Tag Archives: Bible

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Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:97-100

Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts

With the close of the last stanza, the psalmist has turned a corner. Where there was bleak despair just a few verses before, now there is complete joy and love for God’s Word. It is an incredibly uplifting passage. Take a look at it in Psalm 119:97-100:

Psalm 119:97-100

With such a change in tone, you might wonder if this is even the same person writing these words about God’s Word, but there is no doubt that it is. And the reason for his confidence is the topic of this stanza. The psalmist has identified the source of such joy and wonderment to be the very words of God.

Although the psalmist has written of God’s love before this, such as he did in verses 47 and 48, this is his most eloquent expression of it yet. In this stanza, he gives five different reasons that he loves God’s Word as much as he does, and communicates that to his readers in such a way that we are encouraged to love it deeply as well. Four of these are listed in the second half of this stanza, and we will not deal with them yet, saving them for next week.

But the first reason is repeated three times in the first half of the stanza, emphasizing its importance, and is worth examining a bit closer.

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Flight To Egypt

Matthew 2:13-18

While the Christmas season may be over for 2019, I still am enamored by the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Magi from the East came to visit him, bearing gifts. From there, Joseph took Jesus and Mary and headed to Egypt.

Flight To Egypt

King Herod was interested in finding the baby Jesus, not because he wanted to worship him, as he implied to the Magi, but because he viewed him as a threat to his throne. So he arranged for the Magi to return to him, relating the details of their discovery of Jesus, so he could eliminate him. However, God had other plans, and as we look at this section of Matthew 2, we can see that his plans were in place from the very beginning.

God sends an angel to Joseph in a dream, telling him to flee to Egypt, in verse 13. This was a command to depart right away, and verse 14 indicates that it probably took place on that same night that the Magi arrived. This was according to God’s plan all along, and Matthew indicates this clearly by one of a long list of prophecies that surrounded the birth of the Savior. In this case, the Old Testament passage quoted is from Hosea 11:1:

When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.

A trip to Egypt would not have been a difficult thing to do. Traveling one hundred miles directly from Bethlehem would put Joseph well past the border, and two hundred miles would put him at the Nile River. In Egypt, there the family would find friends, probably relatives, because there were an estimated one million Jews in the Nile valley at that point in history. Early tradition states that this small family came to the cities of On or Heliopolis. And of course, the trip was easily financed, with the gifts that the Magi had recently delivered to them.

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Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:93-96

Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts

Very often, we read Scripture with a very generalized view. By that, I mean that we don’t live as if God’s Word is really living and active in our lives. In this passage from Psalm 119, the psalmist shows just how important Scripture is in his own life. Take a look at the first half in Psalm 119:93-96:

Psalm 119:93-96

I fall into that camp all too often myself. I read through a passage of Scripture and fail to see the relevance to my own life. Sometimes, it’s because I am rushing through the reading, so I can get on with other aspects of my day. Other times, my mind is too distracted by something else. And still other times, I simply fail to trust that God’s Word will give me the strength I need to make it through the day.

Throughout Psalm 119, the writer has not done any of those things. He has had some low points in his life, where his enemies are attacking him, and where he almost seems to wish that his life were over, despairing to the utmost. But never, not once, does he give up on God’s Word as a source of the strength and power that sustains him through all of his trails and the events of his life.

In this stanza, the psalmist seems to have turned a corner, and the worst is behind him. From here, the tone of Psalm 119 will be much more uplifting. And here, in this passage, the writer tells us why. He gives us three things that God has given to him – and to us – through his Word.

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Read Through The Bible in 2019

Because It Matters What You Read

I can think of nothing higher on my priority list each day than to spend time in God’s Word. It’s that important. It really is.

Bible on Bench

I have tried over the years to find a Bible Reading Plan that makes a significant difference in my life, attempting and eliminating various options over the years. A few years ago, I found one that works for me quite well, and 2019 marks my seventh year of using it on a daily basis. I’ll describe it below, along with the impact it has had in my life.

