God's Word and the Passionate Non-Pharisee

Not so long ago, we discussed the danger of pulling apart the strands of love and truth in the lifeline called Christianity.  As "knowledge" is frequently and foolishly vilified in many churches of today, it seems desirable to harken back to this subject from a slightly different path, to create a short tally of the immense and enlivening benefits that arise from understanding God's Word.  Psalm 119, unsurprisingly, has much to offer in this matter.  Here are four actions, all crucial to the believer, which an understanding of God's Word unlocks for us.  I will state them as commands to frame their critical nature in our lives; amen?

1.  Apprehend His glory.  "Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so I will meditate on Your wonders." (v. 27) We are happily used to seeing God's glory in the pages of His book, but perhaps it does not always occur to us to see His glory in His precepts.  Situated in those commands, though, are such wonders as His unwavering righteousness, His absolute wisdom, His sovereign hand, and His untiring justice.  These lie at the very heart of our Lord's character, and they radiate from His Word in very real and personal ways, because those very precepts are what shape our actions and choices as believers.  This is one of the invaluable ways in which God's glory becomes infused in our mission as His people - this is glory that we cannot afford to forgo.

2.  Passionately discern.  "From Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way." (v. 104) Here again, understanding is centered around the precepts in God's Word, but here the result is hatred of "every false way."  This is discernment of the most powerful sort.  It is discernment that informs literally every moral decision we must make, and it is discernment that is founded in a ferocious and dogged pursuit of God's righteous standards.  Notice the psalmist does not say, "I do not really like every false way"; he says, "I hate every false way."  Evil is repugnant to him; it offends him and excites a vehement and passionate reaction. He hates what is evil because he cherishes what is good (cf. Phil. 4:8).  Dare we attempt this class of spiritual discretion without understanding God's Word?  This is not sterile and pharisaical book knowledge, friends.

3.  Fervently obey.  "Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law and keep it with all my heart." (v. 34) At first blush, this is very obvious - we understand the Bible and we therefore obey God - but look again.  Not only does it help us to obey, but to obey with all our hearts.  This is fervent, zealous obedience, as opposed to begrudging, joyless obedience - as John describes it in 1 John 5:3:  "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome." 


We must examine this more closely for a moment - how indeed can a book accomplish such zeal as we see in the discernment and obedience described here?  First, it is because God's people read His book in the company of the Holy Spirit, who works powerfully through the Word.  We recall how similar the commands of "be filled with the Spirit" and "let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you" truly are (Eph. 5:18 & Col. 3:16).  God's Word and God's Spirit work together, or they do not work at all (cf. 1 Cor. 2:10-14).

Second, as we read God's Word, and God's Spirit works within us, we encounter none other than God Himself on the pages.  We behold His priorities, His perfections, and His precepts, and so we are given all the reason in the world (or properly, in Christendom) to love His beauty, to understand His commands, to pursue His righteousness, and to fear His judgments.  This is why we had to begin this blog with God's glory - it is the impetus, the force that imparts true spiritual momentum.


4.  Partake of true life.  "Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live." (v. 44) As God's Word is immutably righteous, being laid down and preserved by He who is immutably righteous, it imparts spiritual life to those who understand it.  We do not, as Moses tells us, "live by bread alone," but rather, "by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." (Deut. 8:3b) We cannot be pulled out of our Ephesians 2:1 spiritual death into Ephesians 2:5 spiritual life without an understanding of the Word.  Once God has given us life, we cannot grow and continue in that life without an understanding of the Word.  Would we scoff or ignore the very book that unlocks life itself?  By no means.

God has blessed us beyond measure with His Word, and it becomes us in every respect to seek a knowledge of it.  We must not fear becoming Pharisees simply for poring over its wealth, but we must see it as the divinely-appointed flame that truly ignites our hearts.  As a final note, do you see how every last one of these blessings (God's glory, obedience, discernment, and spiritual life) represents something that is beyond our natural inclinations?  We would not give glory to another, would not trouble to improve our discernment, and so forth, were it not for the work of the Spirit through His Word.  It is remarkable how the Lord turns us right side up, with powerful blessings which come through the Bible.

