Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: instruction

  • Psalm 119:109 – Risky

    Psalm 119:109 – Risky

    My life is in my hands continually,
    yet I do not forget your instruction.

    What I’d like to say, and first thought about saying was that it might be better to say, “My life is in my hands, so I don’t forget that you, God, are in charge.”

    The fact is, however, that we need to remember God’s instruction(s). I want to emphasize, as always, that it is not on the basis of keeping up with God’s instructions that we become part of the family of God. But we have a need to make good decisions at all times, and the time when we are most likely to forget what we have learned from God’s instructions is when we are most at risk.

    This morning, Jody had a problem with her heart. It scared me. I got very tense. I had a hard time making decisions. I forgot to pray. Part of the time I forgot to think. And it wasn’t even one of the worst moments we’ve had over the last few years. Talking to a few people helped me settle down. Praying helped settle me down. (I frequently note that prayer is much more about changing me than about changing my circumstances.)

    Now Jody is fine, though I’m still a bit nervous. But it was precisely during that time when I’m watching numbers related to her health and thinking they’re not going where they’re supposed to that I need to remember God’s instructions.

    Now you may be wondering where in the Bible I find something about how to deal with pulse rates, blood oxygen, blood pressure, and such things. No, there is not a book of “Cardiac Care.” The idea is to find a way of thinking, a way in which I can process problems. I then need to apply that way of thinking to various problems.

    We talk a lot about breaking bad habits. I think we need to talk more about developing good habits. Good habits set you up to do the right thing when the wrong thing happens.

    I recall reading in Jacob Milgrom’s 3 volume (2200 pages!) commentary on Leviticus, that the Torah has clearly been written as a teaching tool. (I paraphrase from memory.) I didn’t really understand that until I took a group of Christian young people to visit a Synagogue for their Religious Education, which was on Sunday morning. A Rabbi talked to the young people I had brought together with theirs.

    On this occasion, he chose to talk about the command that is found in Exodus 34:26(b) and elsewhere, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” This refers, of course to a baby goat. Not quite as astonishing. But yet you may ask why such a law would exist.

    Well, in Judaism, the Rabbi told us, this was where the rules on eating meat and dairy products together came from. The young people were generally mystified. What good is this rule? Why should anyone keep such a law? What’s the purpose?

    The Rabbi explained that this is a rule that tells us we have a choice in what we do. We are not subject to our passions in all things. We can choose to live one way and not another. I deduce that you put this rule into practice in order to become accustomed to doing things according to rules, that you have a habit of following rules.

    I think that’s the point of remembering God’s Torah, or instruction. When it becomes a question of life or death, when decisions are coming at you faster than you can handle them, when you don’t know the way out you have a way in which you think of things.

    I was discussing a decision with a friend some years ago, looking at two courses of action. Both appeared acceptable, but I was uncertain which one to take. Then ethics took hold and I suddenly saw that one of the courses of action would likely lead to things I knew were wrong. I hadn’t seen certain consequences. Suddenly I knew. Only one choice was in accordance with God’s instruction.

    What instruction from God will guide you at a moment of decision?

  • Psalm 119:97 – Loving the Law

    Psalm 119:97 – Loving the Law

    How I love your instruction!
    All day long I meditate on it.

    Most translations will use the word “law” where I’m translating “instruction.” That is a traditional translation that goes back to the Septuagint (LXX), which uses the Greek word nomos. This focus on the “law” aspect, rather than the broader aspect of “instruction” can give us a skewed idea of what the Psalmist and other readers and writers of Hebrew scripture are discussing.

    But, as Christians, we also have a tendency to strip out and ignore the actual rules that are contained in Torah, which would more traditionally be regarded as law. You will miss something if you read Hebrew scripture, especially the first five books known as Torah or the Pentateuch, while ignoring any of these aspects. When the Psalmist celebrates, he is celebrating the whole, not some subset.

    So what do we have to celebrate in the law?

    Let’s start with something we may not enjoy, but which is very important. Law tells us where we are wrong. This may not be fun, and we may rebel or be angry, but it can be important. Let me give an example.

    In my mind I picture driving out of Monteagle, Tennessee, along I-24, out of Monteagle pass headed east toward Chattanooga. It was worse before the interstate went through there, but even now the road can be deceptively difficult. When you see a warning sign giving the speed limit, it’s good to pay attention. When another sign gives a safe speed for a corner ahead, it’s a good idea to heed it. I have failed to do so in the past, and had a few frightening moments.

    As I come upon one of those signs, if I want to keep moving and get to my destination quickly, I’m not inclined to be happy with the law. It’s easy to say the highway engineers have been over cautious. I can go a lot faster than that and still be safe. I really don’t like that law. It’s making me slow down when I want to go fast.

