"These seven actions are the best indicator of what you and really believe and feel about God’s word. If you do these things, you probably believe what is right even if you can’t quite explain it; you probably have your affections in order even if they don’t always feel like much."

I love this! You wrote exactly how I feel. So many times we Reformers (myself included) get so caught up in right beliefs and right theology that we become blinded to WHO it's all about in the first place! I love to sing--it's often my way of praying as well. I'm glad to see that on the top of your list. :)

Short and sweet! Thanks for the encouragement, Kevin.

Randy in Tulsa,

Sure, trust is part of faith. I put my trust in Jesus. I love every word of the bible and factor every word into my thinking. I live under the bible.

But that does not mean that I can proof text the bible and know what Jesus wants me to do. Just because it says something somewhere in the bible is not adequate. We must first look to see if it is consistent with the teachings of Jesus.

When people, like Kevin, sing praises to the bible without Jesus then they are just plain wrong. Let me use exactly the passages you used to prove that there are lists of rules to show you:

Colossians

3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God. 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

You see, you illustrated exactly the problem that I am talking about. You looked at Col 3 and saw rules, but the most important part is that you have to keep Jesus central. That is the danger in things like Kevin's post. It is putting the bible, a flat depiction of the bible no less, as the thing. It is not the thing. Jesus is the thing.

So when we read the bible, we need to look at it as a Christocentric endeavor. Paul was careful to make that point in and among what you are considering to be rules.

BTW, I don't consider those rules, those are illustrations of the points that Jesus is talking about. Much of what was written is not to be interpreted as some flat rule, but rather looked at in the context of Jesus and the culture to get at what Paul is talking about.

Don't you think it is quite striking that Jesus was not mentioned in Kevin's post? How can a Christian possibly answer a question like what was posed in this post and not talk about Jesus as the lens that we need to look through to interpret the bible. I cannot imagine thinking such a thing

[...] of Scripture in accord with what Scripture says about itself, read Kevin DeYoung’s recent blog post here. In this passage, we have the admission of my previous four posts. The Bible is the only means by [...]

DRT- thanks for your reply. (I apologize for the typo on "disparagingly.") To your question about faith, isn't trust part of faith? How do we trust Jesus if we don't trust his word? If Jesus lived by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God (and said that we were to do likewise), and if he included the Old Testament in that "every word" as he spoke to people, shouldn't we live by every word - Old and New Testament? And if we live by them, shouldn’t we love these words of life? What was troubling to me, and why I felt you were disparaging God's word, is that much of the Bible (Old and New Testament for that matter) is written as rules or lists (e.g., Colossians 3 as well as Exodus 20) and is certainly "text." The text is living and active, not a dead letter. If Jesus loved God's word as written, why would we even consider thinking that we should do less? How do we love him, if we don't love God's word, in whatever form it was written down as inspired?

[...] What Acts Should a Right Affection for Scripture Elicit? – By looking at the book of Psalms, Justin Taylor reveals 7 ways that Christians behave when they believe and feel rightly about the Word of God.   /* [...]

I've been finishing up a study on Psalm 119, so this entry was so timely and helpful to me. Thank you!

Randy in Tulsa,

I don't mean to be disparaging to the bible, I am simply trying to say that it is in Jesus that should be rejoicing and not the bible.

I also don't see what you are getting at concerning Paul's view that Abraham was justified by faith. He had faith in god, not the bible!

DRT - In the New Testament, someone more authoritative than me said that people in the Old Testament, like Abraham, were justified by faith. So it was with righteous Abel and so it was with all whom the Lord called righteous in the Old Testament, all the way to righteous Zechariah and righteous Elizabeth. Moreover, with respect to Pastor DeYoung's post, the writer of the Psalms, such as Psalm 119, was saved by glorious faith, which caused him to sing out in faith the very word of God. Be careful to disparingly call that which was exhaled from the very mouth of God, "a list of rules," "a book of rules," "some text." God's faithful, saving word to fallen man did not begin with Matthew.

Yes, but there is a big difference between the OT function of the word of god and the new testament function of the word of god. The word of god in the OT was a book of written laws and stories. In the new testament the word of god is a person, not a book. We need to rejoice and sing and do all of those things in the name of Jesus, not the text of the book.

Many time throughout the Psalms the author is delighted that god has shown him what to do. That god has given him laws so that he will know how to follow god, to at least know the god is not going to be angry with him. The is essential because god can seem arbitrary in the OT.

But, Jesus has given himself to us as the word, the thing to understand and rejoice in. He is the gospel and word of god, not the text of some set of rules. Jesus has given us the rule of love to follow, not a list of some laws.

So what happens to many today is that they want to exchange the truth of god for a lie. They want to exchange the view of Jesus as Lord for something like those in the OT had, a book or rules. But that is not what Jesus gave us. He gave us an idea, a concept, a way to make judgments about the world without having a book of rules.

Please do not turn our Lord into a book of rules that need to be followed. Jesus said "I am the way", not some text.

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@DRT: It's not MY blog. Post away.
But as for the being wrong. If you'd be glad to know when you were, let me help you out. You're wrong. The bible is inerrant.

