Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Psalms

  • Psalm 119:164 – Seven Times

    Psalm 119:164 – Seven Times

    Seven times a day I praise you
    because of your righteous judgments.

    What’s with seven times?

    The number seven is used quite a number of times in scripture, and represents completion or wholeness. I thought today rather than discussing the number seven as I understand it, I’d provide some examples.

    There are some fairly well-known stories in the Bible that center around the number seven:

    • The conquest of Jericho, in which Israel marches around the city once a day for six days, but then on the seventh day they march around it seven times, following which, famously, the walls fall down. (Joshua 6).
    • Elisha heals the widow’s son, after he has stretched out on the child’s body, he sneezes seven times and opens his eyes. (2 Kings 4:8-37).
    • When Naaman is healed, he is told to dip seven times in the Jordan river, and is then healed. (2 Kings 5:1-19).
    • In 1 Kings 18, Elijah has his servant go look for signs of rain coming seven times.
    • Psalm 12:6 (7 in Hebrew) says God’s word, often thought of as promises, are purified seven times.
    • Proverbs 24:16 tells us that the righteous may stumble seven times and get up, but one stumble is enough for the wicked.
    • … and we should not forget the three group of seven–seals, trumpets, bowls of wrath–in Revelation.

    But Leviticus 14, discussing restoration of defiled buildings and objects, and 16, discussing the day of atonement are both very interesting in how many things are sprinkled seven times, and also the number of times waiting seven days is mentioned.

    I’m not going to try to discuss any of this in detail. I just found it interesting to enumerate these cases, which certainly do not exhaust the use of the number seven in scripture.

    How many times will you praise God today?

    (The featured image was generated by Adobe Firefly using a prompt based on one generated by Jetpack, and improved by Gemini.)

  • Psalm 119:163 – Falsehood

    Psalm 119:163 – Falsehood

    I hate and abhor falsehood,
    but I love your instruction.

    When I read something like this, I ask myself if I could say it and be truthful.

    That’s a tough question. With the rise of the internet and social media we’re more and more aware of the sheer quantity of falsehood that is spread around. Now falsehood is nothing new as the psalmist could have told us. False stories about others are nothing new. That’s why we have so many warnings against gossip and backbiting in the Bible.

    On social media, our gossip is preserved and available for public comment. Do we hate, even abhor, false stories? Or do we have quite a different reaction, such as hoping nobody will notice, because the story is negative about someone we don’t like.

    This reminds me of a saying I heard regarding lawyers: “Americans hate lawyers, but love their own lawyer.” We tend to hate falsehood that smears someone we like, but supposing it smears something we also hate. Do we hate it, or do we just reluctantly turn away from it?

    If we’re really going to love God’s instruction, we do need to hate falsehood. Otherwise, we’re merely loving convenient parts of God’s instruction. We’re not nearly so happy about the parts that tell us not to spread falsehoods about others.

    How will you respond if you hear or see something false today?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:161 – Persecuted

    Psalm 119:161 – Persecuted

    Princes have persecuted me without any reason,
    Yet what I fear is your word.

    A great deal in life comes down to priorities. What is it that makes me most afraid?

    People frequently comment on how hard it is to talk to people about their faith. They wonder if people will get upset. Perhaps they’ll hurl insults or ridicule someone.

    Now I have to confess that I don’t get a real choice about this. When I’m asked what I do I answer, “I own a Christian publishing company.” I’m now on the hook for my faith. I might feel like avoiding faith sharing for some reason, but it won’t work. If someone wants to insult me, there I am.

    But what I find is that relatively few people, in fact vanishingly few, want to say nasty things to me. Some are sympathetic and compliment me on a great professional activity. Some are not Christians, and comment on that. Some will actually ask me about my faith. I feel l distinctly unpersecuted.

    Other people may well have a different experience. It may often depend on what you choose to put first in conversation.

    Now with some other Christians, things can get interesting, and here there is an important point. The Psalm here doesn’t saw whether these “princes” or “powerful people (NLT) are Israelites or not. Christians can get quite nasty.

