Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Passages

  • Psalm 119:50 – Experience

    Psalm 119:50 – Experience

    This is my comfort when I’m afflicted:
    Your word to me has given me life.

    What do you hold onto when living through difficult times?

    During times of great difficulty, theological conclusions, no matter how well thought out and firmly held, can let you down. It’s very difficult to continue believing in a God of love, when that love is not evident.

    I know this from experience. When our son James was dying of cancer, Jody and I had plenty of teaching to rely on. We were both teachers in the church who had taught weekend seminars on prayer. We had plenty of stuff in our heads. We did not teach that God always resolves problems in the way that we would prefer. If you’ve read Job, you can understand that God may call on you to remain a witness when things look as dark as possible.

    So what did sustain us?

    Our experience with God, experience that gave reality to what we had learned and what we taught. We knew that God could act, because we had experienced this. We also knew that the result might not be what we preferred, because we had the experience of the church and our own experience that matched again with what we taught.

    But even more, living through the experience required a continued sense of God’s presence, and a continued conversation with God. Knowledge could fail us. Friends could fail us. We could feel alone, beset on every side. But when we would spend time with God, when we would listen for the still small voice (KJV) or the sound of sheer silence (NRSV), a quietness in which you know God is there, we could find the strength to sustain us.

    Our comfort in our affliction was that God, through God’s powerful, creative Word, gave us life, sustained that life, and held that life in Divine care.

    How can you experience God’s comforting and empowering presence today?

    (Featured image is from Adobe Stock by By Romolo Tavani. Licensed. Not public domain.)

  • Psalm 119:49 – Remember!

    Psalm 119:49 – Remember!

    Remember your word to your servant,
    upon which you have caused me to hope.

    We have another imperative, but this one is addressed not to us, but to God!

    My wife sometimes is hesitant to remind me of things. She doesn’t want to say, “Henry, you forgot …” or “Please remember my ….” She especially wants to avoid nagging. That’s because she and I are both–shock!!!–human, and neither of us really likes to be reminded of something we remember. I’ve told her that it’s not nagging when I don’t remember the first time she said it, but she is still careful about this.

    God is not thin skinned. You can remind God of God’s own word. God’s ego is not fragile.

    One of the key things I like to say about prayer, and one I think is both true and important, is that you don’t need a particular format to talk to God. Often we’re afraid to express what we’re really feeling to God. Possibly, we imagine that a prayer that’s strongly worded might offend the Almighty. A good antidote to this is to read the Psalms, and this verse is one of the tamest examples.

    You can tell God you’re angry. You can tell God you’re sad. You can remind God of all the promises you’ve read. You can mention that you’re getting impatient. God already knows, so not only do you not need to hide it, it won’t do you any good.

    And in reminding God, it’s just possible you may actually remember those promises yourself.

    What promise do you need to call to God’s attention?

    (Featured image from Adobe Stock By Azovsky. Licensed. Not public domain.)

  • Psalm 119:48 – Meditating

    Psalm 119:48 – Meditating

    And I lift up my hands to your commands which I love,
    and I will meditate on your statutes.

    I haven’t been entirely consistent in how I translate the first word of each couplet in this section, but they begin with the Hebrew letter vav (or waw as is sometimes taught in classical Hebrew). This would be “and” or some sort of connective in English. Verse 48 is the end of the eight-verse section. Tomorrow we start on the letter zayin, which sounds like the English ‘z’.

    The first word in verse 49 is zekor, the imperative ‘remember’. Addressed to God. We’ll talk about that tomorrow!

    But the word ‘remember’ came to me as I thought about my project of meditating on this chapter. My practice has been to read the verse just before I go to bed, setting the subject for my mind for the following day. I read it again in the morning. It’s interesting to me how many times I can’t remember which verse I’m to meditate on when I get up, or how many times I might have to remind myself during the day. My mind doesn’t just wander. It charges berserkly from subject to subject and often doesn’t want to settle anywhere. I have quick practices I use to restore my focus.