Heather, I am sorry if my discussion annoys you. If I had good evidence that I am going against something with my posting, or that my comments ruined the experience for folks in a way that Kevin can not achieve his objectives, then I would leave and find another avenue.

I hope that I am helping people to think critically about these issues, they are quite important.

And as far as me being wrong, you missed my point. My point was that it does not matter if I am wrong or you are wrong, the point is that we find truth. If I am wrong then yes it matters that I am wrong. I am simply saying that I would not take it personally, actually I would be grateful for finding out that I was wrong and I hope others feel the same way.

Actually when debating something this important, it DOES matter that you are wrong. BUT if you'd like to debate on this topic EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Mr. DeYoung posts on something. I'll be sure to uncheck the "send me notifications" box when I make an appreciative comment.

Heather, there is a long and ancient tradition of debating the bible to jointly achieve understanding. Put it this way, either I am wrong, some here or wrong, or both. In any case it does not matter, what matters is that we get closer to the truth. I personally find that I learn much more by debating with people who hold different perspectives than with people whose perspective I share. Those end up being really short conversations.

@DRT If you planned on learning that would be a different matter entirely.

Heather, what would you suggest I do? Hang out with people that think the same things as me so I can never learn?

And Heather, you really should know by now that all you know is your interpretation of the bible. When I read it I read it and interpret it. When you read it you read it and interpret it. There is not such thing as a reading that is not interpreted.

"We need to understand a more complete picture than just a literal translation."

Funny how you limit God to what man's interpretation is and then say WE need a more complete understanding.

@DRT: I don't know WHY you get on here really. You are wrong in your approach to the bible. Not only that you are continually reading the posts of a man who disagrees with you, writing to a group of people who disagree with you. What is your point in all of this?

I would also like to note that had the same post been written by someone who does not hold to such a strong form of inerrancy then I would likely be on the bandwagon and simply note that they should include Jesus in the post. The reason I am much more explicit about this here is that I know that Kevin and much of his audience have a strict inerrancy in mind when they write stuff like this. It is not always the literal words that are on paper that give the full meaning, it is the intention, context and other factors that should be considered. Which is exactly my approach to the bible also. We need to understand a more complete picture than just a literal translation.

Randy in Tulsa,

Before I can respond to your last response in detail, and thank you for that, I need some clarification.

You are making the assumption that Jesus and god are in every rule, every sentence, everything in the bible. I agree with that. What I likely disagree with is the extent to which they are in each of the parts.

What we are debating here is precisely the extent to which Jesus and god are in every sentence and rule. You know, no doubt, as well as I do that the point of my comments are to bring clarity to the rough equivalence that Kevin, and you, are making that all those rules (and I have to take the scope of that to mean OT and NT based on what you and Kevin wrote), are the equivalent of god/Jesus.

My contention is that the OT laws clearly do not stand on their own without being interpreted through the lens of Jesus.

So my clarification asked of you is, do you mean to be saying, like I hear Kevin saying, that we should rejoice in all the laws in the OT, as written, without interpreting them through the lens of Jesus? I think that is what I am hearing you say and that is what I hear Kevin saying.

Jeff,

Let's look at the bible quotes you used.

In Deut 8:3, you seem to think that the scripture is every word spoken by god, no? But is it not a fact that Jesus said a great many things that are not recorded in the bible? So you see, you can not set up the equivalence of bible=every word of god. Plus, there are a great number of people who have intimate first order relationships with god and through the holy spirit. Are you telling me that the holy spirit is not included in the word of god?

2 Tim 3:16-17 – Look this is not saying anything like what you are making it out to say. Read what it actually says. It says that it is profitable for teaching (not inerrant, not magic), and in training for righteousness (not inerrant, not magic).

2 Peter 1:16-19 – This does not mean that the bible is more reliable that Peter's experience. Rather than debate this, let me simply provide this commentary

The comparative adjective ??????????? (bebaioteron) is the complement to the object ??? ?????????? ????? (ton profhtikon logon). As such, the construction almost surely has the force “The prophetic word is (more certain/altogether certain) – and this is something that we all have.” Many scholars prefer to read the construction as saying “we have the prophetic word made more sure,” but such a nuance is unparalleled in object-complement constructions (when the construction has this force, ????? [poiew] is present [as in 2 Pet 1:10]). The meaning, as construed in the translation, is that the Bible (in this case, the OT) that these believers had in their hands was a thoroughly reliable guide. Whether it was more certain than was even Peter’s experience on the Mount of Transfiguration depends on whether the adjective should be taken as a true comparative (“more certain”) or as an elative (“very certain, altogether certain”). Some would categorically object to any experience functioning as a confirmation of the scriptures and hence would tend to give the adjective a comparative force. Yet the author labors to show that his gospel is trustworthy precisely because he was an eyewitness of this great event. Further, to say that the OT scriptures (the most likely meaning of “the prophetic word”) were more trustworthy an authority than an apostle’s own experience of Christ is both to misconstrue how prophecy took place in the OT (did not the prophets have visions or other experiences?) and to deny the final revelation of God in Christ (cf. Heb 1:2). In sum, since syntactically the meaning that “we have confirmed the prophetic word by our experience” is improbable, and since contextually the meaning that “we have something that is a more reliable authority than experience, namely, the Bible” is unlikely, we are left with the meaning “we have a very reliable authority, the Old Testament, as a witness to Christ’s return.” No comparison is thus explicitly made. This fits both the context and normal syntax quite well. The introductory ??? (kai) suggests that the author is adding to his argument. He makes the statement that Christ will return, and backs it up with two points: (1) Peter himself (as well as the other apostles) was an eyewitness to the Transfiguration, which is a precursor to the Parousia; and (2) the Gentile believers, who were not on the Mount of Transfiguration, nevertheless have the Old Testament, a wholly reliable authority that also promises the return of Christ.