    I was talking about this today with a friend. People can get very uncomfortable when I talk about actual spiritual experience. “God spoke to me yesterday,” can put some other Christians on edge, even when I’m noting that what God said was to me. It wasn’t a message directed at them. It’s just “God spoke” that gets them upset. There’s also the notion of “prayer language.” Just the term can get people upset for various reasons.

    What about a belief in present day miracles? Or variations in the way we understand miracles? There are so many things that we actually have a hard time discussing with one another. What about my reaction to the person who has a negative reaction when I say God has spoken to me?

    The one thing we’re supposed to fear is God’s word, and most frequently when people encounter God or a messenger of God, their response is fear and the messages is “Fear not!” I suspect that God has something to say to you as well.

    What is God saying (God’s word) to you today?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:160 – Truth

    Psalm 119:160 – Truth

    The source of your word is truth,
    and every one of your righteous judgments is eternal.

    It is said that we live in an age where truth is becoming less and less important.

    Personally, I disagree. I think truth has rarely been all that important in human society. From village gossip to the propaganda inscriptions of ancient rulers, words were made to serve the goals of those speaking them, with truth either secondary, or of no concern at all.

    What has happened in our modern society is that technology has made it much easier to spread lies. It is much easier to provide good evidence for falsehood as well.

    I am not an artists, but I wanted a picture of a tiger cat like my Mo (the Energion Spokescat!) taking off on a quadcopter to fly around the house. I fed a couple of sentences to Adobe Firefly and you can see what I got below.

    Cat on a Quadcopter!

    Now I see a number of things about this that indicate it’s not real, but I’m wonder what would happen if I posted this on social media and said that Mo had learned to ride on a quadcopter I’d bought him, and was now carrying out his mission of flinging all objects possible to the ground.

    There might even be people who would repost the picture and claim that they now knew cats could do this, and who wouldn’t care if the picture was generated by AI. This is why I always try to indicate when something I post was generated by AI.

    No, Mo does not ride any kind of flying device. That picture is absolutely artificial. But I have seen less plausible pictures immediately accepted as truth simply because they tended to back someone’s political or social views. When someone points out the problems with a picture or a post, I frequently see people respond what was posted was plausible and fit with the character of the person(s) described.

    No matter how many fact checkers we may line up, people will believe what they want to believe. But that isn’t the main problem. The main problem is that people become indifferent to the truth of any statement or the genuineness of any picture. They decide that doesn’t matter.

    I think it would be better if we had opinions on many less topics, and only took a position on something we had been able to study thoroughly enough to give a good foundation to our opinion on it.

    The Psalmist is here thankful that God’s Word, the foundation of all God’s creation, is founded in genuine reality, really real reality. When God judges it’s right.

    So we get the idea that when we get something from God’s word, it must be true. This is in turn morphed into the idea that if you found it in the Bible, it must be true. That’s obviously why we have hundreds of denominations with a variety of opinions on just what the Bible teaches.

    It’s not that we all have to be right. We’re human. We’re going to make mistakes. Lots of them. The point is that we need to be very careful what we claim is true and what we accept as true. That includes studying your Bible. Are you sure you’ve gotten precisely what that verse said? Perhaps you need to study some more.

    Or perhaps we should simply admit that we are expressing our opinion of what is true.

    Now don’t get the idea that opinions are unimportant. An opinion should be backed by the best evidence you can find. You should try to have accurate, true opinions. Just don’t be arrogant enough to believe you always do.

    A commitment to God’s Word means both a commitment to serious study, and also a realization-an accurate realization!-that we are not perfect.

    Seek truth. Admit fallibility.

    (The featured image, also a cat on a quadcopter, was generated by Jetpack AI. Different take!)

  • Psalm 119:159

    Psalm 119:159

    Look how I love your precepts!
    In your lovingkindness, LORD, give me life.

    Reading this Psalm drives me frequently to meditate on the nature of life, and particularly spiritual aspects of it. In this verse, for example, we have two lines that could be connected in at least two distinctive ways.

