God’s Word

I wrote recently about the first half of Psalm 19 and how the writer (probably King David) used a type of Hebrew poetry called ‘parallelism’ to extol the wonders of heavens above. In the second half of the psalm, David then uses the same technique to praise God for the wonders of his written word. In all of my reading over all of my years, I’ve never encountered any other book that could command the same effusive praise that David ascribes to the written word of God. But more than that, this is not simply a random thanksgiving for all that God’s word brings to David’s life. Rather, it is a very carefully structured, thought-through tribute to the ways God’s word helps him - and of course us too - live out our lives. If the first half of Psalm 19 is a call to ‘look up’ in wonder, the second half is a call to ‘look down’ to the words of the Scriptures that God has given us: in both these ways we can see, profoundly, the handiwork of our great Creator God.

We live in a time when access to God’s word has probably never been so widespread, and where the variety of different interpretations of it have never been more numerous. And yet, despite all this and the incredible amount of additional information now available online, how many of us share the absolute delight that David expresses here? Sometimes I think there is a danger that familiarity can breed, if not contempt exactly, then perhaps a lukewarm attitude to this incredible gift. Not so with David! He highlights the Scriptures with a wonderful array of metaphors: law, statutes, precepts, commands, ordinances, and his descriptions of it as perfect (reviving the soul, trustworthy), making wise the simple, right (giving joy to the heart), radiant (giving light to the eyes) are so profound. And I love it that then, as if to involve a greater wholeness to our appreciation, he goes on to speak of the word of God as more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. How marvellous!

David concludes his great poetic appreciation with a call to himself to remember the very One who gave us the skies above and the words below: ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer’ (verse 14).

My prayer for us each is that we also will then take time to speak out these words, to meditate on all they contain. Then, as we do so, may we also be those who bring glory to the Lord as the one immovable force in life, the One whose word tells us the story of our own redemption and may we then live this out in the moments of our daily lives. If the heavens declare the glory of God (verse 1) may we be those who declare it on earth (verse 14).