The Tree of Love Thrives in the Soil of Truth

Sometimes you come across a church that says something like, "we are a loving church we dont stress knowledge we just want to love jesus thats the important thing" (note the sarcastically intentional lack of capitalization and punctuation).  If ever you find such a church, or its close cousin, the "knowledge instead of love" church, make a note of its location so you do not inadvertently find yourself there on a Sunday morning. 

The idea that we can or should afford a higher premium to either truth or love is devastatingly false, as is the concept that these are entirely separate from each other.  We separate the two ideas, and we pick our favorites, according to our natural temperaments.  Love seems like less work than truth, and it would be less confrontational, right?  Or, Truth is simpler because I do not make obtrusive sacrifices for others. 

We cannot expect God's truth to have any significance in our lives if we do not love according to that truth.  Love is not an optional feature of God's program.  Similarly - and this is what I want to discuss - we cannot love while neglecting truth.  Paul makes this clear in Philippians 1:9-10:  "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ."

Paul's prayerful desire for the Philippians is that they grow in love - in a very specific manner.  Their love, their godly, agape love, requires two specific (and perhaps unexpected) catalysts in order to exceed its present quality. 

1.  Real knowledge.  The Greek is epignosis, which moves beyond simple knowledge to a more participatory understanding - one might say we are living the Word with epignosis.¹  It is an understanding of the Word, cemented more firmly and genuinely into our hearts and minds by the mortar of experience. 

How does this help me to grow in love?  If God's Word reveals how love is supposed to look, and then my own actions affirm that truth (whether I succeeded or failed), then my heart clamors all the more loudly for me to adhere to God in the future.  I am far less likely to act selfishly if I know that God's Word decries such behavior, and if furthermore I know from personal experience the damage that is dealt to myself and to others by my own selfish behavior.  All my experience in a given area must necessarily teach me that God is right in that area, and that any opposition of mine is always wrong - thus am I given a yet stronger calling toward love. 

It becomes my lot, then, to discover still deeper what the Bible says about how I must love God and love others, and then to go out and apply that love in every conceivable area and corner of my life.  My very real experience will marry with very true biblical knowledge, and will birth a more solid conviction about the absolute need to love even as Christ Himself does.

2.  All discernment.  The word used here for "discernment" is aisthesis; and "discenment" is a fair translation; the only other use of this word group in the New Testament is in Hebrews 5:14, where the distinguishing of good and evil is in view.²  We note immediately that this also has its roots in biblical knowledge; discernment is useless without some healthy understanding of what righteousness is.  Paul bears this out in the Philippians passage we quoted above.

But how is discernment connected to love, you ask?  Most strongly, we reply.  It does us no good at all to proclaim the profundity of our love for God, if we are going to push aside every command He makes.  Consider 1 John 5:2-3:  "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."  We love God by obeying Him, and consistent obedience requires great discernment in the foxholes of life.  Consider the dangerous inconsistencies in seeing a person who makes no effort to discern what would please God (and thus usually fails to do so), and then watching others commend that person for "how much you love God."  Baffling, no?

Discernment is also greatly needed in our love of others.  How blessed is a brother or sister in the faith who will not lead me into temptation, but actively seeks to avoid that temptation!  How needed and how loving is such a one who gives a clear, compassionate warning, when he or she sees sin in my life (though I may chafe or cringe in that moment)?  And how utterly tragic to withhold such careful, humble warning, in the name of love!  I choose not to warn a brother about the danger of a sin I see in his life, because I love him too much.  Impossible.


Truth and love are designed to be dear, inseparable friends in the life of a believer.  As we grow in our love, let us seek to season that love with "real knowledge and all discernment," that we may find ourselves squarely within the bounds of that program of love which God, who is love Himself (1 John 4:8), has established so perfectly.


¹ Vine, W.E., Merrill F. Unger, & William White, Jr. Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. "An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words." Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1996. p. 348.
² Brown, Colin.  The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  Vol. 2.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 1976. p. 391.