    First, we could see the first as a boast, as calling attention to one’s incredible goodness, which the Lord should reward by granting life. We are sometimes put off by this approach, because it sounds self-righteous. But I wonder how many of us can claim that we have never called on God to take note of various good things that we have done as we request something else. We believe that we don’t really have anything that gives us a claim on God except that lovingkindness of the second half of the verse, but at the same time, we just can’t help putting ourselves in a good light.

    Second, however, we can take this quite differently. “Look Lord, how I love your precepts, but I know that isn’t going to do the trick. In your lovingkindness, the one thing that gives me any hope, give me life.” This is also a very common prayer, I think. It’s the one that says, “I’ve really put everything into this, but it’s all in your hands, Lord.”

    I’m not sure what relationship the Psalmist proposed between the two lines, though from reading the Psalm I gather he is well aware that he needs God to get him through the trials of his life. He’s well aware of what he owes to God, and the things he can only expect to receive from God.

    This is one of the more interesting elements of the Bible story. Most countries or cultures record the best possible things about their ancestors and founders. They present stories of heroes who accomplished great things. These are to be a source of pride for the nation, and also an example of what the true citizen should really be.

    The Bible does not take this approach. We get the good, the bad, and the ugly, and little enough of the first sometimes. The characters are all seriously flawed. God isn’t working with championship material, at least as presented in the text. We get full descriptions of the failings of prophets, priests, kings, and people in general.

    Take, for example, the lawgiver and hero of the exodus, Moses. I referenced Deanna Thompson’s excellent commentary on Deuteronomy yesterday. Here’s a quote:

    Theological reflection on Moses as paradigmatic of the spiritual life, a life devoted to God, and at the same time a flawed, limited life with tragic dimensions to it, offers profound insight into the human condition. In the pages of Deuteronomy we find the dramatic conclusion to one of the most powerful stories of the Bible, one that speaks to the deeply human issues of limits, brokenness, and incompleteness along with evidence of faithful obedience to “choose life,” as Moses implores the people to do in his final speech to them. Moses is not an ideal character; indeed, that his human failings mix with his successes is what draws us to his story and to the wider story that is Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 30:14 implores us to keep the story in our mouth and in our heart as we strive to live in faithful obedience to God’s living Word. May our reading and reflecting on Deuteronomy help us choose life in the midst of the constant threat of death.

    Deanna Thompson, Deuteronomy, BELIEF Commentary Series, p. 35

    As Christians, we maintain that Jesus was perfect. He was and is God, after all! But if we look at the stories of the apostles, we find the same pattern. They are portrayed in the gospels with all their faults and failings.

    It’s good to do right as much as we can. But it’s also good to remember that we have a heavenly parent who is ready to work with us as we are and take as far, or not-so-far, as we can go. We’d love to be that great person. Look, Lord, how much we want the life you have for us.

    In your lovingkindness, carry us!

  • Psalm 119:157 – Persecutors

    Psalm 119:157 – Persecutors

    Many are my persecutors and my enemies,
    yet I have not swerved from your testimonies.

    I have discussed previous statements such as this one in this series. It can be (and has been) read as a boast, as a determination, or simply an observation of the current status. So I’m going to depart from my own title. This is all you’ll hear about persecutors!

    Today as I was thinking about this, I started to think about the value of repetition. One of the complaints people make about Psalm 119 is that there is so much repetition. You could cover the independent topics in a few verses. So what’s the point of all the repetition?

    Our feelings about repetition vary greatly according to circumstances. For example, at a sports event of just about any variety, you’re going to hear slogans repeated dozens, perhaps hundreds of time. Here the repetition is part of the emotional connection of the fans as a group and also with “their” team. Nobody complains that we haven’t found a new, more creative cheer. Likely, the same thing will be repeated through the next similar event and nobody complains.

    In teaching, repetition can be quite useful. My mother taught me that in order to memorize a passage I should first read it through 12 times, and then begin to work on memorizing it line by line. The repetition serves to ingrain the passage in the mind. I use a similar method for Bible study in which I read a passage 12 times before digging into the details, making sure that my mind is aware of the greater context of any detail I choose to study.

