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…
Open my eyes and I will seeWonderful 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…
Deal fully with your servant,So I may live and keep your word. There are numerous translation questions, including differences of opinion about precisely what the word I translate “deal fully with” actually means in this context. Another good option is what Bob MacDonald does in Seeing the Psalter: Grow your servantI will live and keep…
In your statutes I delight.I will not forget your word. If this were not poetry, I might be tempted to talk about the rather optimistic promise of not forgetting God’s word. But then I remember how many times I have said, “I’m not going to forget that” in reference to some planned task or another….
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…
In the way of your testimonies I rejoiceAs over great wealth. Teachers and preachers often say that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, was moving the law inside and making it of the heart. And that is certainly a theme of that sermon. But the fact is that the heart was always the object…
With my lips I have recountedAll the judgments from your mouth. We tend to talk, and also write a great deal about speaking. On social media, people take note of the things you don’t speak out about, and consider you apathetic for your apparent silence. On the other hand, there are those who are just…
As I was listening to 1 Samuel today while walking on my treadmill I was reminded of a comment my mother once made on the story. We learn about Hannah and her desire for a son, and her sadness that she was barren. Her husband, Elkanah, somewhat full of himself, wonders why she’s crying and…
Blessed are you LORD.Teach me your statutes. 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…
In my heart have I hidden your Word,That I might not sin against you. I was introduced to Psalm 119 in elementary school. I had read a fair amount of Bible before that time, but hadn’t read it through. I went to a small Christian school where Bible memorization was a key component. We memorized…
