Psalm 1, Psalm 14-15, Psalm 36-37, Psalm 39
Ryan: One thing you definitely don’t read in the psalms (at least we haven’t yet) is how those who are righteous are those who do their offerings and sacrifices regularly and orderly, those who worship at the temple every Sabbath, or those who make every effort to appear holy to their neighbors. No, instead what you read is, “He whose walk is blameless…does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman” (Psalm 15:2-3, emphasis added). We also read, “The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just” (Psalm 37:30). When reading through these psalms, I was reminded of the book of James, one of my favorites from the New Testament. In it, James writes,
“If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:26-27)
God wants our hearts, and he wants us to love others more than ourselves. Everything else is secondary.
Samantha: My grandma once gave me a framed poem of my name, where each line of description began with a letter from my name. I learned later that is called an acrostic, where each line starts with a letter that spells out a word, or just spells out the alphabet. In Psalm 37 we read what is an acrostic in the original Hebrew. Looking at the Hebrew version at Mechon Mamre, you can see the beginning letter of each line in bold (remember Hebrew is read right to left). Using the Hebrew alphabet you can compare the two and see that each line is a successive letter. How cool is that? Poems don’t have to be boring–it’s like a hidden puzzle!
Tags: Discipleship
