73 Your hands made me and formed me;
give me understanding
so that I can learn your commands.
74 Those who fear you will see me and rejoice,
for I put my hope in your word.
75 I know, Lord, that your judgments are just
and that you have afflicted me fairly.
76 May your faithful love comfort me
as you promised your servant.
77 May your compassion come to me
so that I may live,
for your instruction is my delight.
78 Let the arrogant be put to shame
for slandering me with lies;
I will meditate on your precepts.
79 Let those who fear you,
those who know your decrees, turn to me.
80 May my heart be blameless regarding your statutes
so that I will not be put to shame.
In the tenth stanza of Psalm 119 ( י/yod), our psalmist continues to reflect on the compassion, comfort, and hope that comes to us through God’s Word. As we read in verses 76 and 77, “May your faithful love comfort me as you promised your servant. May your compassion come to me so that I may live.” This is perhaps what is most challenging about this entire psalm, and yet, at the same time, it is the most encouraging. In every stanza of the psalm, the psalmist is relentless in affirming that the Word of God is the primary means by which we experience God’s grace. The comfort, the peace, the hope, the love, the wisdom that we so desperately need day by day is readily available if we would just open our Bibles and read. And yet, so many Christians today live and long for the mountain top experience, that emotional or spiritual high that thrills and exhilarates in the moment. But our psalmist is clear; lasting transformation happens through the ordinary disciplines of the Spirit and the Word, those repeated rhythms of grace that bring us back time and again to the foot of the cross.
Of course, the God of the Bible is free to dispense His grace by whatever means and in whatever ways He so chooses. Sometimes He does carry us to the top of the mountain of religious experience, but more often than not He meets us in the regular moments of faithfulness in our day to day lives. And this is exactly the point, namely that as our creator, He knows exactly what we need to grow in godliness. As our psalmist says here in verse 73, “Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding so that I can learn your commands.” God has ordained the regular disciplines of the Spirit as the primary means by which we are transformed by His Word; steady, plodding faithfulness in the disciplines of the Spirit is His preferred method of transformation. By way of analogy, we understand that the regular intake of a well balanced diet leads to general health and well being; on the other hand, a diet of large and rich meals eaten only sporadically and intermittently would not provide the nutrition that we need to grow physically. So, also the regular intake of the Word through the classic spiritual disciplines leads to our growth and transformation into the image of Christ.
Another way that the psalmist challenges our experiential expectations is that he affirms that these rhythms are not to be solitary or individual affairs. As we read in verse 74, “Those who fear you will see me and rejoice, for I put my hope in your word”, so also in verse 79, “Let those who fear you, those who know your decrees, turn to me.” While daily devotional reading is a crucial part of the Christian life, God’s grace also comes when we gather with other Christians around the Word. The vision of the New Testament is that the regular gathering of the Christian community, i.e. the church, would be saturated in the Word. The simple fact of the matter is that no one person has exhaustive and complete knowledge of God’s Word; we need each other’s perspectives and experiences to help us grasp God’s Word more fully. As Proverbs 27.17 reminds us, “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another. Or as we read in Colossians 3.16, “Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” In other words, the Spirit of God brings the people of God together by the Word of God that they might grow in the grace of God.
This principle, namely the necessity of each other as we grow in godliness, is even more pressing when we are facing the difficulties and hardships of life. As our psalmist writes in verse 75, “I know, Lord, that your judgments are just and that you have afflicted me fairly.” Now, this verse deserves extensive treatment all on its own, and perhaps we can return to this thought another time. But the Bible is clear that God uses the trials in our lives to bring us to the end of ourselves, so that we have no other choice but to rely upon Him and his Word. As Elihu says in Job 33.29-30, “God certainly does all these things two or three times to a person in order to turn him back from the Pit, so he may shine with the light of life.” After all of the discussion between Job and his three friends, Elihu comes along to minister the grace of God’s Word to Job in his trials, and in the same way, when we are facing hardships and heartaches, we need the Word infused grace of God’s people to help us persevere in godliness. As our psalmist prays in verse 78, “Let the arrogant be put to shame for slandering me with lies; I will meditate on your precepts.” and again in verse 80, “May my heart be blameless regarding your statutes so that I will not be put to shame.”
