Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: speaking

  • Psalm 119:108 – A Freewill Offering

    Psalm 119:108 – A Freewill Offering

    Accept with pleasure the freewill offering of my mouth, LORD,
    and teach me your judgments.

    Most translations treat the “freewill offering of my mouth” as praise, though I note that the LXX translates it quite literary as “voluntary [gift] of my mouth.” I don’t say this is wrong. In fact, Psalm 119 itself can be seen as an offering of praise, offering thanks and praise to God for the various aspects of God’s word and law.

    But I think that a freewill offering of our mouths, and specifically what comes out of our mouths may be more than that. I’ve heard any number of preachers say that we’re willing to surrender everything to God, but we stop when it comes to our wallets. I think we stop before offering our speech, and by extension what we type, to God.

    Is everything you write the sort of thing you would think was good and left a positive record. I don’t refer to the vigorous presentation of opinions that are important to you. There are those who consider any sort of firm opinion as impolite. I’m not talking about firm. I’m not talking about strongly expressed. I’m talking about things we say that are harmful.

    • A group of church members in a Sunday School class run down their own church to a visitor
    • Mistaking the speaker for the day for a visitor, rather than a new member, a church member makes a litany of complaints about “this church” to which the visitor would surely not want to belong
    • A member of the church staff complains about other staff members in the hearing of people who are not responsible for dealing with staff issues
    • A shopper is rude to the person manning the checkout lane because they are in a hurry and mildly inconvenienced
    • A driver flips the bird at another driver whose driving skills are suboptimal
    • A parent yells at a child instead of correcting them firmly but kindly
    • We speak as if our disagreements in any area make another person less worthy of respect as a human being, created in the image of God
    • Because we believe someone is sinful, we fail to respect their full personhood as human beings and God’s children

    In 1 John 4 we read:

    Beloved, let us love one another,
    for love comes from God,
    and everyone who loves has been born of God
    and knows God.
    The one of does not love does not know God,
    because God is love.

    If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen is not able to love God, whom he has not seen.

    1 John 4:7-8,20, my translation

    Now how did I get to loving God and our fellow humans from a freewill offering from our mouth?

    I believe that lips expressing love will be giving the right kind of freewill offering, because God is love, and our love for God is shown by our love for one another. That offering will be determined by what is in your heart, “because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45, my translation).

    What is going to come out of your mouth today?

    (Featured image credit: By Wattana, licensed from Adobe Stock.)

  • Psalm 119:104 – Truth Matters

    Psalm 119:104 – Truth Matters

    From your precepts I improve my understanding.
    Therefore I hate every false path.

    It’s time to underline the difference between these meditations and exegesis. I study the verse first, looking at precisely what it says, and then I meditate on where that can lead me through the day. Sometimes that meditation leads me to other scripture, but often it leads me to other sources of knowledge and current events..

    In this case, the verse is really making a simple, straightforward contrast. There is a way defined by God’s precepts, and then there are alternatives. The psalmist accepts the wisdom that comes from God through those precepts. He rejects what does not. It is important to remember the breadth of what he sees in God’s law.

    But the direction my thinking took was this: How important is a firm commitment to truth? Now you can see how the verse suggests the topic for my meditation, but it doesn’t examine the details. It just lays out a contrast.

    In our postmodern world we have a tendency to say “in our postmodern world” a lot. Not necessarily in those words. We say it in a variety of words. “These young people are not like we were when we were young.” “In the good old days….” “It’s just getting so you can’t trust anyone any more.”

    One of these claims is that media, such as the internet and social media especially, have somehow made us less concerned with truth. The variety and volume of assorted voices makes it impossible to determine what is true and what is not. Falsehood and disinformation are entirely recent phenomena.

    We need to learn to hate every false way. Here are some examples.

