Psalm 119:91 Never-Ending Story

Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.

Psalm 119:91

When "Adam made love to his wife Eve," says Genesis 4:1, "she became pregnant." That natural, loving act produced a biological result, because that was God's design for procreation.

When men and women today join together in that same emotional and physical act, children are the result, because God's design hasn't changed.

The first children, Cain and Abel, were farmers. Cain planted seeds in the ground, which germinated and produced food-bearing plants, because God had set up the rules for how plants would grow. Abel tended flocks, which procreated according to the same basic biological imperatives that had produced Cain and Abel.

Families on farms just a few miles from me are still engaged in the yearly cycles of planting and harvesting, raising and butchering, knowing that the same basic rules of farming will still hold true.

When Cain's offering failed to bring the same positive response from God, "his face was downcast." God set him straight about the way he had designed human psychology:

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:7)

The principle is clear: Right actions produce right feelings. Wrong actions produce wrong feelings. It doesn't work the other way around. Peter repeats that principle in I Peter 3:10-12. "Whoever would love life and see good days must..."; and then he lists some of the things a person must do if they're going to love life and see good days. It doesn't work to wait until you feel good before doing good, because God designed human psychology to work the other way around. And it still works that way today.

When Cain failed to control his own psychological and emotional reactions according to God's design, he attacked and killed his brother. God punished him for this act, establishing a law against murder, based on God's righteous character. This prohibition was repeated throughout biblical history and still stands today, because God is still the God who is over everything.

Biology still serves the God who invented biology. Agriculture has always functioned in service to the God who created and sustains all of nature.

Our mental, emotional, and spiritual psychology were designed to serve God, because he created us in His image.

And the laws of right and wrong and justice and mercy are the same today as they have always been because the only laws that stand the test of time are the ones that serve God and his rightousness rather than serving the whims of man.

Psalm 119:89-90 Long Story

 

Your word, LORD, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.

Psalm 119:89-90

The Word of God is eternal because God is eternal. But the earthly lifespan of God's people is not.

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

Genesis 6:3

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Psalm 90:10

Generation after generation has encountered God's Word. It has remained steadfast throughout those generations, because God remains faithful.

But the way God's Word comes alive through His people changes as the generations change.

In modern times, the culture changes quickly. With each new generation comes a new way of thinking about and living in the new realities of life on earth.

In 1992, Neil Howe and William Strauss published Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584-2069. In it they described a cyclical series of four generations (approximately 17-20 years) that have repeated throughout American history. Their work popularized the terms Generation X and the Millennial Generation.

Not everyone agrees with everything about their description of the generations, but it's undeniably true that current American culture changes rapidly from one generation to the next.

Throughout most of the world's history culture changed much more slowly. Rather than radical changes with each generation, they saw such changes take centuries.

Nevertheless, changes in culture have always changed the way people read and apply God's Word.

When the Israelites were a nomadic tribe, God commanded them to worship at the tabernacle. When they settled into the promised land, God had them build a temple, and God commanded his people to worship there. Years later, after God's people had settled into worshiping the temple itself, Jesus taught that "a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4:23)

Did God's Word change? No. The point had always been to worship the One True God. Today we worship in different places and in vastly different ways than the first century church did. But we're still faithfully worshiping the God who is still faithful to His people.

His Word is the same throughout every era.

The scriptures are the inspired record of how the LOGOS, the WORD, expressed Himself in various times through the millennia and in many places throughout the world.

Our goal should not be to imitate the specific ways the people of God expressed their faithfulness during biblical times. Whether during the times of the tabernacle, the temple, the synagogues, the church in the catacombs, the church of Christendom, the church on countless missionary fields, or the church in your home town, the goal has always been to stay faithful to the Word in a way that draws people to Him.

Psalm 119:89 The Storyteller

Your word, LORD, is eternal;
 it stands firm in the heavens.

Psalm 119:89

"So, what does this scripture mean to you?"

I cringe whenever a bible study leader asks that question. I'm sure they mean well, but it reflects a flawed approach to the Word.

In today's American church there's a pervasive tendency to view the Word as something wholly personal. The point of every study is discover how this particular set of verses applies to your own life.