With all of being said, the main point is that we are fundamentally dependent upon God’s grace; it is a posture that we called to live in, one of dependence, of trust, of faith. And the good news is that God has already provided all that we need through His Son by His Spirit in His Word. As the apostle Peter writes, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2 Peter 1.3) The resources of His grace come to us through the ordinary means of faith, those classic spiritual disciplines, whose efficacy has been witnessed in every generation of believers. Scripture, prayer, community. These are the primary ways in which God renews and transforms, disciplines and heals. Of course, when God takes us to the mountain top, we should revel in it and enjoy Him to the utmost. But rather than living for the next spiritual or emotional high, we must learn to embrace the grace of the ordinary, to celebrate the small moments of God’s faithfulness, and to pursue steady and intentional growth in Christ through His Word moment by moment, day by day.
For further study:
Introduction
Psalm 119.1-8
Psalm 119.9-16
Psalm 119.17-24
Psalm 119.25-32
Psalm 119.33-40
Psalm 119.41-48
Psalm 119.49-56
Psalm 119.57-64
Psalm 119.65-72
Faith seeking Understanding 
On Biblical Interpretation and the Holy Spirit
Recently, I was following a thread on a friends Facebook post where the participants were discussing their disagreement on a question of biblical interpretation. The specific issue under debate is not important at the moment, and I’ll just say that I was surprised to find that this particular exchange was more graceful than these kinds of forums usually are. However, with that being said, after reading through the various points and counterpoints being made, I came across one response that made me pause. Figuring that the minds of the other participants were unlikely to change, one commenter attempted to conclude the discussion by saying:
In my previous post, I examined the question of “man-made” bible study resources, and I concluded that there is great wisdom in listening to the voices of those who have studied the Bible before us. We were never intended to approach Bible study as if we are the “lone ranger” of Bible interpretation, carving a path that has somehow never been carved before. Commentaries, theologies, and the like are part of God’s gift to the church (Ephesians 4.11-13); they are part of that “great cloud of witnesses” within which we pursue Christian maturity and godliness (Hebrews 12.1). However, even greater than these is the gift that is God’s Spirit. In the New Covenant, we who have been united with Christ by faith have been indwelt by God’s very Spirit, and He is the one who writes the Word upon our hearts and moves us to obey it (Jeremiah 31.33, Ezekiel 36.27). This is what makes Christian biblical interpretation unique; we have God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2.10-16).
Unfortunately, there is great misunderstanding as to the exact nature of the Spirit’s role in biblical interpretation, and in the space that follows, I would like to explore the contours of the Spirit’s work in Bible interpretation. According to the view represented by the Facebook comment above, all we need to do is read the Bible and then open our hearts and minds so that the Spirit can tell us what the Scripture means. This approach is essentially a recapitulation of the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. In other words, it suggests that Biblical knowledge comes to us by some kind of secret mystical experiential revelation from the Spirit apart from the text. But this is not the way that the Spirit works. Revelation is fixed, and the canon is closed. Moreover, the Spirit will not do for us what God has equipped us to do for ourselves. He has given us rational minds with the ability to read and comprehend His revealed Word. This is why we are repeatedly commanded to read, study, and grow in the knowledge of the Scriptures.
The Spirit’s work in biblical interpretation is not primarily revelatory; He does not impart the content of biblical meaning. Rather, His work pertains more to our accepting and obeying the principles that are revealed in the Scriptures. This is what is known in theology as the doctrine of illumination.
The Spirit illuminates our hearts to accept the truth of God’s Word, and He helps to conform our will in submission to that Word through conviction. This illumination comes to us not through some mystical experiential supra-rational revelation, but through the classic word-centered spiritual disciplines. In other words, once we have done our exegetical work in the text, then we must do our closet work (ala Matt 6.6) through memorization, meditation, and prayer. When we engage in these rhythms of the Spirit, we put ourselves in a posture where He can use the fruits of our study to sift our souls. As the Scripture says,
Under the New Covenant, one of the primary roles of the Spirit is to mediate the knowledge of God, but this ministry cannot, nay must not, be separated from the Word of God. Throughout all of Holy Scripture, the Spirit of God and the Word of God work together to transform the people of God into the image of God. More often than not, this transformation happens in ways and means that are consistent with the way God has made us. We do not seek any secret mystical revelation of God’s Word; rather, we use all of the natural and supernatural resources that God has given us to understand His revelation of Himself to us through His Word.
For further study:
On the Spirit and the Word
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2 Comments | tags: Bible Study Resources, Closet Work, Commentaries, Exegetical Work, Gnosticism, Holy Spirit, Illumination, Meditation, Memorization, New Covenant, Phillip Powers, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines, Theologies | posted in Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics, Spiritual Formation