    I have used this in preaching. I’ve told in this series before about a sermon I preached based on the passage “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” I built my sermon around getting lost, and each time I would describe a new error in my route, a new turn that I thought was right, but wasn’t, I’d repeat that statement. This goes back to what one of my undergraduate instructors told me about sermons. He said you write a three point sermon, but the first point sets up what you want to say, the second point is what you want to say, and the third point restates what you want to say. Then there’s the introduction that leads up, and the conclusion, which again applies this point. He said it was unlikely you were going to get more than one point across to the congregation in such a way that they’d remember.

    We complain in church about repetitive choruses, but then there’s a rather old hymn that starts “Holy, holy, holy.” This repetition of “holy” three times is presented in Revelation 4:8, where the four beast around God’s throne have no rest day or night from saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God all powerful / the one who was, and is, and is to come.”

    Repetition is a common part of so many of our activities, and in this Psalm, repetition is part of the process of painting a larger picture of divine law. In some ways, I’m doing violence to that by writing meditations on each verse, one at a time. The Psalm is a tapestry, and cannot be fully scene by looking at individual threads.

    Think about repetition today. What repetitive activity is essential and helpful to you?

  • Psalm 119:155 – Far from Rescue

    Psalm 119:155 – Far from Rescue

    Far are the wicked from rescue,
    for they do not seek your statutes.

    I have translated a key word in the passage “rescue” though it can be translated “salvation.” I’m reading the verse as speaking about rescuing someone from trouble or a bad situation.

    This passage reminded me almost immediately of working in computer security. Some of my clients may think I’m talking about them, but what I’m about to say comes from dozens of experiences.

    I find myself on the phone with someone who is actually in contact with a scammer. Sometimes this is via text to me, and sometimes it’s using a different phone. I’m telling the person to hang up on the scammer and don’t follow any more of their instructions.

    “But they sound so professional and knowledgeable …”

    “But they told me my computer is compromised …”

    “But they say that if I hang up my data will be destroyed …”

    “But they say they’re providing me with a secure connection …”

    “But they knew the name of my bank …”

    There are all sorts of reasons to consider talking to the scammer. All of these reasons are overcome by one simple rule: Don’t ever give any information to, or take any instructions from anyone you can’t identify with certainty. Another version says, for example, don’t give any information over the phone unless you called your bank using their established number, not one you got on your answering machine.

    Statutes. Rules. Things that will help keep you safe.

    In these conversations I will be saying, “Hang up. Shut down your computer. I’ll come look at it.”

    Statues.

    Then there’s the situation where someone has paid me for coverage of their computer needs for a period of time. There’s no added expense to picking up the phone and asking me about something. “Is this email safe?”

    And sometimes someone doesn’t check, doesn’t call. The only expense is a few moments of time, yet they open the door to a scammer.

    They don’t even seek the statutes. They seek the convenience.

    And they get inconvenience, or worse.

    Life is very much like that. Sometimes we are too busy going in whatever direction feels right to us at the moment. We don’t have time to give consideration to whether that direction is right, or whether we’ll actually accomplish our goals.

    There’s another thing I tell people about computer security: I can’t save you from yourself. That applies to these conversations with scammers, but it also applies to ordinary computer usage. If the person insists on installing questionable software, or visiting unsafe websites even after getting a warning from security software, or ignores signs that something may have gone wrong, rescue is far off.

    I recall two different customers who got attacked by ransomware. In one case, the early signs were ignored. I caught it because I was working on another issue. The computer user had been too busy and simply kept working. They were only able to because their main management system used file types that the ransomware didn’t encrypt. It took 12 hours to clean up. Fortunately, I had seen to it they had current backups kept isolated from any such attack.

    Another customer was attacked by ransomware and on the first sign of an issue, they shut down the computers and called me. Within an hour (counting my travel time) they were using their computers again, and within two hours I was able to clear everything for use.

    They followed the statutes.

    How often are we praying to God for rescue while we’re diligently avoiding the rescue? God’s grace is sufficient, but sometimes the path isn’t much fun!

    How can you cooperate with your rescuer today?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI, and it did an exceptional job this time, I think!)

