The third stanza of Psalm 119 looks at how the word separates those who obey it from those who don’t. The psalmist starts with calling on God to help him obey the word by being good to him and opening his eyes to what the law says (v. 17-18). Then he says that he is a stranger on earth (v. 19) – that obeying God’s commands makes him different than those in the world who don’t obey the Word. He makes the distinction between those who obey and those who are arrogant and stray from God’s commands (v. 21) and
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The second section of Psalm 119 talks about how to stay on the path to purity and to have a heart that wants to avoid sin. It talks about the “young person”, or someone not yet possessing great wisdom. This section tells us that the word helps us to gain wisdom we need to keep from sin. In v. 11, the NIV translates the verse as “I have hidden your word in my heart”. From the NIV Study Bible (my primary commentary for this study of Psalm 119 – mainly because I’m using the Bible app on my phone so
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To begin the new year, I’ve decided to read through Psalm 119 to get my heart focused on God’s Word for the year. Most Bible readers know that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, but it’s also interesting for being an acrostic where the first letter of each section follows the pattern of the Hebrew alphabet. The author, which some commentaries attribute as a priest, took care to find a way to express his love for God’s Word through a highly organized and complete psalm. The NIV Study Bible notes that the author used eight Hebrew terms
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( Note (1/4/16): these are my raw notes from the communion message from 12/27/15. I may revise these to make them more readable later, but here they are for now…) Last Sunday / worship service of 2015 end of the year, but beginning of a new year – look back at fun memories, victories but also disappointments and failures – look ahead to resolutions, goals, new opportunities, with new challenges ending things well: 2 villians of of Christmas and what they were like after Christmas was over – Scrooge quote “And it was always said of him, that he
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He brought everything back, all the food for the feast, and he… He himself, the Grinch… carved the roast beast.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
