I will speak of your testimonies before Kings and will not be ashamed.
Do you speak of your faith to other people? For many, this is a question specifically about making religious statements. Can you attempt to “bring someone to Christ?” Can you make a new disciple?
What I wonder is whether we can talk about the ways of God, the things we might study from scripture and from God’s world, before others. I’m not opposed to sharing our faith. I think we should. But right now I’m talking about something different: Sharing what we have learned outside of the context of faith and religious activity.
Can you present things you learn from God in ways that will be valued in a non-religious context?
In my Sunday School class there is a gentleman who is a master at this. I can present a spiritual idea and he’ll find and express how that applies in professional or business life. The things I will teach from scripture he can present as a part of simply doing one’s job well or helping to change the world around him.
I really appreciate this input. I also appreciate people who can express their faith without being religious about it. One might call it good advice without sanctimony.
Can you share something of value that you learned through Bible study with someone else without first trying to convince them that the Bible is the word of God?
So I will walk in liberty for I seek your precepts.
I must credit Mitchell Dahood in his 3 volume commentary on Psalms in the Anchor Bible (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3) for the word “liberty.” I was struggling for a translation that I felt lived up to the context. I think that one does. Mitchell Dahood was an interesting character. One of my professors in graduate school said of him that he was right no more than 20% of the time, but when he was right, he was so right that it made up for all the rest!
This verse seems to express a contradiction, or perhaps more of a creative tension between rules and liberty. We generally think that the more rules there are, the less liberty, and vice-versa. But the Psalmist here is talking about walking, i.e., living his life in liberty precisely because he seeks God’s precepts.
Our problem as humans is that we (or at least most of us) want to be in control. Some people are very controlling, and we often call them control freaks. But there are very, very few people who actually want to be controlled by someone else.
The experiment in the United States with prohibition illustrates a problem with such control. When you make a law banning some sort of behavior, it’s critical that most people believe that rule is a good one, one that should be enforced. In the case of prohibition, too few people thought it was a good rule and too many wanted to control what they were imbibing themselves. This sort of attitude makes a law difficult to enforce. (Note that I don’t consider this a full exploration of the sociology of prohibition. It is just one aspect.)
Consider as an easier case the 55 mile per hour national speed limit. Enforcing it was massively difficult, especially in the wide open spaces of the mid-west and northwest. Many people thought in the abstract that it was a good idea, but when they got out on the road, they drove a great deal faster.
I remember one occasion when I was on leave from the Air Force and was driving on I-80 through Wyoming. There are some really long sections where you can see for miles, and driving 55 mph was unlikely. My speed crawled up to 70 mph. Soon I saw those flashing blue lights in the distance and I was pulled over. I was concerned, because 70 in 55 is quite a bit over the limit.
The trooper was a nice guy. He took care of identifying me, and then said, “Young man, would it be possible for you to see your way clear to drive just a little bit slower across my state?” I said, “Yes sir, I imagine I could.” He grinned, wrote me a warning, and off I went.
Neither of us were really seeing my rule-breaking as all that bad. Yes, he wanted me to slow down, but if he was a real stickler for the rules, things could have gone much worse. He could also have said something like, “The limit is 55 mph you idiot, and you didn’t get to 70 mph by mistake!” But he didn’t.
But there is a best way of doing things. There’s a “safest” way of driving, a healthiest way of living, the most productive way of working, and the most effective way of relating to one another.
I think that’s what the Psalmist is thinking about. If I can get on the same wavelength as the creator of all of this, it’s likely I’ll find that place where I find the best balance between all the various factors of my existence, a place where I really have liberty, but don’t suffer from falling into stupid.
I once participated in an online discussion in which a Canadian cop commented that if he could eliminate stupid and drunk, he’d be out of a job.
How about aiming for eliminating our own versions of stupid and drunk from our lives by finding God’s best alignment?
I long for your precepts. By your righteousness give me life.
I spent a good deal of time thinking about the phrase “by your righteousness.” It could be understood in a number of different ways. Two of these would be “in your righteousness” and “with your righteousness.” The second of these might lead Christians into a discussion of imputed and imparted righteousness. I’m not going there.
It seems to me that we find it easy to deny God’s promises by using our theology. As we figure out how God works, we tend to add in many derived ideas about what God can and can’t do, or if we’re being more theologically orthodox, what God will or will not do. It’s very easy to reduce God to a manageable size as we figure out just how God accomplishes things.
The psalmist has the right idea here. Simply ask the righteous God for life, righteous life, produced by a righteous God.
I can’t understand the process. I have ideas. I prefer certain explanations to others. But I think this verse makes a pretty good prayer. “I want the life you offer Lord. Please give me that life.”
I’m making that my simple prayer for 2025.
