Bible Delight

Psalm 119:97 jumps off the page with these words, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” Is the writer kidding? How can you love the law? How can you delight in rules and regulations? Many today might consider him weird or at the least a little eccentric.

What are your thoughts when you read these words? How do you evaluate and handle them? These are serious questions because this verse is a good summary statement for Psalm 119. It’s an extended song about praise, joy, and delight for the law of God. It presents us with an individual consumed with longing for God. He seeks and finds God in God’s law which he refers to as God’s precepts, commands, decrees, statutes, and word.

The ESV Study Bible gives this introduction to Psalm 119. This psalm celebrates the gift of God’s Torah, or covenant instruction, as the perfect guide for life. . . By singing and praying its contents one expresses heartfelt admiration to God, who has so lovingly bestowed this great gift upon his people, and fervent yearning for one’s personal life to reflect the loveliness and goodness of the Torah.

Notice the two key thoughts. First, a celebration for the gift of God to us in his precepts, commands, decrees, and word. Have you praised and thanked God for this great gift to us? Second, a longing to reflect the loveliness and goodness of the truths he has revealed to us. Is this the longing of your heart?

Do you long to have a life that reflects a delight in God and his word? Then I invite you to come to the class called “Bible Delight.” It will meet on Sunday mornings from 9:00 – 10:15 in room 305 from May 31st through July 26th. (This will be the only Sunday morning class offered.) Al Eggleston and I will teach this 9 week study of Psalm 119.

One of our aims will be to celebrate what we have learned in the class. So each class will conclude with a time of prayerful response to the truths we have learned that day. We want to sing from the heart our praise to and for God.

A second aim we will have is to work through the 176 verses in this Psalm by dealing with several sections of verses each week. We will be using Bible Delight: Heartbeat of the Word of God: Psalm 119 for the Bible teacher and hearer by Christopher Ash. (I think Mr. Ash must be a Puritan at heart to come up with a title like this.) He has used his study in a training course to give individual practical ministry skills. Over the years he has made this study both practical and personal. I believe it will be very helpful to us.

Our focus will be on the main ideas of each section. We don’t want to merely know what it says in these verses. We are praying that God will make these truths a part of our daily life. We long for our lives to reflect our delight in and joy for God.

My prayer is best stated by the psalmist himself in verses 169-176,
May my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word. May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise. May my lips overflow with praise, for you teach me your decrees. May my tongue sing of your word, for all your commands are righteous. May your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me. I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

If you are coming to class, I encourage you to make this a prayer for our class. Change the singular personal pronouns to plural pronouns. Adopt it as our class prayer and cry out to God for us with these words on a daily basis. Our study will accomplish little if God is left out. We need him to transform our hearts and minds.

As Christopher Ash says, We must join in. For this psalm opens for us a window into a world where the people of God love the word of God. It invites us not just to look in through the window as into a strange world, but to climb in, to enter this world and live in it, as we too sing the psalm.

Elder Jim Gordon