  • Psalm 119:154 – Complaint!

    Psalm 119:154 – Complaint!

    Take up my case and redeem me,
    Give me life according to your word.

    I’ve discussed praying for God to do things our way a number of times. I doubt that will stop anyone, myself included, from praying for it.

    And that’s really a good thing. We need to come to God with our problems as we understand them. I believe that prayer changes me, not God. Often taking up my cause and bringing me redemption means getting me to change course.

    My favorite story of presenting a complaint to God comes from 1 Kings 17-19. Elijah starts out with a series of victories, culminating with a display of strength as he runs ahead of Ahab’s chariot, leading it through a storm to Jezreel.

    One might think a man of faith who had just won a contest with 450 prophets of Baal and then displayed incredible human endurance might have felt on top of it all and ready for anything. But no! When he hears Jezebel is aiming to have him killed, he runs. And runs.

    He winds up on Mt. Horeb, where there are multiple signs of power, but the text tells us God was in none of these. Then he hears “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSV), and comes out to meet God.

    And what does God do? He gives Elijah a list of things to do, and then remind Elijah that he is not actually the only follower of the true God in Israel.

    And off Elijah goes.

    What changed?

    We might look back at the way God sent an angel to help Elijah out and provide for his needs on his way to Mt. Horeb. Elijah hasn’t yet verbally called. That action waits for the climax. But God is already answering the prayer. God is already caring for the prophet.

    Why do I like this story? Because, very much as in the book of Job, God doesn’t answer all the questions. God just lets Job know that he is not alone. Similarly, God lets Elijah know that he is not alone.

    And then Elijah goes on. The complaint is never addressed as such. But the person making the complaint knows he’s on the right path and he can still move forward. The solution is not in winning on the matter of the complaint, but in realizing God has been there all the time.

    My complaint may actually be God’s plan.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:153 – Rescue Me

    Psalm 119:153 – Rescue Me

    Consider my affliction and rescue me,
    for I do not forget your instruction.

    There are many ways one could read this prayer, but one is surely as a proposed bargain with God, or perhaps a request for the reward that one feels should come with service. “Look, Lord, I’ve been doing all this stuff you’ve commanded me to do, and things aren’t going so well. Fix it!”

    That’s not precisely what the Psalmist was trying to evoke. More likely he’s speaking from his belief that God’s instructions are right. They instruct us to do right things. Justice therefore suggests that as a result of doing right, good things should happen.

    In fact, the books of Samuel & Kings generally speak this way. You do right, good things happen. You do evil, bad things happen. To a certain extent, this is quite true. The Bible writers, however, recognized that sometimes that’s not precisely what happens. The book of Job speaks of this. Job is presented as righteous, yet he is very much afflicted. Job could have made this verse his prayer.

    As I thought about this verse I was led back to thinking about what is a “good” prayer. There are lots of prayers presented in scripture, many in the Psalms. Those prayers take various positions with relation to prayer. Today’s verse will sometimes make a sensitive Christian uncomfortable. How is it that one can present good works as a reason for God’s blessing? Does God owe you something? (That would be another subject.)

    I was reminded of when I taught a class on the Old Testament using the book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, by my undergraduate professor and advisor, Dr. Alden Thompson. His final chapter is titled “What kind of prayers would you publish if you were God?” It’s an excellent question.

    We were discussing Psalm 137:8-9. Here we find the Jews in Babylon, remembering their homeland and mourning their exile. They conclude with “Blessed is the one who returns to you (Babylon) the treatment you gave to us. Blessed is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against a rock.”

    I ask the class to discuss what they thought about that, and directed them to think of how they would feel if an enemy occupied their city and ad killed their children. People were generally saying that it’s wrong to seek revenge, and thus they would not want the same thing to happen to the enemy’s children as had happened to theirs.

    After a bit an elderly lady in the class, a very gentle person, spoke up. “I think we’re all lying,” she said. “I think if we’re honest, we’d want to do to their children what they did to ours.” She went on to hope she wouldn’t carry this out, but she thought the desire would be there.