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI, then modified slightly by me.)
Give me understanding, and I will keep your Instruction (Torah). I will guard it with my entire mind.
The heart, in ancient Israel, represented the mind or intellect. I have translated this as “mind.” This goes with the beginning of the verse, “Give me understanding.”
There’s a basic principle here that I find repeatedly in scripture: God gives the power for all we do. God grants the intellectual ability, and with that understanding, the Psalmist promises to keep the entire law.
But I allowed my own mind to wander again through scripture. The time I just spend on my treadmill, listening to Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible, led me through the introduction to 1 Kings and then to the first couple of chapters. There are some interesting things that stand out from the story.
Solomon was a wise man. Until he wasn’t.
Solomon was a great king. Until he wasn’t.
He was king of a united Israel, until he wasn’t and it wasn’t.
There’s a lesson here. Intellectual ability is a useful thing. Until it isn’t.
I can’t count the number of times I have figured out that something was utterly impossible, only the find the possibility opening up. More than 10 years ago I returned from a mission trip which had eaten up my resources. I knew I had to stick with my work and guard such money as was coming in to make it through the next few weeks.
While I was thinking these thoughts, I was approached to join another mission trip. I didn’t want to go. I wearily explained that I had just returned from a month overseas and had used up my energy and my resources. But then I continued with the fateful words. “If the resources will be provided somehow, I’ll go. But I don’t expect it.”
It was less than a week before someone had provided the entire cost of the mission trip. I had expected this not to happen, as the group going had a policy of not allowing full scholarships. They believed each person going on the mission should support themselves with at least half of the resources needed. Yet somehow nobody had the slightest objection.
But God wasn’t yet done with me. After setting aside money for my family while I was gone, my pocket was literally empty. I knew food was covered, and I’d be OK, but it wasn’t the best feeling ever. The day before I left, a friend of mine who knew i was going asked me if I had anything for myself for the trip. I said I was tapped out with covering expenses at home. He took out his wallet and handed me $200.
I hadn’t asked. I hadn’t even prayed for it. I had been convinced in my mind that it was impossible.
Let me go back in history a bit to my parents. (I like the four generations idea expressed in the opening verses of Psalm 78. If you aren’t acquainted with that chapter, you could do worse than to stop right now and read it.)
Back in 1971 my parents and I headed to Guyana, South America, not to be confused with Ghana, which is in west Africa, and regularly received our mail! Since I really love that little country, and many people don’t know where it is, here is a map and some information for you!
Guyana world map polygon with a diamond pattern. By kameonline
Within a couple of days of our arrival, my father, a physician, required major emergency surgery. The surgeon who performed this surgery stated that my father would never work again, and wouldn’t live more than 10 years.
For two weeks this seemed to be the verdict. He was just not getting better. The mission board wanted to bring him home. In fact, they were starting to make the arrangements. My parents said that they had gone to Guyana to do a mission and they hadn’t done it yet. I was 14 years old at the time and was dismayed by the lack of progress.
My parents chose to call for the elders of the church and have my father anointed with oil as they prayed for his healing. I was seriously disappointed with the results. There was no miraculous activity, such as him getting up off the bed and heading out to work.
But that was the limits of human understanding again. Two weeks later my dad took over as the medical director of a 54 bed hospital and was on call 24/7 for the next year. He lived another 37 years. Later in his life, he and I had a little joke when I’d call and ask him how he was, and he’d say, “I think I’m xx years overdue to be dead!”
Solomon exemplified this limitation. With many wonderful things taking place and with many demonstrations of wisdom, he still failed as a leader in the end, with the kingdom divided. Perhaps this line from Proverbs gives the right feeling: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (3:6, KJV). In fact, my mother wrote a book about her life experiences with the title Directed Paths.
I have held tightly to your testimonies; Don’t let me be put to shame.
It’s quite possible to translate the second half of this verse as “don’t put me to shame.”
Have you ever felt that God was calling on you to take a certain stand, or act in a certain way, and you hope you’re right? Have you considered the prayer offered here? “Don’t leaving me hanging, Lord! I’m doing your work. I need you to make things work out here.”
It’s easy to cover up my own concerns with concerns for God’s reputation. “Lord, if I do this and you don’t back me up, people will think You are not faithful!” But behind that are the more human thoughts. “If I step out in faith and God doesn’t perform a miracle, I’m going to look like at idiot.” Or simply, “If I take that particular moral stand, people are going to despise me.”
Sticking with God’s plan can be unpleasant. Just look at the apostles. Being an apostle was not a life-choice conducive to longevity. The path of God’s instructions may not be easy. You don’t need to go that far back. Today, as I write, I know people who face persecution for the stand they take for their faith.
