TO CHEW ON: "Forever, O Lord,
Your word is settled in heaven....
Your commandment is exceedingly broad." Psalm 119:89,96
Asking one to accept the eternal verity of any set of facts or truths in our day of advancing knowledge and shifting values seems nervy. Yet that's what the psalmist declares here — the eternal certainty of God's word.
Contrast this with the way standards change all around us. For example, when I was growing up there was no whisper of the possibility of homosexual people marrying. Now you can lose your job if you take a stand against such marriages. That's only one example of others we could give.
In contrast to the shifting and changing of "truth" around us, God's words are "forever...settled in heaven." J. I. Packer says God's words to us "...are the index of reality. They show us things as they really are, and as they will be for us in the future according to whether we heed God's words to us or not" - Knowing God
, p. 124. The second verse I've picked to focus on says that God's words are also "exceedingly broad." Broad enough to speak to every aspect of life? I would say yes.
Nancy Pearcey says:
"To say that Christianity is the truth about total reality means that it is a full-orbed worldview. The term means literally a view of the world; a biblically informed perspective on all reality. A worldview is like a mental map that tells us how to navigate the world effectively. It is the imprint of God's objective truth on our inner life....God's word becomes a set of glasses offering a new perspective on all our thoughts and actions" - Total Truth, p. 23,24
Whether we are aware of it or not, each one of us has a worldview. Let's be watchful that ours is based on the truth of God's eternally settled, exceedingly broad word.
PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for Your word. Help me to study it, understand its implications for my life, and then apply it in obedience. Amen.
MORE: Thinking Christianly
"'Thinking Christianly' means understanding that Christianity gives the truth about the whole of reality, a perspective for interpreting every subject matter. Genesis tells us that God spoke the entire universe into being with His word — what John 1:1 calls the Logos. The Greek word means not only Word but also reason or rationality, and the ancient Stoics used it to mean the rational structure of the universe.
Thus the underlying structure of the entire universe reflects the mind of the Creator. There is no fact/value dichotomy in the scriptural account. Nothing has an autonomous or independent identity, separate from the will of the Creator. As a result, all creation must be interpreted in light of its relationship to God. In any subject area we study, we are discovering the laws or creation ordinances by which God structured the world" - Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth
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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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