Some who eschew the introspective approach to the Word take what they think is the opposite approach. For them, every bible study should focus on dissecting the living Word and arranging the various parts together like tinker toys. The goal is to arrange the parts into a carefully arranged construct and call it religion.

This theological approach often carries with a subtle goal of proving that "my version of doctrine is better than yours." Which makes it a more complex version of the "what does this scripture mean to you" approach.

Both methods make a mockery of the Word.

The Word is not yours. It's not mine.

It's the Word of God Himself.

The Word is eternal - it existed long before any verse was ever written down on clay tablets or papyrus or in your Bible app.

The Word's foundation is not built on our hearts, even if it is written on our hearts. Its roots are not in your church or denomination or in your small group or in the emotional center of your heart.

It stands firmly in the heavens, where it came from the mouth of the God Almighty.

It certainly can mean something to you, but only when you let your identity be absorb and transformed by the eternal Word. Allow it to interpret your past and present and future, rather than interpreting the Word through the lens of your own experiences. Allow it to define your identity, rather than defining the scriptures according to what seems to fit with who you believe yourself to be.

It also is definitely the final and authoritative source of sound doctrine, but only as it represents the logos of God (the literal translation of theology: theos-logos) and not your own thoughts and opinions and conclusions. Allow the Word to dissect your heart and soul and mind, rather than using your own faculties to dissect the scriptures.

Psalm 119:89-96 Lamedh

This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would brush each of his thirty-two teeth seventy-six times. Thirty-eight times back and forth, thirty-eight times up and down. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing.

Those are the opening lines from the 2006 film StrangerThan Fiction.

The lines are spoken by Emma Thompson, who is playing an author, Karen Eiffel. She’s writing a novel about a man named Harold Crick, and in the opening scene we see Harold, played by Will Ferrell, brushing his teeth while she narrates the action.

Then we see Harold Crick, pause and begin listening to the narration. He shakes his head, looks behind the bathroom mirror, and is obviously confused. Soon he is talking back to the voice, asking who is talking.

As the plot develops, we realize Harold is a real person, and he is hearing someone narrate his life…as she writes the story. This is merely annoying and disturbing until he’s standing at the bus stop and hears the narrator say “little did he know that events had been set in motion that would lead to his imminent death.”

Harold has to deal with the idea that someone is writing a script, the plot line of his life…and death. Perhaps there’s a bigger meaning to his life than what he once thought, something outside himself.


The Greek philosophers – Socrates, Aristotle, and the like – believed there must be a greater overall meaning and purpose, a driving plot line for life and the universe. They called this ultimate purpose, this ultimate story, the Logos. The Greek logos is usually translated in English as Word. It could also be translated as Story.

When the apostle John wrote the gospel account that bears his name, he took that well known philosophical idea and turned it around. He says the Logos, the Word, is not just some big hypothetical Story.

It is, in fact, a Storyteller.


Repetition is a key element in the Hebrew poetry tradition David uses throughout the Psalms. The 119th Psalm is especially repetitive, due to his single-minded focus on God’s Word.

One way David tries to alleviate the repetition is by using several different Hebrew terms to describe the scriptures. I suppose, like any good writer, he wanted to inject some variety to improve the reading experience.

He makes use of seven different terms for God’s words, and sprinkles them through the verses. The usual English translations for those seven words are law, statutes, precepts, testimony/covenant, commands, law/judgment, and word

Sometimes David will use a precise term to express a specific idea to best make his point. Often, though, it appears he uses the terms randomly.

I think that's because all of them express different aspects of the central concept: The over-arching story and purpose as defined by the divine Storyteller.

I tend to use Word most often in my writing, because the way John develops the Greek version (logos) of the Hebrew davar is so evocative of the bigger picture of God revealing himself to man “in many portions and many ways” (Hebrews 1:1).

In Psalm 119:89-96, David makes use of most of the different terms for God's Word to describe importance of the storyteller and His story in David's life.

Your word, Lord, is eternal;
 it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
 you established the earth, and it endures.
Your laws endure to this day,
 for all things serve you.
If your law had not been my delight,
 I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts,
 for by them you have preserved my life.
Save me, for I am yours;
 I have sought out your precepts.
The wicked are waiting to destroy me,
 but I will ponder your statutes.
To all perfection I see a limit,
 but your commands are boundless.