And don’t imagine that all these problems come from non-Christians. You may be asked to take a stand in your own church, against those who should be your friends, supporters, and prayer partners. “Don’t let me be put to shame, Lord!”
You’ll also find those whose claim to cling to God’s testimonies is just a pretense. Very likely you’ll be tempted along the same lines. There’s always a good cause, or a cause that appears to be good, and the temptation will be to jump on the bandwagon while claiming that you’re clinging to God’s testimonies. Don’t tell me that you don’t care about the opinion of other people in your church, or those from that “more successful” church down the road with more members.
And then there’s the simple fact that no matter how hard you cling, sometimes you’re going to be wrong. Sometimes you’re going to be quite when you should speak, or you’re going to speak when you should be quiet. Probably lots of times, if you’re honest.
It’s a very human prayer: “Lord I’m doing all I can, help me out. Don’t let me look like a fool. Don’t let me look like a hypocrite.”
Then it’s time to remember that as God’s child, it all belongs to God. Your successes and failures both! The next breath, the next step, is in God’s hands.
(Featured image from Adobe Stock. Not public domain.)
Deceitful ways turn aside from me and graciously give me your instruction [Torah].
It’s hard to read this verse when we use “law” as the English gloss for Torah. Graciously give me your rules? Graciously let me live in your rules?
But that none of those are actually bad translations. Law or instruction, and the Torah as instruction includes lots of rules, is a gracious gift of a gracious God. Further, any ability to walk in those laws is also a gracious gift of a gracious God.
There is no plan for people, Jews or gentiles, in scripture that does not include the creation at some point of a holy people. Our problem is in trying to approach law without grace. Law seen as a hurdle, as the means by which we somehow work our way into God’s favor, is always negative. It shows us up, makes us feel bad, discourages us, and eventually destroys us.
But God offers another way, which is simply to allow the operation of God’s grace in our lives.
The Psalmist recognizes this. Repeatedly he talks about what he is trying to do. But also repeatedly he asks God to help him, or even to make him do it right. He has joy in the law only because he also has joy in the God of Israel.
In New Testament terms, I could quote Philippians 2:12-13, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure.” I think the spirit there is much like the spirit of the psalmist.
Another New Testament passage is also important. It’s quoted frequently by Wesleyans, but I translate it differently. “[L]et us go on unto perfection …” (Hebrews 6:1) is the KJV reading. But the verb is passive (or might be regarded as middle in meaning, which the KJV and many other versions do. I take it as passive: “Let us be carried on to perfection.” Perfection is the goal, but the route is different. The law is still the standard and still challenging, but instead of a hurdle to jump in one’s approach to God, it’s a glorious goal toward which God, in power and grace, is carrying us.
I challenge you (and myself) to rest in God’s grace. It’s not that it’s the easiest or the fastest way. It’s the only way.
An alien am I on the earth. Don’t hide your commands from me.
I frequently teach that there are two elements to the Christian life: Identity and Mission. It’s easy to go off the rails on the side of identity, trying to separate ourselves from the crowd. On the other hand, we can become so much a part of the world around us that nobody knows the difference.
You can’t influence the culture if you are the culture.
The Bible story is filled with the stories of those who are aliens in the world in which they live. It’s a critical metaphor of scripture. Much of the laws in the Pentateuch (Torah) are designed to help provide an identify for Israel, something that would show other nations what it meant to be the LORD’s people.
This alien-ness was to be embraced. Assimilation was not the goal. As the song says, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.” One of the intentions of laws concerning good treatment of aliens among the Israelites was to reinforce this sense of being alien.
But the aliens are here for a reason. They are here to serve others and to reflect the One they ultimately serve. Thus we have the second half of the verse.
I might put it this way. “Lord, I’m yours, and that makes me an alien wherever I am. That’s my identity. I also have a mission. Don’t hide your commands from me. Let me follow the call of that identity.”
Are you too assimilated to the culture to remember your identity? Are you too alien to be able to perform your mission? Pray that the Lord makes your way clear.
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI. It represents the draw of, and also the alienation from, various cultural forces.)
Open my eyes and I will see Wonderful things from your Torah.
In my infographic on Seven Barriers to Hearing the Word the third barrier is making your Bible study a scholarly, rather than a spiritual pursuit.
Now let me be clear that I’m not against scholarship. Reading biblical languages and understanding various scholarly areas of study that relate to Bible study are quite valuable. But as a believer, I take a further step. I am looking for God. Not just theology, but relationship. Not just knowledge but understanding and even friendship.
The Psalmist knows that there is more to be learned in God’s law (here he uses the word Torah), than just knowing the definitions of words, lists of commands, and proper rituals. There is a deeper meaning to be found, and when you’ve found that, there is one even deeper.