    So what as it meant to meditate on these verses?

    First, because I intend to write something, I have had a focus for my thinking. What would it be good to say about this particular verse?

    Second, it has become part of the way I focus my activities of the day. If I find myself needing moment to refocus, reading the verse or remembering it and thinking about it provides me with a punctuation point for my day.

    I could have a worse way to restore my focus!

    This is also a different way of handling scripture, and I think it’s valuable. My normal focus is very factual. I started studying biblical languages because I wanted to get the meaning of scripture as precise as possible. I still value a precise reading of scripture and the attempt to understand what a passage meant to the person who first wrote it and those who first heard it.

    That process of exegesis, and critical analysis of every possible aspect of the text remains an anchor point. In studying these verses, I consult the original languages and ancient translations. I look at possible relationships between these words and those in other ancient languages. I always want to start with what the psalmist was likely thinking as he wrote these words.

    I cannot know that precisely. That’s one reason I call it an anchor point. It’s easy to conclude that if I can’t understand something perfectly and precisely I might as well not try. I compare this to the building of an aircraft. There are always tolerances in measurements. Nothing is perfect. But the builders can never forget working to those standards, or disaster will follow. History has shown us how that works!

    But scripture is not limited to being a source of data. It provides a way of thinking and a basis for thinking. That’s where meditation on scripture is so valuable. A scripture can shape your thinking about something that the original author didn’t even conceive. (I realize that God conceives of everything. I’m talking about the human author.)

    The process of deciding can point the way to how other decisions are to be addressed or to principles one can apply in many areas. The text can also simply provide the catalyst for other ways of thinking. Scripture is a written form of the powerful, creative Word of God, and that Word can empower things that previous readers or the original writers were unaware of.

    In reading from and meditating on God’s Word, you can provide the opportunity for you to hear God speak.

    What new approach could you take to benefit from God’s Word?

    (Featured image from Adobe Stock By Sensvector. Licensed. Not public domain.)

  • Psalm 119:47 – Taking Delight

    Psalm 119:47 – Taking Delight

    And I will take delight in your commands,
    which I love.

    Everyone who loves being commanded, raise your hands.

    Well, I can’t see the hands over the internet, but I’m guessing there aren’t many. There are only a few people who really enjoy dealing with regulations. We may consider them necessary, but we don’t generally get delighted about them.

    I’ve talked about many reasons that the law, as understood in Psalm 119, should be seen as much more than regulations. Yes, it includes regulations, but all of that is part of the self-revelation of God to a people (Israel) that he chose. There is a certain wonder in just the fact that God made such a choice. For those of us who are not descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there is the fact that when God called Abram, he called him to be blessed and to be a blessing.

    Today, however, I’d like to suggest reading another Psalm as a tie-in for this verse and the next one. Psalm 19 also includes praise of the law in terms not so often used today. It also makes another connection, one which I consider very important, and one in which I take delight.

    Psalm 19:1-6 talk about the way God’s creation declares God’s glory. Some scholars think Psalm 19 is a combination of two prior songs, and it may be that, but I think the combination was very intentional. Because starting with verse 7, we here about the law, with “law” used here in much the same way as in Psalm 119.

    The law of YHWH is perfect, reviving the soul. (Psalm 19:7)

    This is followed by many of the same terms for various aspects of law that are used in Psalm 119, bringing out that full picture of God’s self-revelation to God’s people in the broadest sense.

    The power of the lawgiver is tied to the power of the creator. The reason God can give laws is that God made everything, and knows how it works, works best.

    This function of law relates closely to God’s grace, God’s giving. In Genesis 1 & 2, God creates, and then gives instructions. I regard the story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as very much symbolic. God creates and then sets boundaries.

    We see this order of affairs again with the ten commandments in Exodus 20. God notes this in the prologue to these commandments. “I am YHWH your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The grace, the giving, comes first.