Psalm 119:89-96

Missional Politics: Stumbling Block

I'm re-posting updated selections from a previous series on Missional Politics during the current political season.
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My niece was just learning to walk. She would see the face and welcoming arms of someone she loved - her parents, grandma and grandpa, her many aunts and uncles - and she would try her best to stumble toward us.

Of course, we would make sure the path ahead of her was clear of stumbling blocks. Everything was picked up and moved out of her way, both to keep her from stumbling over them or becoming distracted by them.

I was glad to be one of the smiling faces she recognized and stumbled toward.

I also remember the time she was playing with me on the floor and she turned her face away from me for a moment. I chose that moment to remove my glasses to wipe them free of dust.

My niece turned back toward me, took one look at my face and screamed in terror. It took quite some time before she quit crying and even longer before she felt comfortable with me, the uncle whose face had suddenly changed.


The Bible tells us Jesus is both the cornerstone which upholds our faith and the stumbling block over which many people stumble before they ever reach faith.

For in Scripture it says:
     “See, I lay a stone in Zion,
       a chosen and precious cornerstone,
       and the one who trusts in him
       will never be put to shame.”
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
     “The stone the builders rejected
       has become the cornerstone,”
and,
    “A stone that causes people to stumble
      and a rock that makes them fall.”
              (I Peter 2:6-8)

If my political obsessions lead me to argue to often and too vehemently with non-believers about political issues, I've become a stumbling block. I'm distracting them from the smiling and welcoming face of the Father who loves them. I also risk causing them to stumble when they look at me and, instead of seeing the love of Jesus in my actions and attitudes and words, they see someone scary, someone who only wants to convince them of some political opinion.

Misisonal politics means making every effort to always point seekers to Jesus and to his love, even if you're engaged in a political conversation.

Get out of their way and let them see the love and righteousness of Jesus more than they see you and your opinions.

Get out of their way and let them stumble their way toward Jesus.

Get out of the way and let Jesus be the stumbling block.

Psalm 119:88 Halfway Home

In your unfailing love preserve my life,
that I may obey the statutes of your mouth.

Psalm 119:88

This is another of the 11 times David uses the phrase "preserve my life" in Psalm 119. Literally it's "make me alive".

Each time he uses that phrase, he tells us something about how God and God's Word gives us life. In verse 88, at the halfway point of Psalm 119, he tells us two things about the reason for living.

Unfailing love gives you a reason to live.

A long, long time ago I asked a young lady if she knew the best four words in the English language.

"I love you?" she said, hesitantly. "No, that's three words."

"The four best words," I told her. "I. Love. You. Too."

"I love you" can be unrequited. It can be a blurted out phrase that falls flat. But "I love you too" is only said when there's an actual relationship, whether it's just beginning or decades long.

That sort of relationship can be energizing. When that mutual spark first burst into flame, both parties feel a new joy in living, a wholly different purpose for getting up in the morning and moving through the day.

How much more, then, does the loving relationship between God and a "man after God's own heart" energize and provide a reason for living?

Psalm 119 is David's trip diary, chronicling his journey on the 1 road, and about how he developed and maintained a deep love for the God who loved him.

If you want to be energized for the remainder of your journey on the 1 road, go deep in His Word and learn to align your heart with God's heart.

Obeying the statues of God gives you a reason to live

What's your reason for getting up in the morning? What's your goal for this year, for this life?

Whatever you put at the top of your To Do list, has it ever occurred to you that this should be first?

Obey the statues of God's mouth

Obeying is so passé these days. Most people don't get too excited about obeying anyone or anything. A lot of preachers don't like to talk about obeying, preferring to emphasize our freedom in Christ.

But David writes about obeying God no less than twenty times in Psalm 119.

And Jesus was quite clear about the importance of not ignoring the Law.

Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:19

Then Jesus continues, making it clear that it's not as simple as focusing on obeying a bunch of rules.

But For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:20

If, like David, you're trying to align your heart with God's heart, then his commands and precepts and laws are windows into His heart. He doesn't make up those rules randomly. Each law is an expression of what God loves and hates, what He prioritizes, and the behaviors He knows are best for you, the one who He loves.

The laws are a description of righteousness, not the other way around. Righteousness is the reason to live. The laws are the signposts along the way.

Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me.