    But a significant number of motorists have discovered that “there is a [speed] that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (paraphrased from Proverbs 14:12). I may grate under the limitations of law, but the law is good in the warning.

    You can have the vehicle and the road but lack at least part of the law. I discovered this in Budapest, Hungary. I was leading a mission team headed out to provide a children’s camp in eastern Hungary, and due to a poorly scheduled connection, I was stranded for several hours in Atlanta waiting for another flight. I was expecting to pick up a rental car in Debrecen, close to where we would work, but since this delay meant I would miss our welcoming committee and the ride from Budapest to Debrecen, I had to reschedule a planned rental car for pickup in Budapest, then spend the night at a hotel there, and proceed to catch up with the team I was “leading” the next day.

    I asked the travel agent to get me a hotel near the airport and to the east of the city. That’s because that was the direction I was going to go. I didn’t want to find my way through Budapest at night. That was not what happened. The travel agent got me a hotel that was north and a bit west, though still on the eastern side of the Danube.

    Now I know at least some of a number of languages, but Hungarian is not one of those languages. I had looked at a word book, and figured out perhaps a dozen words, though the pronunciation of Hungarian is difficult enough for a native speaker of English that it’s hard to be sure you’re getting it close enough to be understood.

    What was worse is that road signs were unfamiliar and some traffic patterns were different than what I was used to. The agent at the rental counter was enthusiastic and explained to me that the route to my hotel was very easy, that I couldn’t miss it and would have not trouble. Welcome to Hungary!

    “You can’t miss it” is a very fateful statement. Never, ever believe it.

    Twenty minutes later, about the time I should have been at the hotel according to my directions, I was looking out the window from a bridge at the waters of the Danube. Now if you’re a tourist in Budapest, this is something you want to do, but if you are 36 hours into a 12 hour journey, it looks less friendly. Especially if you’re aware that your destination is on the side of the river you are leaving.

    Well, I can’t make the story short at this point, but I’ll shorten it some. Two hours and several conversations with helpful Hungarians I could not understand later, I actually found my hotel. The problem here is that there were rules of the road, directions, traffic flow patterns, and signs, all of which could have helped, but I couldn’t comprehend them. I might have found signs annoying when they said I needed to be in a certain lane, or go a particular speed or a particular direction, but it was much more annoying not to know.

    Proverbs 14:12 rattled around in my mind that night, and I preached on it a couple of times, to a great deal of laughter from my Hungarian friends. And I must note that even complete strangers during that two and a half hour experience were extremely friendly. We just couldn’t communicate because I didn’t know the language.

    As annoying as it can be, law is a value.

    As you go through your day today, ask yourself what rules are helping you get done what you need to do.

    (The featured image is a map of Budapest, Hungary, credit max_776, licensed via Adobe Stock. If I recall correctly, I was crossing the bridge across the Danube that you see at the bottom of the map (south), headed west when I realized I had lost my way!)

  • Psalm 119:77 – That I May Live

    Psalm 119:77 – That I May Live

    Let your compassion come to me that I may live
    for your instruction is my meditation.

    I’ve been writing about God’s compassion. Follow the trail back for a couple of verses for more on that. Today I’ve been meditating on the importance of God’s instructions for life. It turns out I was meditating on that even though I forgot which verse I was on and had to look it up again this evening.

    I read this as a Christian. As such I recognize that we often jump past ethical concerns in scripture. As soon as someone talks about the rules, we tend to shout works. At the same time, in my experience, we’ll be pushing certain “works” as necessary. “If you aren’t doing _____ you’re not really saved.”

    Unfortunately, we don’t get much teaching that combines God’s compassion and love for us along with God’s wisdom, represented in the things he lays out for us to do. The only thing that will create holy people is God’s grace. Grace creates action. Note that action is not equal to grace. Grace does not require action as a trigger, or a prerequisite.

    So here we have two things, God’s compassion coming on the Psalmist, and meditation on God’s instruction. Let’s look at another passage from Deuteronomy.

    Look! I have put before you today life and good, death and evil.

    Deuteronomy 30:15 (author’s translation)

    We can’t forget that God has the way to life, that God’s instructions are of great value.

    When I fail to spend time with God in prayer or in Bible study, I pay for it. I pay in time spent worrying, in distractions, in decisions poorly made. No, I am not concerned that I’m losing my salvation when these things happen, but I am still losing out on the peace, joy, and comfort God offers. I’m designed to need those things. My life is better for them.

    Now I can also lose something if I forget God’s instruction that tells me that God loves me, cares for me, and knows my weaknesses. Knowing those weaknesses, God still loves me. His compassion comes on me. I can doubt God, but God remains faithful.