    Now we experience this in reverse much of the time. We have to realize there’s a problem before we seek the problem solver.

    But when we come back to the grace, we realize that it was there, is there, will always be there, first.

    The heavens and the Law declare God’s glory in chorus.

    Are you listening?

  • Psalm 119:45 – Speaking Before Kings

    Psalm 119:45 – Speaking Before Kings

    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?

    I’d suggest that’s a valuable skill.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 77:13 – Answering a Question about Translation

    Psalm 77:13 – Answering a Question about Translation

    I am frequently asked questions about the translation of a specific word, often because there is a difference in English translations. Frequently, the specific wording of a text means a great deal to the person who asked, as it may be part of the exposition of some other doctrine or chain of thought. Sometimes it is even a proof text to support such a doctrine.

    In this context, consider the translation of Psalm 77:13:

    Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God? (KJV)

    In the NRSVue, however, we read:

    Your way, O God, is holy. What god is so great as our God? (NRSVue)

    Presenting just two translations in this case may give a wrong impression. So running a list of all English translations available on Bible Gateway, I find that KJ21 (21st Century King James Version), ASV (American Standard Version), AMPC (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition), BRG (Blue, Red, and Gold-based on the KJV), DARBY, GNV (Geneva Bible), and KJV read “sanctuary” while most others read “holy” or something very similar.

    Let me outline the process I use (loosely) to answer this sort of question. What I am not going to do is simply give you my preferred translation.

    Differences in translation can result from:

    1. Differences in the text that is translated.
    2. Differences in approach to translation. Some common terms for this include functional equivalence, featured in versions such as the New Living Translation and Formal Equivalence, use in translations such as the New American Standard Bible and New King James Version.
    3. Choice of a different English gloss from within the source word’s semantic range.
    4. Accommodation, such as the effort to make Old Testament passages match New Testament quotations. This one is fairly rare.
    5. Different understandings of the context.

    I avoid the use of the term “translation error” unless there is simply no basis for that translation. I prefer to call an odd translation that is even remotely possible a difference of opinion and characterize it according to what evidence I see that would justify that translation.

    Let’s run through this one in order.

    People often imagine textual differences where there are none. This generally results from not understanding the process of translation in which many English renderings can legitimately be derived from the same text. Usually the problem is not finding a translation, but rather figuring out which possible rendering is best in a particular context. In this case, the fact that the versions that read “sanctuary” tend to center around the King James tradition might suggest such a thing, especially if one forgets that this is Old Testament, and thus the Textus Receptus vs other texts does not apply. In fact, there are no significant textual issues here.

    Also, all of the translations that read “sanctuary” lean toward the formal equivalence end of the spectrum, but those that read “holy” (or related terms) span the spectrum. This is not a difference in overall approach. There is also no New Testament quotation to which one might hope to accommodate the verse.

    This leaves us with a choice of a different English gloss, which might well be based on a different understanding of the context.

    In fact, the Hebrew word used in this passage can properly be translated either “holy” or “sanctuary,” and there are numerous instances of both in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, it may be used to refer to other holy objects or even sacrifices. If Hebrews 9 is a parallel to the LXX in this regard, it could also be regarded as a reference to just the first compartment of the tabernacle, though I think the overall context would be against that reading.

    As I read the Psalm we have a prayer that, after a first introductory verse, begins with a lament. God is not answering as was hoped, but in disappointment, the psalmist recounts prior acts of God and speaks of God’s greatness. This unfolds in two parts, the first affirming miracles, and the second point to God as savior, with the water imagery evoking both creation and the exodus from Egypt. We conclude with the victory, not in an individual way, but affirming that God has led and guided God’s people. We know that the psalmist’s prayer was answered because he affirms that in the first introductory verse.

    The most interesting contextual element in all that is that we have God’s way or path through the sea, which evokes the imagery of creation. So we have God’s way both in the Qodesh (holy/sanctuary) and in the sea within the same Psalm.

