Psalm 119:22 Guilty of Contempt

Remove from me their scorn and contempt, for I keep your statutes.

Psalm 119:22

Scorn and contempt are contagious.

If you doubt me, take a few moments to read through the trending topics on Twitter right now. I don't even know what the Top 10 trending topics will be when you read this, but I can guarantee that at least a few of them will consist of people tweeting back and forth to another with scorn and contempt for each others' opinions.

The same is true of any controversial topic on Facebook, or the comments section on any online newspaper article about any topic even remotely controversial. In 21st century America, scorn & contempt is the universal language.

As a Christian, how do you respond when people oppose you with scorn and contempt, whether in person or online?

Remember. And beware. Scorn and contempt are contagious. The very scorn and contempt you find so distasteful in those who oppose God can easily rub off on you. Your distaste for their ways and their words can shift toward scorn and contempt before you realize it's happening.

From what I've observed, there are few believers who can honestly say they've never succumbed to the temptation to respond to anti-Christian rhetoric by answering sarcasm for sarcasm. Or returning stereotypes for stereotypes. Applying labels for labels. Tossing out dismissive generalizations for dismissive generalizations. Anger for anger. Scorn and contempt for scorn and contempt.

 In Psalm 79, David comes perilously close to adopting the attitudes of the enemies of God in his expression of anger toward them.

O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble. They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild. They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead. We are objects of contempt to our neighbors, of scorn and derision to those around us.>

Psalm 79:1-4

In the end, though, he understands that all their scorn and contempt, while it appears it's directed toward God's people, it's actually directed toward God himself.

And God is one who will answer them.

Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the contempt they have hurled at you, Lord.

Psalm 79:12

When we give in to expressing our scorn and contempt for the enemies of God, that's when we should realize we're no longer keeping his statutes.

There is nothing the world can throw at us that will ever justify our defending God and his statutes in a way that goes against his statutes.