Psalm 119:152 – Eternally Varied

I’ve known this for a long time about your testimonies:
You established them from ancient times.

This is one of the cases in which my use of standard translations for each of the “law words” in this Psalm looks just a little off, but I’m sticking with it. Of course, it is quite possible to read this as including the record of God’s creation in which case we do learn from creation itself about how firmly founded God’s law is right from the beginning.

I tend to blur the boundary that theologians prefer between special and general revelation. I think that potentially everything reveals God, provided that we are looking. The revelation provided in scripture or in prophetic words and experiences differs in approach and purpose, but not in quality.

This applies to study of natural sciences for example. I would say that good scientific study provides potentially accurate information about that natural world, and is more likely to do so accurately than scripture.

Hey! What? Are you speaking against the value of scripture? No. I’m saying that scripture does not have teaching us science as its purpose. We have the natural world and the minds God graciously provided us to study the natural world. The way to learn about these things is to “read” them in the way that is provided.

This is another way that we can learn from “testimony” about how God has founded his rules. We see the record of the universe through devices such as the James Webb Telescope. We see the history of this world in the rocks. In studying these things we can learn not only about the things themselves, but about the God who created them.

And note that I’m not here debating special creation and evolution. No matter what the process, God is the creator, and we can see the stability of what God has decreed for the entire universe.

So in “reading” the universe I can learn that God has established his rules firmly “from ancient times.” God is not a God of chaos but of stability. It is in observing these things, however, that I also see God as a God of freedom and not of micromanaged control. Here others might disagree with my reading, both scientifically and theologically.

Nonetheless, in the dance of stars and galaxies, where some even collide or pass through one another with a great deal of destructive force, I see a game with firm, stable rules, but played by elements with considerable options in how those rules are applied.

And I bring this up because it is precisely this kind of disagreement about interpreting nature in terms of God’s presence in it and relationship to it as a reason why we need to get the real answer from written scripture. We need to get that all settled much more clearly.

Except that we don’t. Get it settled clearly, that is.

We get so many different interpretations of the Bible that it’s really hard to even catalog all the things that may claim the title “what the Bible teaches.” It doesn’t do any real good to explain to people that the problem is that they are all wrong, whereas I, of course, am right.

I would suggest that if God wanted a unanimity in understanding either creation or the written word, God would have done things quite differently. “Differently” might have involved either different people, a different universe, or a different written word, or more likely all three. I suspect God didn’t do it the way we have it by mistake, so I take it God wants us to have to wade through the variety and do our best to interpret.

I’m still going to argue for what I believe scripture teaches. I think that’s a good idea. I hope you do too, even if, or especially if you disagree with me. I think that disagreement, done right, can create growth. And all of that goes back to the God who created this all precisely as God desired it, not as I desire it.

In disagreeing today with others, as you doubtless will, consider the God who made all those diverse wonders of nature, people, and viewpoints possible.

Rejoice! Revel in the diversity God has created.