    • I just don’t know what to believe. There have always been those who just don’t know what to believe. There have also been those who tended to believe convenient lies just because they were too lazy to seek out the truth, or they were afraid they wouldn’t like the truth. In the “good old days” you’d have to go to the library and consult an encyclopedia. Now, despite the multitude of voices, it’s quite possible to find information quickly. You have to want to find that information. You have to care. You have to be ready to spend the necessary time. If you don’t know, don’t blame others. Failing to take responsibility for your own beliefs is an excuse, and it’s one you can’t afford.
    • There are so many voices. Yes, there are many voices and many sources of misinformation. There are also, however, many sources of truth. Face it, most people who don’t bother to check on the truth of material on the internet wouldn’t have checked the gossip about their next door neighbor before believing it and passing it on. The problem isn’t the number of voices. It’s a refusal to be responsible and to take responsibility for what goes into your mind and what comes out of your mouth.
    • All of my friends believe it. This has been the tribal thing for years. We don’t want to differ from the people around us. When we do differ, we want to do it with a group behind us who will shout the other side down. It doesn’t matter what your friends believe. What matters is what they can support. If they can’t deal with disagreement, find better friends.
    • There are so many important issues! I have to take a stand! Yes, take a stand, but take a stand on what you’re going to regard as important, specifically important enough for you to express an opinion. There is a false standard that suggests you have to have and express an opinion on every topic. You don’t. You can choose your battles. As a publisher, I have a great option here. I can point people to an author I publish who provides a better discussion of a topic than I believe I could. Choose your ground and stand on that. Don’t allow anyone to force you to stand on theirs.
    • It’s not important what I believe, so why bother! You might think from the previous point that I think this. I do not. It is very important what you believe. That’s why you should choose carefully what you choose to debate. You should be sure you’re expressing something you can support as truth. I don’t mean you always need to be right. We will all make mistakes. But care in what we express and how we express it is important. Blathering on every topic even when we don’t have the needed knowledge is a very dangerous false way.
    • Confusing our opinion with the truth. This is a very common false way in Bible study. People present their view of the Bible or of a theological issue as though their interpretation is the very word of God and any who disagree are disagreeing with God. You and I are not the writers of scripture. We are not God’s special messengers blessed with infallibility. It is not humility to say, “This is just what the Bible teaches.” It’s dangerous arrogance. Let each person be taught by God. Show your work and speak in such a way that others can follow the steps and decide for themselves.
    • Fear of sources of knowledge. There are those who are afraid to look outside the Bible for their information. That is fear. It may sound godly, but it is not. There are those who find a human source of knowledge and then stick with it no matter what, because they are afraid of being confused. That is letting fear guide you. Hearing more than one viewpoint is part of checking the view you already have or building a new one.

    God speaks in many ways. Humans learn in many ways. Take control of what you take in. Take control of what you let out of your mouth or send through your keyboard.

    In loving truth and hating falsehood what will you speak today? On what will you keep silent?

  • The Importance and Durability of Words

    The Importance and Durability of Words

    Through a Facebook comment on my post yesterday, The Importance of Things Left Out, another thought came to me connected to my other post yesterday, Psalm 119:13 – Speaking It.

    The comment made my push my memory for when it was that my mother made the comment on Hannah and Elkanah in 1 Samuel 1, and I recall that it was in a Hebrew class at Walla Walla University that my mother and I attended together. The class was Hebrew Readings, and I was taking it as my third year of Hebrew, while she was taking it as her second.

    That class was about 45 years ago. I remembered her comment yesterday. That comment has, in turn, encouraged someone else. She would never have imagined this chain of events.

    It reminds me of coming in contact with a pastor with whom I had had no contact for a similar length of time. He was pastor of the church I attended my first year in college, 1974, and I encountered him again online around 2019 or so.

    In conversation, I mentioned to him that I remembered a sermon he had preached in 1974. It was quite memorable, as it was in a very large, well-off church filled with pillars of the community. It was also his first sermon as a new pastor. He preached on the church of Laodicea and how that church needed to take the lesson to heart, not be lukewarm, and reclaim their first love.

    He was surprised that I had remembered his words. I don’t remember many sermons over a long period of time, but I remembered that one as I wondered how long he would remain as pastor of the church he had just begun to serve.

    What words that you have said will be remembered? Do you want them remembered?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:13 – Speaking It

    Psalm 119:13 – Speaking It

    With my lips I have recounted
    All 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 waiting for one wrong word so that they can condemn you.

    I has been said that when all is said and done, a great deal more is said than done. This often comes from the one sanctimoniously declaring superiority and completely ignoring the fact that he (or she) is speaking and not doing.

    My first thought about this passage was to emphasize the importance of saying well-selected things, of being willing to be known for what you believe. That would have turned into a tangled post as I would also want to discuss all the good reasons for choosing what you would spend time talking about.

    But for me the more important lesson of this passage was simply how do I source the things I say. Where do these come from? How careful am I in hearing, studying, and applying the things I believe God said?

    This could come down to deciding when to speak and when not to, considering “a time for silence and a time for speech” (Ecclesiastes 3:7). The psalmist intends to declare the judgments that God has spoken. God’s judgments are spoken not only with accuracy but with perfect timing.

    When do you and I speak? Do we consider the “truth” of the time, the timeliness, as well as the factual truth of what we say?

    Let’s conclude with the words of another writer of Hebrew scripture:

    The Lord YHWH has given me the tongue of the learned,
    To speak timely encouragement to one who is weary.

    Isaiah 50:4 (REB)

    Are our words both timely and truthful?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)