    The bottom line is that either translation is possible here and that the context doesn’t explicitly make one more likely than the other. I suspect most translators find it hard to connect God’s way and the sanctuary, whether tabernacle or temple.

    I would have to consider “sanctuary” a potentially valid translation nonetheless if we consider the cosmic quality of the sanctuary introduced in Hebrews. That would not be definitive, but looking at the idea of a new and living way which leads right to the presence of God, and which sees the sanctuary as a shadow of heavenly reality, divine movement in that heavenly reality is not impossible. If this were the idea here, I would see an intended contrast between verse 13 (14 in Hebrew) and verse 19 (20 in Hebrew) telling us that God has his path/way everywhere, in the chaos represented by the sea and the perfection represented through the sanctuary imagery.

    Having said all of that, the evidence behind my comment is far too thin to be regarded as more than suggestive. I do see a sanctuary pattern in the book of Revelation as well, however, which probably tends me to see it as a live option.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:44 – Keep it Forever

    Psalm 119:44 – Keep it Forever

    And I will keep your instruction (Torah) continually
    forever and ever.

    For another sense of Hebrew parallelism, note the short 2nd line here, “forever and ever.” This is parallel with “continually” and suggests a combined “all the time for all time.”

    If we hadn’t just read a number of verses in which the Psalmist expresses dependence on and trust in God, this would sound somewhat boastful. As it is, I read it as an expression of determination. Now determination is not, in itself sufficient, but there is nothing wrong with it when combined with the other expressions of the Psalm.

    Here we again encounter the Hebrew word Torah, expressing God’s instruction. Again, I’m reminded of the variety which is contained in Torah, when that is interpreted as the first five books of the Bible, a variety which is only increased if we see God’s instruction extending past those books. In just those books we encounter poetry, genealogy, stories of divine action, stories of human action, human faults and failings, divine interventions, moral laws, ritual laws, teaching about government, prophecy (in the predictive sense as well), visions, dreams, conversations with God, and case law. And I have doubtless missed something.

    I think as Christians we should think of how we should apply this. What is it that we are to do continually? I’d suggest that a great deal can be learned from Torah understood as the first five books of the Bible. But for us, the actions and words of Jesus are also instruction. Just as Torah goes way beyond a list of regulations, as important as those are, so Jesus goes for us well beyond a set of teachings.

    I think a critical question for Christians today is this: Can we live according to the teachings of Jesus? Continually? Forever?

    Perhaps we need to make a determination, as did the Psalmist. And don’t forget to put your trust in God for the fulfillment of that determination!

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:43 – Power to Speak Truth

    Psalm 119:43 – Power to Speak Truth

    Never take the word of truth from my mouth
    for I place my hope in your judgments.

    Tomorrow morning I’ll be leading a discussion of John Wesley in my Sunday School class. The notes in the book we’re using point especially to Wesley’s view of prevenient grace and to Christian perfection. It’s interesting to take these two points together as the key to Wesley’s teaching.

    The first deals with God’s action before we ever turn toward him. In a sense, you can think of prevenient grace as God’s call to us. It is important to remember that it is an act of God that takes place before we take any action, including taking any thought.

    The second deals with God’s action after we have received prevenient grace. It is the work of God in us to lead us toward and prepare us for his glory.

    There is a key point here that is often missed, and that is that both of these, not just prevenient grace but sanctification, are entirely works of God. I find myself in disagreement with Wesley when he suggests that one might become wholly sanctified in this lifetime. But it is wrong to suggest that Wesley believed a human being might attain sanctification. Were a person to become wholly sanctified, that would be a work of God.

    One of the interesting things about humans is our ability to hear part of a message. Sometimes there is a genuine misunderstanding. But there is also the possibility, even the likelihood, that we will hear the things that fit in with our existing perception.

    I remember once hearing a sermon which, in my view, strongly took a certain point of view. I heard this at the early service, and was teaching a Sunday School class immediately afterward. The members of the class were discussing the sermon and concluding something that the preacher had explicitly stated was wrong. In fact, most of the sermon was intended to say that was wrong.

