value.

It took me a very long time to get past the collection of words and data from and about scripture. I used the word “naive” in my translation of this verse, and I was naive in my approach to scripture. It was not only not possible for me to get to a 100% bedrock understanding, based only on my study, it was also not particularly desirable.

That question drove me away from the church and from fellowship. I still enjoyed the study of and the text of scripture, but it was no longer a driving force as it had been. It was, instead, a bit of a hobby.

Then I came back to it again. Marcus Borg wrote a book titled Reading the Bible Again for the FIrst Time. While I don’t agree with everything Borg teaches, I enjoyed the book. I empathized with the experience, because by the time I read his book, I had had a similar experience. The reading of the Bible became something very different to me.

One very important change was that instead of looking for a simple, totally coherent system of beliefs about God, I began to seek to know God. When I began to seek to know God rather than about God I also began to see that the Bible points outside of itself to manifestations of God’s Word. By God’s Word were the heavens made (Psalm 33:6-9). This told me that God’s Word extended everywhere.

I also saw in the Bible a great deal of diversity. Instead of seeing repetition of “sameness,” I saw God working in multiple ways in the stories of the Bible. I saw even more diversity in the way the stories of the Bible came to be presented as they were. I saw the way in which the Bible pointed to people who heard from God and who spoke for God. I saw a church in the New Testament where hearing from God and sharing were part of worship (1 Corinthians 14, for example).

“Bible-based” no longer filled the requirement for me. “Based in the Word of God” came much closer, but only when we allow ourselves to understand that for those who are willing to listen, for those who are willing to see, for those who are willing to hear, and for those who are willing to imagine, God’s Word is everywhere.

God’s word is just waiting for an opportunity to enter, an opportunity to make the naive wise.

“I can never get away from your presence!” (Psalm 139:7b, NLT). No, for a God who is everywhere, that’s true. The problem is that we’re extremely capable of getting away from an awareness of God’s presence. The entrance of the data does not give light. The entrance of God’s Word creates knowledge and wisdom. It’s waiting for us to perceive the God’s presence.

I’m amused by our common expression regarding an especially powerful meeting: “God was sure present in our worship service today!” That’s not how it works. God is definitely present. The question is whether the worship service is conducive to helping us perceive that presence.

Similarly, a daily question, whether I’m in my home or my office, or traveling somewhere in my car, or taking a walk, or whatever I may be doing the question is whether I’m perceiving God’s Word in what I see. If I’m writing prose, poetry, or fantasy fiction, I can be perceiving God.

Because God’s Word is absolutely everywhere.

Are you going to perceive it today?