Keep at it, and you’ll realize you’ll never be finished. There’s always something more. Spirituality is not a matter of attainment, but of continued pilgrimage.
How will you make yourself available to see new, wonderful things?
On your precepts will I meditate; I will look at your ways.
There’s a big difference between meditation and biblical exegesis. I tend to use exegesis to refer to extracting the meaning from a text in the narrow sense of what a particular author meant by a particular statement or passage. Hermeneutics generally refers to the broader process of interpreting and applying scripture. This usage is not universal; frequently you will hear hermeneutics and exegesis used interchangeably.
But meditation lacks these narrow boundaries. As I read these verses, one per day, while I do some of the work of exegesis, such as looking at the words in a good lexicon and checking other uses and reading the context of that particular verse, I really am letting my mind roam through scripture and experience and also asking what the passage suggests to me. I think poetry is particularly well attuned to this kind of thinking, and Psalm 119 even more than most. The author draws in words for God’s instruction that direct us to think of the law/instruction in the broadest possible sense. It is the entire Word that God has for us that is brought into view through the vocabulary.
The root word for “precepts” used here goes back to a root word that is often translated “visit.” A visit can be many things. It can be a time of inspection, a time of reward, a time of fellowship and relationship, or a time of judgment. Now it’s not a good idea to determine the meaning of a word by its etymology, i.e., the forms from which it is derived. I’ve already commented on how the use of the various “law” words in Psalm 119 tend to direct us away from being too specific on a single concept. (Bob MacDonald’s post on this Psalm features consistent translations of the terms so that you can see them scattered through the Psalm.)
But in this case, whether it’s a good idea or not, the etymology of the word for “precepts” led me to think of visiting and relationship (good and bad!), and God in action, rather than as a static lawgiver. After all, the God who said, “I am YHWH your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt …” (Exodus 20:2) is a God of relationships and actions, with creative and saving/restoring acts featured.
As we go through the time of advent, symbolizing in our worship the wait for God to be with us as Immanuel, we can certainly relate to this thought. The God who becomes incarnate in a manger is a God of action, of relationship.
I tend to fellow loosely joined trails in my thinking, and I followed this by focusing on the second half of the verse, looking at God’s ways/actions/behavior. There are many ways to do this. We often approach scripture to discover correct doctrine. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not the whole story. I like to look at scripture for the stories of God’s interaction with people into which we fit these various theological propositions.
For example, another part of my reading today was from 1 Corinthians, in which we have Paul making a huge number of statements that are turned into theological propositions, sometimes in contradiction to the story that surrounds them. Speaking of the stories of scripture after evoking incidents from the Exodus, Paul says, “These things were written to admonish us” (1 Corinthians 10:11). He has just referenced a number of stories.
Thus, I’d add to trying to understand to propositions of scripture a need to understand the stories. I think as we understand those stories, we will often find that we’ve been looking at propositions from entirely the wrong perspective. (A favorite example of this comes from 1 Corinthians 14, and worship that is “decent and in order.” I’ve heard this quoted to criticize a pastor for deviating from the bulletin!)
But there’s another layer or more to go. How about the way in which scripture was composed. There are hints all through scripture of various sources that have been brought together, including the frequently referenced “chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah” cited as sources in 1 & 2 Kings. Interesting that God provides inspired scripture through someone compiling material from official court chronicles and providing commentary.
Then there’s the natural world. Some make great efforts to assure us that special revelation, written scripture, is the more reliable source. Nature, they say, is too easily misinterpreted. Sometimes they even attempt to force the natural world to match their interpretation of scripture.
But the natural world is a direct product of God’s word just as is the written word. I don’t want to detract from the written word, but I think we need to elevate what can be learned from God’s creative activity. The physicist studies some of the most direct products of the mind of God. Or so I suspect!
I’ve wandered far away from what is explicitly stated in the text of the verse. But in the spirit of this Psalm, I think the author might have understood my thinking, should he have had an opportunity, or at least the spirit behind it.
Mark Twain said, “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.” Or something like that. I’ve found a number of variations, all attributed to Twain.
The prayer, “Teach me!” is one that is pretty much guaranteed an answer, positive at least in the sense that learning will take place. The psalmist asks the Lord to teach him.
It’s a bit of a dangerous request, looked at from one direction, but then from another, you might as well pray this pray, because God’s gonna get you in any case! The universe can be an unforgiving place, and most of us have some pretty clear places where experience came from bad decisions.
This is where I like to note that the entire created world informs us of its creator. The person who studies quantum physics studies God no less than the person who meditates on theology. Perhaps even more.
One big reason to be thankful for Torah in the broad sense–God’s instruction–is that it is evidence of God’s care, a gift that teaches.