Psalm 119:175

Missional Politics: Kobayashi Maru

I'm re-posting updated selections from a previous series on Missional Politics during the current political season.
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The 2016 presidential election presented a classic Kobayashi Maru scenario - a "no win" situation.

For the non Trekkies who are reading this, the Kobayashi Maru, according to the Star Trek wiki, MemoryAlpha:

...was an infamous no-win scenario that was part of the curriculum for command-track cadets at Starfleet Academy in the 23rd century. It was primarily used to assess a cadet's discipline, character and command capabilities when facing an impossible situation, as there is no (legitimate) strategy that will result in a successful outcome.

Many voters saw no legitimate strategy that would result in a successful outcome to this election. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates were repellent in their own ways. We were faced with the choice of voting for the one we were least scared about. The only alternative seemed to be either a vote for a third party candidate or staying home and not voting at all, both of which choices would effectively help one or the other of the "mainstream" candidates to win.

For a Christian, though, there is no such thing as a no-win scenario.

In the fictional world of Star Trek, there was one cadet who found a way to win.

In the 2250s, James T. Kirk became the first (and only known) cadet to ever beat the no-win scenario. After taking the test and failing twice, Kirk took the test a third time after surreptitiously reprogramming the computer to make it possible to win the scenario. Kirk was subsequently awarded a commendation for "original thinking" and later commented, wistfully, that his stunt "had the virtue of never having been tried."

Some people reacted to the presidential election by "reprogramming" their minds to conveniently ignore the flaws and flubs of one candidate, while amplifying every slip up and questionable comment by the other. Many of those people are still doing that today. For a Christian, this should never be an option. The Father of Lies is quite pleased when his opponent's followers resort to spinning the truth.

As Christians, our mission is not to buy into the platforms and purposes of the culture, but to "reprogram" our minds. The scriptures don't use the term "reprogram", but they do talk about the  "renewing of the mind" (Romans 12:2), being "made new in the attitude of your minds" (Ephesians 4:23), and "taking every thought captive" (II Corinthians 10:5).

If we reprogram our minds to to see things the way God sees them, we'll understand, first of all, that God is in charge, and that no king, no president, no nation is more powerful or more important than the King of Kings. In the Old Testament, God frequently is described as laughing or scoffing at the pretensions of rulers and principalities. If God thinks so little of them, why do we, as people who put our trust wholly in God, allow ourselves to get caught up in the hysteria surrounding who will be the next president?

Having your mind rooted in the Word of God, rather than in the world's version of the Word,  will change how you respond to the way the culture around us is reacting to the elections. As I've said before,

While people around you are pushing the edge of the envelope in favor of an extreme, whether politically conservative or liberal, the missional believer will continue to stretch him or herself to sacrificially seek and save the lost. 

As we reprogram our hearts to love what God loves and hate what He hates, we'll be driven by His concern to seek and save the lost. We'll be eager to leapfrog past the political wranglings to eagerly be salt and light in the world. As Eugene Peterson's The Message puts it, "bring out the God flavors" and the "God colors" in the world, in effect working to "reprogram" the way people in the world look at the world.

The alternative is to get caught up into the chaos of the no-win scenario, causing more harm than good. As one Star Trek cadet's poor performance in the Kobayashi Maru training exercise was described, "she destroyed the simulator room and you with it."

If my political obsessions lead me to argue too often and too vehemently with non-believers about political issues, I've become a stumbling block. I'm distracting them from the smiling and welcoming face of the Father who loves them. I also risk causing them to stumble when they look at me and, instead of seeing the love of Jesus in my actions and attitudes and words, they see someone scary, someone who only wants to convince them of some political opinion.

Our primary mission as Christians is not to win the battle for or against climate change, gun control, globalism, immigration, refugee settlement, political correctness, gay rights, racial equality, trickle down economics, a living minimum wage, or even abortion.

Our mission is play our part in reprogramming the minds and hearts of the people we encounter to honor god and trust Him as Lord, not to spin our wheels trying to win them to a political point of view.

So, go ahead and make the tough decision during this political season and vote for whichever candidates you can stomach. Or decide to not vote, if that's the only choice you feel you can live with. But don't let that choice push you into a no-win corner.

If you're focused on Jesus' mission, you're always going to  be on the winning side.