Psalm 119:138 – Righteous and True
You have sent forth your testimonies righteously,
And very truthfully.
I have been treating the word I translate here as “testimonies” as focusing on the stories contained overall in Torah, and also throughout scripture and our experience. The other day I saw a question posted on Facebook regarding a certain aspect of Christian ministry. The person asking the question said specifically that he wanted an answer based both on scripture and experience.
The story is important. We often look at stories and wonder if they are factually true. We wonder if they are absolutely accurate in every detail. The idea here is that the key message to get is what precisely happened. On the other hand, we can look at stories as metaphorical, always carrying some message, but with the actual details totally irrelevant.
Most stories, however, are true in multiple ways. They can also be false in multiple was as well. When you see a meme posted on social media, you should always ask the question: Is this based on actual events or data? Beyond that you should also ask whether that information is being used to convey a true result, or to produce valid, effective, and morally good results.
In all cases, I’m ignoring details. Details are the playground of critics. Stories we like will be excused for minor, inconsequential errors. Stories we don’t like will be picked apart for every possible error of detail in order to diminish the message.
The stories in the Bible are frequently important in multiple ways. Rarely are stories present in scripture in order to satisfy curiosity. They are there to present a narrative of God’s actions. This means we can study them from multiple angles. We can try to understand God’s intent in the stories. We can learn about God’s laws and how they might apply by meditating on the stories of how those laws came to be.
We live as part of a story of faith that extends back into prehistory and looks forward to the consummation of all things. God is still sending out–commanding, if you will–righteous testimonies.
He is sending them out with you today. What message are you sent forth to convey?
(Featured image generated by Adobe Fireflly from a prompt created by Gemini based on my input.)
