Psalm 119:27 – From Precepts to Wonders

Explain to me the way of your precepts
and I will tell of your wonderful acts.

We tend to think of particular rules or principles for living as fairly boring, somewhat annoying, and often unreasonably restrictive. We seem to live in a debate between what we ought to do and what we actually do. Even the most law and order oriented people I know have rules they don’t feel they need to keep.

As Christians, we come at law largely from the perspective of salvation. Our works cannot save us. Yet many of us are so oriented to law that we have to work that back into the equation again, such that eventually our Christian lives are taken up by the question of how to keep the rules and what might happen if we don’t. Some of the loudest voices I have heard with regard to grace and justification by grace through faith turn to the worst sort of works as they attempt to produce–and urge others to produce–the supposed fruit of that faith. (Hint: You can’t. God can.)

Christianity becomes for so many of us a process of producing “good church-going people” who are “pillars of their community” and as such good people are surely going to heaven because they are keeping up with all the things their culture believes are the proper things to do.

Well, right until these pillars fall down because they really aren’t such examples of everything that is good and right.

And then we, as Christians, announce that the Hebrew scriptures are all about law and empty of grace because we can find examples in Israelite history of just such pillars of the community, and we can find rules that look a lot like they might describe the behavior of good “temple-going people” who are pillars of their community.

Like David.

Oops! For those who actually read the Hebrew scriptures (in translation is OK!), this image really doesn’t work. Not if you pay attention.

I’m currently listening on Audible to the translation of the Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter as I walk on the treadmill. (I moved my after-dark walks and too-cold walks to the treadmill!) Tonight I was listening to the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). If David was a man after God’s own heart, I would imagine some grace was involved.

But as we look at this passage, we are again looking at a much broader understanding of “law.” Note that in Psalm 119, we have at least two more general terms for law, Torah (instruction), and Word, as in God’s Word. Translating these as “law” gives modern English readers the wrong impression. As I read, I see in the term “Torah” a depiction of God’s guidance and interaction with people, i.e. an extended story of relationship. It’s about who God’s people are. In “Word” I hear the creator of the universe who is revealed in word and deed. Neither of these terms describes a code of law, such as Hammurabi’s code, or your state’s traffic code.

What they do describe is a very deep relationship and an identity, God’s people, that becomes the key identity for those to whom it applies.

In the New Testament book of Hebrews we have this same nature and identity, both Torah and Word, wrapped into the person of Jesus. I think it is worthwhile for us to know as Christians that when a Jew affirms loyalty to Torah, this is no more (or less) an affirmation of loyalty to a set of rules than ours is when we affirm loyalty to Jesus.

Now Jews and Christians can both be legalists, forgetting Who it is they serve, and getting stuck on details, but this shouldn’t be blamed on scripture. We humans are like that. We like to get tangled up on the little things that we can understand and handle. Or at least that we think we can.

But God is above and beyond that. God has a purpose for us that is so far above any of our thoughts that we can’t even imagine it.

I’m drawn back again to Isaiah 55:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways.
This is the word of the LORD.
But as the heavens are high above the earth,
so are my ways high above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (REB)

And here in Psalm 119:27 we have the psalmist asking God to help him understand God’s precepts, and the result will be that he will speak of God’s wonderful acts. The reason is that everything God has to say points to God as God the creator and the author of all that is wonderful.

And it all starts with trying to understand the little things, the precepts. Baby steps. Trembling, unstable, stumbling, hands reaching out along the path to wonder and amazement.

What’s your next step?

(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)