Before I get to that, though, I want to reinforce what you probably already know to be true: that a daily Bible reading discipline is a necessity for the Christian life. It is difficult, if not downright impossible, to grow without spending significant time reading and studying the Word of God.

I won’t go into all the details of that in this article. I have written extensively on this over the years. Briefly, I’ll list several of the articles here:

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Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:89-92

Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts

While most of Psalm 119 doesn’t flow like a daily spiritual account of the author, some portions of it feel very personal. For instance, the twelfth stanza seems to be a personal cry out to God. Take a look at the first half in Psalm 119:89-92:

Psalm 119:89-92

With this stanza, we move past two points, the lowest, most despairing portion of the psalm, which we studied in the last three stanzas. We also move past the halfway point of this psalm. The preceding stanzas also seemed very personal, a glimpse into the suffering and affliction the psalmist had experienced.

In this passage, we begin to see that God came through, just as expected and as promised, and the tone of the psalm begins to pick up. In fact, from this point onward, Psalm 119 will continue to move upward, and in this passage, we see that the basis for that encouragement is the Word of God itself.

The first three verses here seem to almost state the same thing, that God’s Word is everlasting, and that it is something that we can depend upon, and build our lives on. God’s Word is everlasting, just like his faithfulness, and the laws he enacted.

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Does The Bible Have A Central Theme?

Finding The Threads That Run Through The Bible

Reading the Bible daily has long been a habit of mine, and as a minister, I spend a lot of time in deeper study as well. Over the years, I have picked up several threads that seem to run through the Bible consistently. But is there one single grand central theme? I think there is.

Central Theme of Scripture

I have posed this question to several different people over the last several months, and have come up with a variety of answers. Some have suggested that each book of the Bible has a distinct and independent theme. I can’t argue with that, although I feel that it is an incomplete answer. Others have been more vague, and said that the theme that runs through the entire Bible is simply Jesus. That, too, is correct, although it is overly simplistic, in my opinion.

So is there a central theme? And if there is, what is it?

The Bible is a very interesting and complex piece of literature. Comprised of sixty-six different books, and more than forty different authors, it has been compiled over a time span of centuries, from the earliest books written until the final pieces were completed shortly after the lives of Jesus, the apostles, and their contemporaries. With such a span of time and people, how can there possibly be a consistent theme?

The answer to that is simple. While the involvement of several human components stretched over time, the inspiration of it all was one source: the Holy Spirit. God was intimately involved in the writing of Scripture, so much so that one could say that, ultimately, the author of all Scripture is God himself.

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Threats And Gifts

Matthew 2:7-12

The second chapter of Matthew chapter two began by introducing the magi into the storyline. As they journey toward the Messiah, they seek help from Herod, who would rather eliminate any opposition to his power.

Threats And Gifts

The visit of the magi gave Herod the information he needed. He now knew where the Messiah was to be born, confirmed by the chief priests and scribes. Now, he decides to interrogate the magi further, to determine just when the star appeared. The purpose of this question was to find the age of Jesus, to narrow down his search. He was clever and crafty, but he sought Christ with wrong motives. His ingenuity was impressive, using the resources at his disposal, both the magi and the religious leaders, to discover the exact timing of the birth of Jesus.

From here, his deceit only gets worse. Herod sent them to Bethlehem. His goal was to use the magi to even further narrow his search for the child. His purpose was to find and kill the baby King, not worship Him! According to Jewish history, Herod had Aristobulus, the high priest, drowned by his companions while bathing. His political aspirations knew no bounds, using even religion to gain his own desires.

The magi continued on, probably suspecting the true nature of Herod. This would be confirmed to them by God later. For now, they continued to follow the star. In verse 9, Matthew states that it “stood over the place where the Child was.” For a star or planet to stand over any place or person, it must be in the zenith and have an altitude of ninety degrees. Even then, the distance is so great that it would be difficult to see it point to one specific location, even if it were a bright conjunction of planets. God can, and has, used naturally occurring events to make himself known, but this is probably a completely supernatural event, for the sole purpose of special revelation. Guided by such a star, the magi found Bethlehem by night and rejoiced.