[OBW]

I was reading through some of the more recent posts and keep noting a kind of dissonance when thinking through the controversial texts (such as the Psa 137 lines) with the thread title of "The Psalms are the word of Christ."

I see zeek and awareness floundering with the harshness of thoughts and events as recorded in scripture. I can declare that it is really just a metaphor for something spiritual. But at some level that might not always be true. There is vengeance . . . and some still to come. It does not always fit our "enlightened" thoughts on morality.

For me, this all comes down to the tendency to make everything about each and every word be infinitely important. "The Psalms as the word of Christ," or "God is love," or "vengeance is mine." We had this kind of discussion back in the thread on Job. Each of these statements, if absolute in the most extreme way of understanding, creates a bipolar god. He is absolutely love. Yet he is absolutely righteous and just. And he exacts vengeance — absolutely.

Each of these views demands that the one view rule absolutely. God is love, therefore he cannot exact vengeance. In the thread on Job, someone said something like "Job called out for the God of mercy (or justice) but got the God of power (or something else)" as if we are really dealing with a service center full of gods to deal with certain issues. One for mercy. One for justice. One for healing, etc.

So then we say "The Psalms are the word of Christ." What do we mean by that? Do we mean that every word written is a declaration by Christ as if spoken while walking around Judea and Samaria during his earthly ministry? Of course not. It is a record of God, who He is, and his interaction with his people. His people are often a mess, or in dire circumstances and that is reflected in what they write.

If we take the Psalms as mostly a record of the prayer and praise life of Israel (or at least certain ones of them) then the words, emotions, etc., captured are those of the writers, not God (or often not of God). In that sense, Psalms are the word of Israel about God. But the parts written and collected together as Psalms are also revealing concerning the nature of God (just, loving, forgiving, guiding, etc.) and of the ways that He has interacted with Israel. That is the "Word of God." And as such, it is the "Word of Christ," or, more accurately, it is Christ, because Christ is the Word of God.

But that is different from saying it is words "spoken by God." If we think that "God-breathed" means that he stood by with a megaphone so that someone would hear him and they then wrote them down, we don't understand "God-breathed." Or "the word of God." God did not say "Have mercy on me, Oh God, according to your steadfast love." That was David. But the prayer, and the expectation of response is a true statement about God. As such, it is the word of God. And its content is inspired by God. It is the fact of a loving and forgiving God that caused David to cry out in repentance.

Parsing verses does not answer the questions. That is the legacy of our modern view of scripture. "There's a verse for that." God answers the questions and the needs . . . and not always with a verse. Sometimes with nothing more substantial than a sense of peace. Or unexplained comfort during hardship.

And the revelation of such things in scripture is "the word of God," or "the word of Christ" even though God did not literal speak the thing recorded.

How do you know the difference? If God actually said it, there is a different consideration for its meaning than if someone else said it. Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself." I probably cannot declare that to have no ambiguity, but surely not much. It is what God directly said. But "happy is he who takes your children and dashes them against a rock" has some kind of meaning, even if not literal.

As long as we are wandering around in the "what about this word" kind of thinking, I think we are simply lost. But I believe that the premise of the thread was to counter Lee's declaration that most of the Psalms could have essentially been omitted. They really were not of "scripture" quality. God's breath was not in them in any way. And I agree that Lee was wrong.

I am encouraged that our real enemy will be defeated. Even his offspring will be terminated so that there is no Hatfield-McCoy kind of continuing battle. I want those "children" to be dashed against "the Rock."

Napalm and carry on.