    I went through a 10 minute explanation of what I had heard, following which one of the class members said, “Yes, precisely, he said …” and repeated the misunderstanding.

    This led me to wonder whether I had heard the sermon correctly. I had a chance to chat with the pastor during the week and I asked him. He affirmed what I had heard in the first place. Then he said, “You know, sometimes I wonder why I bother.”

    Now this is not about my great hearing. Rather, I was quite inclined to hear the message the pastor was presenting, while most members of the class preferred something else. Then they heard something else.

    For a modern view of Wesleyan holiness doctrine, read Allan Bevere’s short volume.

    We do that with scripture. This first, for example, is a balance of asking for God’s grace and favor while also pointing to ones own action. “I’m hoping real hard for this, like I ought to. Make it work!” It’s a very human prayer.

    But the easy thing to do with a great deal of Hebrew scripture is to hear what we expect to hear. We’ve been told this is all about rule keeping and our personal diligence in doing what God wants. As Christians, we look back at benighted writers of Hebrew scripture as not knowing about grace. But the writers of Hebrew scripture were well aware of God’s action and of the need for God’s action.

    We can come to Psalm 119 as a drumbeat of legal requirements and a super-pious, self-righteous expression of the wonder of all these rules. But that’s a bias of our superficial thinking.

    We generally like rules. We like to congratulate ourselves for obeying them. We like to feel powerful and express our personal sovereignty by disobeying them. We like to be in control of what we do about them. So we tend to read that into religious texts.

    But the Psalmist is very human individual looking with awe, hope, and wonder at a Creator God. He knows it’s God’s action, God’s life in him. I commend Psalm 104 as an indication of human dependence of God as understood in Hebrew scripture.

    Similarly, modern followers of John Wesley often take the doctrine of sanctification and treat it as a potential accomplishment of each person, and the attainment of it (supposedly) as a badge of honor and greatness. Getting into heaven is up to God, but being a good, church-going pillar of the community is an individual accomplishment.

    That’s false. The dependence on God starts not at birth, but at the first movement of the first subatomic particle that makes up part of your body. With the Psalmist, we put our hope in God and ask that God takes us to these places.

    Remember that whatever it is, it’s God’s.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:42 – Whose Word Counts Most?

    Psalm 119:42 – Whose Word Counts Most?

    Now I can return my taunter a word,
    For I trust in your word.

    The lesson here is both simple and profound. Some of my background thoughts on it are in my post on Psalm 119:38.

    In Hebrew poetry, making a thought parallel by using synonyms is common, as for example in Psalm 119:30, “I have chosen faithfulness as my path. / I’m in place with your judgments. God’s faithfulness and judgments are placed in parallel in the verse. These words are not full synonyms, but they have overlapping semantic ranges, and combine to point us to some of God’s acts, and two aspects of them. Words may also be antonyms, providing a contrast or a more complete picture (what it is, what is opposed to it, or what it is and what it is not).

    This verse stands out because the same Hebrew word for “word” is used in both halves. To paraphrase: “I have a word in response to taunts, because my word comes from your word.”

    Let me point out a New Testament parallel to this thought. In the temptations of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13) we find Jesus needing a word to respond to a taunter, in this case the taunter. Where does the response come from? From God’s word.

    Don’t limit this to quoting scripture. Filling your mind with scripture is good. But filling your mind with truth in all ways at all times is even better. Let your normal life parallel scripture. One thing I noted when studying other ancient near eastern literature as compared to the Bible was the fact that the Bible is perfectly willing to be critical of those in power. There’s no whitewash of God’s friends. They’re presented as they are.

    I was struck by this while listening to 2 Kings 15 in Audible the line in verse 5, “David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” This is stated in the middle of a passage comparing the disobedience of King Abijam. That’s being honest about those in power, even when it would be more convenient to omit some things.