    If you find yourself feeling depressed today, remember that you are loved by your Creator with an everlasting, unquenchable love.

    What’s God Really Like
  • Psalm 119:72 – Value

    Psalm 119:72 – Value

    I value instruction from you
    more than thousands of gold or silver coins.

    If I were to write a list of things Christians say, but don’t really mean, this would be near the top. We like to say that we’re interested in what God has to say, but in practice, it’s not that high on our priority list.

    Psalm 19 says that God’s laws (after using a number of the same terms found in Psalm 119) are more to be desired than gold. I once suggested to a class that a good experiment would be to put a Bible and a gold bar on a pew and see which disappeared first.

    But that was not one of my smartest suggestions. The point is not having the book, but consuming God’s word in various forms.

    I was once invited to speak to a group of visiting youth who were accompanied by their youth pastor. At the end I invited questions, and once we’d discussed such deep theological issues as where Cain got his wife, things wound down. The youth pastor asked if he could put in a question. His question: “I’ve been studying the New Testament for around five years now and I think I’ve pretty much got it. What do I do next?”

    That one pretty much stunned me. I’ve been studying the New Testament, and the whole Bible, pretty much my whole life, and there’s no end in sight. There’s always something new. I’ve heard people who have been in the church for years say they don’t need to study or attend Sunday School class, because they’ve really got it all covered.

    So let’s change the question. Can you give up the money you’d earn in an hour of work in favor of learning from God? In this I include more than reading scripture. I include time spent meditating, listening to God. I include time spent in nature or studying science. Anything that is dedicated first and foremost to learning the truth.

    Is that truth more important than your bottom line? Will you give up money in order to know that truth? Will you practice truth, that is integrity by practicing what you know, even at a financial cost?

    This could be a serious question for someone who does not believe in God. Do you believe in learning truth and having ethics over your own living?

    We talked about hardship in yesterday’s post. The fact is that while hardship drives learning in many ways, most times we’ll skip the learning if we can cheat reality and dodge the hardship. Often this is accomplished my making others take our hardship for us.

    What will you prioritize today? Will it be absolutely genuine?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

    Some Books on Bible Study

  • Psalm 119:61 – Bound?

    Psalm 119:61 – Bound?

    The bonds of the wicked encompass me,
    I do not forget your instruction.

    These posts are meditations, not attempts at exegesis. I’m pretty sure the psalmist is here congratulating himself and pointing out to the Lord how he has been faithful under difficult circumstances.

    But what occurred to me is the number of times the “wicked,” or so they seem at the time, become the excuse for our own behavior.

    There is such a thing as teamwork, where we combine our strengths to accomplish greater things than any of us could accomplish on our own. Such is the vision of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12), with all using various God-given gifts to join together in serving others. The whole is greater than the parts because it functions together, combining strengths. And we must not forget God’s Spirit empowering everyone.

    But much more commonly groups of people actually demonstrate lower intelligence than any of the individuals in the group and combine to do very stupid things. “The devil made me do it” becomes “my friends dared me to,” or even “I thought my friends would think I was dull or timid or wimpy if I didn’t do it.”

    People my age like to think this is a problem of the young. Young people do this sort of thing. But most of us are subject to influence in a group, and we will frequently do things in groups that we would consider suboptimal if we were considering them individually.

    The normal tendency of a group of humans is not to become a team, serving others with greater strength, but rather to become a mob, tearing others down. With encouragement from one another, we can become truly horrible people, generally in ways we individually would avoid.

    What does this have to do with our passage? Well, we’re very susceptible to the very thing the psalmist says he’s avoiding. The wicked are trying to bind him, to carry him away from God’s instructions and get him on another path. Despite their influence, he is avoiding this problem.

    We have a problem with this in socializing children and youth, and it carries on into adulthood. We want our children to get along. Popularity is, well, popular! Parents don’t want their children to be outsiders at school or in other social groups.

    Getting along isn’t a bad thing, but when it’s priority is above doing right, it becomes the means of non-grace, of getting us into greater and greater problems.

    The bonds, or ropes, or chains that bind us can be very pleasant. We are surrounded by the traps of popularity, of agreement with the crowd, of the approval of peers and perceived superiors. It doesn’t feel like bondage. It feels good. And we forget God’s instructions. We forget what’s right.

    This is not to say that we always have to be going against the crowd we’re with. They might just be going in the right direction. What we have to do is remember. Remember what the right path is and be willing to break those bonds and go the right way, even when it seems hard.

    What gentle, attractive bonds are drawing you away from God’s instruction? Break away from them today!

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:29 – Grace Me with Your Instruction

    Psalm 119:29 – Grace Me with Your Instruction

    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.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:27 – From Precepts to Wonders

    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.)