    And this leads to what Alden Thompson says about these prayers: They’re honest. They’re real. That’s important because the Psalms give us permission to speak honestly to God.

    It’s easy to try to conform our words to what we believe God wants us to think. We put on the holy face and pretend that we are calm, virtuous, and always embody the Golden Rule. We want to present the image that we’re very close to Matthew 5:48 – perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.

    In our minds, this means that God really should make things work for us. We’re good people. We have the righteous, joyful mask and everything! So we would pray this prayer with a certain amount of aggrieved self-righteousness. “Lord, how can you possibly treat your best-behaved child in this way? Get me out of here!” If we prayed this verse, it would be with a haughty look, and a proud heart.

    Now if you’ve read the rest of the Psalm, I think it’s hard to accuse the Psalmist of that in this case. Yet I think there’s a reason for this verse. If that’s what you’re thinking, go right ahead and explain it to God. God already knows. God will not be shocked by your attitude.

    On the other hand, God isn’t necessarily going to follow up by snatching you out of whatever trouble you’re in.

    What can you tell God honestly today, and admit to yourself at the same time?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:152 – Eternally Varied

    Psalm 119:152 – Eternally Varied

    I’ve known this for a long time about your testimonies:
    You established them from ancient times.

    This is one of the cases in which my use of standard translations for each of the “law words” in this Psalm looks just a little off, but I’m sticking with it. Of course, it is quite possible to read this as including the record of God’s creation in which case we do learn from creation itself about how firmly founded God’s law is right from the beginning.

    I tend to blur the boundary that theologians prefer between special and general revelation. I think that potentially everything reveals God, provided that we are looking. The revelation provided in scripture or in prophetic words and experiences differs in approach and purpose, but not in quality.

    This applies to study of natural sciences for example. I would say that good scientific study provides potentially accurate information about that natural world, and is more likely to do so accurately than scripture.

    Hey! What? Are you speaking against the value of scripture? No. I’m saying that scripture does not have teaching us science as its purpose. We have the natural world and the minds God graciously provided us to study the natural world. The way to learn about these things is to “read” them in the way that is provided.

    This is another way that we can learn from “testimony” about how God has founded his rules. We see the record of the universe through devices such as the James Webb Telescope. We see the history of this world in the rocks. In studying these things we can learn not only about the things themselves, but about the God who created them.

    And note that I’m not here debating special creation and evolution. No matter what the process, God is the creator, and we can see the stability of what God has decreed for the entire universe.

    So in “reading” the universe I can learn that God has established his rules firmly “from ancient times.” God is not a God of chaos but of stability. It is in observing these things, however, that I also see God as a God of freedom and not of micromanaged control. Here others might disagree with my reading, both scientifically and theologically.

    Nonetheless, in the dance of stars and galaxies, where some even collide or pass through one another with a great deal of destructive force, I see a game with firm, stable rules, but played by elements with considerable options in how those rules are applied.

    And I bring this up because it is precisely this kind of disagreement about interpreting nature in terms of God’s presence in it and relationship to it as a reason why we need to get the real answer from written scripture. We need to get that all settled much more clearly.

    Except that we don’t. Get it settled clearly, that is.

    We get so many different interpretations of the Bible that it’s really hard to even catalog all the things that may claim the title “what the Bible teaches.” It doesn’t do any real good to explain to people that the problem is that they are all wrong, whereas I, of course, am right.

    I would suggest that if God wanted a unanimity in understanding either creation or the written word, God would have done things quite differently. “Differently” might have involved either different people, a different universe, or a different written word, or more likely all three. I suspect God didn’t do it the way we have it by mistake, so I take it God wants us to have to wade through the variety and do our best to interpret.

    I’m still going to argue for what I believe scripture teaches. I think that’s a good idea. I hope you do too, even if, or especially if you disagree with me. I think that disagreement, done right, can create growth. And all of that goes back to the God who created this all precisely as God desired it, not as I desire it.

    In disagreeing today with others, as you doubtless will, consider the God who made all those diverse wonders of nature, people, and viewpoints possible.

    Rejoice! Revel in the diversity God has created.