    How can you honestly reflect God’s word to others?

    (Featured image from Adobe Stock by Munali. Licensed. Not public domain.)

  • Psalm 119:41 – Grace, Rescue, and Response

    Psalm 119:41 – Grace, Rescue, and Response

    Let your grace (chesed) come to me;
    Rescue me according to your word.

    I’m sure you can see where the “grace” and “rescue” come from in my title, but what is this matter of “response”?

    We’ve already talked about grace and rescue, and will do so again before I’m finished with these verse-by-verse meditations. But what struck me today about this verse is its place in the Psalm and the nature of this Psalm as a whole.

    I’ve now written 40 of these meditations, 41 when this one is completed. That represents five sections out of an eventual 22. Each section contains eight verses, and all of those verses begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

    English readers often get the feeling that Hebrew poetry is unstructured or undeveloped. This is because it is difficult to translate poetry from one language to another. It’s even more difficult when the idea of poetry in the two languages differ.

    Unlike English, rhyme is not common in Hebrew poetry, though both alliteration and rhyme occur occasionally. The key to Hebrew poetry is a parallelism of ideas and rhythm. The rhythm is next to impossible to translated, though some fairly credible efforts have been made by people with the right skills. Those skills are sadly not mine.

    Psalm 119, however, adds a structure in with these 176 couplets, divided as they are into sections and arranged according to the alphabet. Why do you do a thing like this?

    The answer, at its root is simple, I think. The psalmist is overwhelmed by the God of Israel who has provided a self-revelation, pointed to glory through laws, signs, and presence, and who leads toward glory.

    Most of us have ways in which we react to things that impress us. When that is favorable, we have ways of expressing that praise. This is not merely a religious thing. The psalmist is looking at a body of stories and laws that make up Israel’s Torah. Others might be looking at mountains, or beautiful animals in the wild (or in one’s home!), or gazing at the wonders of the universe through a telescope, or looking at the amazing things, living and otherwise, that are two small for human vision unassisted.

    What do you do when you see these things? Well, you can go to church and sing hymns or other songs of praise and worship. I imagine most of my readers find that to be a suitable response, as indeed do I. What I’m suggesting is that we look at what others have done or might do.

    1. Like the psalmist, we might write some incredibly complex and interest poetry suitable for reading, singing, or deep study, an offering of one’s best to the Lord in written form.
    2. Or one might take impressive photographs with an eye for a scene that nobody else imagines.
    3. One might go out and serve others, helping maintain the order and structure of society, for example as police officers, court officials, or military personnel.
    4. A scientist might observe and structure the data into valuable theories, useful for predicting other results, publishing them in often very obscure journals, known by only a few.
    5. An engineer might take those theories and turn them into technology, such as medical devices, aircraft, spacecraft, or even better telescopes and microscopes for someone else to use in greater learning.
    6. Someone else may choose to teach, helping to guide God’s children into better ways of living in God’s world.
    7. A fiction writer might fashion a story of the imagination, opening up vistas of thought.
    8. A mathematician might work out a complex formula, pages filled with symbols and figures.
    9. A musician might represent the glory he can just barely see with sound, lifting our hearts and minds higher through this sound.

    The very nature of this response is challenging.

    I’ve been asked many times why it was that I memorized Psalm 119 as a child. The bottom line is that I had to do it. It was a requirement. But the next question is why, having been forced to memorize it, I still like it, even love it. “All that dull repetition! How can you stand it?”

    For me, it’s because, having spent time memorizing, then studying this Psalm, first in English, but later in Hebrew, I have found it to be an amazing work of literature. It reflects someone’s love and appreciation, but also their hope. Someone is looking for higher ground and this is how that someone presents it.

    I’m grateful for the Psalm. I’m enjoying meditating on it. I’m enjoying that various trails it suggests to me that are outside its actual structure.

    How will you express your response to the beauty that there is around us?

    (Featured image is from Adobe Stock by ckybe, licensed, not public domain.)