2 Peter 1:3 – I have no idea how you get anything about the bible in that. He is talking about the knowledge of Jesus, which did not come to him through the bible, but from first hand experience.

Romans 10:7 – I don't understand how you can twist this one, it says “Consequently faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ.” This says nothing about the bible. Granted, if you are thinking that the only way we can know Jesus is through the literal interpetation of the text in the bible than I suppose you can misinterpret this. But look at it on its face. It says the preached/communicated/discussed word of Christ! Not the bible. There was no new testament when Paul wrote this. There were many letters and other gospels too. We also had many people alive at that time that had personal witness to Jesus. This could not mean just the bible as you have it in your hands.

Tell me this. How did the people in the first century know about Christ? Word of mouth. They were taught about it. Preached about it. If it were never written down we would know about Jesus because people would be talking about him to this very day.

But I say again. I love the bible. I feel the bible is the word of god. I believe that all of the bible is divinely inspired. I get queasy when people overstate this as you are and Kevin is. The bible is not the same as Jesus.

DRT -I see the Triune God, including the Messiah/Christ, in all of scripture, including the rules. On that point, perhaps we have some agreement. My point is that Christ does not eclipse the rules in some manner, as you seem to be suggesting.

The rules in scripture perform several functions. They serve to expose or reveal to us God, including Christ, so that we may know God, more and more. They tell us of his character and define his perfection to the degree of God’s revelation. Simply put, my gratitude for the Father who is perfect and the Son who lived a perfect life is heightened by these rules.

As one regenerated by the Holy Spirit, these rules in scripture are one means of grace whereby the Spirit regulates my life in Christ. The Spirit that regenerated me also enables me to read, understand and do what is required in God’s word. Of course, I have the freedom to choose to not see them that way or to simply not obey them, which would be sin. Even then, the rules help me to know when and how to repent (in what manner to turn and what to do after turning.)

The rules help me to mature in Christ, to not stay a baby in Christ as Peter described the Corinthians. They help me to do what Peter said, "add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and self-less love. “

The rules provide a standard for assurance as I expend daily effort to make my calling and election sure. And, when I fail in this effort, they help me to know when and how to confess my sins, to ask forgiveness and to be assured that God is faithful to forgive me of my sins.

These are a few of the spiritual effects imparted by these rules and how they enhance and mature my life in Christ.

So, where is God, including Christ, in Kevin's post today? I believe he is in every text Kevin cited.

DRT,

I think you need to be very careful with a theology that exalts Christ without His Word. Not only does Christ have a high view of the written Word as he quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 when he was tempted by the devil, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (which is the written Word)...But so did the apostles as we read Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work".
Peter informs us that the Word of God is a more reliable than even his OWN witness of Christ in 2 Peter 1:16-19, "...but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty...we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven...And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

Peter tells us just before that in 2 Peter 1:3 that "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him", which we know comes through the Word of God through Romans 10:17 - "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ".

Without the written Word, it would be impossible for us to even know about Christ or His perfect life, obedience to the cross, and victory over death.

Yes, Christ is the way, the truth, and the life...but it is by the Word that we receive Him, know Him...and as Kevin menitoned in this blog "Sing, speak, study, store up, obey, praise, pray" of Him, because without the Word, faith would not be possible.

[...] What Christians Do When They Believe and Feel about the Word of God Rightly - Schöne Zusammenstellung zu Psalm 119. [...]

I really enjoy the pattern of the God-seeking psalmists in how they came to God's Word. We can either come as letter keepers who only touch the dead letter of the Scriptures and receive only knowledge that kills (2 Cor. 3:6)or we can come like the psalmists who received the law as God's testimonies (a portrait of Christ) and seek Him (Psa. 119:2). If we are such loving seekers, contacting the Word by singing, praying, thanking and praising we will receive life whenever we come to the Word (John 5:39-40; 6:63). God's Word will nourish us and we will grow up in God's salvation (1 Tim. 4:6; 1 Pet. 2:2-3). Thanks for sharing your appreciation of Psalm 119.

[...] What Christians Do When They Believe and Feel about the Word of God Rightly So what do Christians do when they believe and feel about the word of God rightly? [...]

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[...] What Christians Do When They Believe and Feel about the Word of God Rightly, key indicators regarding what you really believe and think about the Word of God — Kevin DeYoung [...]

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