Where Do You Keep Your Bible?

This is quite an undertaking! Literally it says, ‘I will guard and obey everything You say perpetually, always, forever’.

I’ve got a family bible given to her children by my great-great grandmother in 1867. I greatly value it, but I never read it. It sits in a safe place on my bookshelves. Next to me, on my desk, as I write this, is the bible I use day by day, open at Psalm 119. And on the shelf where it lives, when I’m not using it, are some others, a couple of them falling apart. If I click on a particular icon on my computer screen, I can gain access to other Bibles. But none of them have any potential to impact my life unless I open them and read them.

In today’s verse, the word translated ‘law’ is Torah. It means much more than ‘law’. It isn’t just law in the sense of rules. It’s the totality of all that God wants us to know so that we can live a life that’s pleasing to Him. It includes teaching and promises, instructive stories and warnings.

David’s Bible was just the first five books in our Bibles and, perhaps, some other writings. Maybe he had some of it written on scrolls. If he did, I’m sure he valued them greatly. But I know where he kept his bible: ‘I have hidden your word in my heart’ (Psalm 119:11). A Bible won’t do much unless it is truly taken to heart. There’s an old prayer that asks God to help us to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures. In other words, to get the word of God to where it feeds and nourishes the spirit and moulds and shapes all our thinking.

When he says that he’ll ‘keep’ God’s law, David means more than simply obeying it; he means he’ll look after it, guard it, keep it safe. He’ll treat it as a precious possession. When we have something that we really value, we keep it in a safe place. It may remain hidden away in a secret cupboard, a safe or even a bank vault. David’s safe place for God’s word is his heart. Here he’ll treasure it ‘perpetually, always, forever’. Come what may, he’ll never let it go.

It's in his heart – that deep, inner place where it can constantly feed, nourish and correct all his thinking, all his feelings, all his reactions, all his relationships, all his decisions. And it’s all of God’s word; not just the ‘nice bits’.