What are the first things you should teach new Christians? What is it, that they most need to know, now?
Maybe, we'd answer this question by turning to Hebrews 6:1-2:
6 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Hebrews says there are six things new Christians need to understand:
(1) the importance of repentance from dead works.
(2) Of faith(fulness) toward God.
(3) Of baptisms (plural!). Baptism of water, and baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17?).
(4) Of the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6?; Acts 8:14-17?; 1 Tim. 4:14?).
(5) The resurrection of the dead,
(6) and eternal judgment (Rom. 2:6-11; 6:22-23; Gal. 6:8-9).
Maybe you look at this list, and you find yourselves thinking, "That list seems awfully charismatic, for new Christians" (smirking). Maybe some of the things on the list bother you, or bother some of the churches you've been a part of over the years.
But that's a good list. I have no interest in arguing with Hebrews.
Now, what would be the best way to work your way through this list? You could go through it step by step, and try to figure out each thing, and why they are so important. You could do it as a new believers' class, or as a sermon series.
OR... you could come at this diagonally, grabbing maybe half the list all at once, through Psalm 1-- and teaching something even more basic, at the same time.
A few months ago, somehow, through the wonders of the internet, I found myself on the website of a large Pentecostal church in Nigeria. At this church, the first thing new Christians learn is Psalm 1. They spend weeks in Psalm 1, wrestling with it.
Why Psalm 1?
The first thing that this church wants new Christians to understand is that God wants them to be blessed, and happy, and successful, and prosperous. And if you want to convince people of this truth, and tell them how this can happen for them-- because it's not automatic-- then Psalm 1 is a great place to start.
Let me just say one more thing before we jump in. Scholars agree that Psalm 1 was deliberately placed at the beginning of Psalms, for a specific reason. Psalm 1 gives you a framework for reading everything else in the book. What is that framework? What is that reason?
We'll come back to that at the end.
Psalm 1
(1) Blessed/happy is the man who hasn't walked on/in the counsel of the wicked,
while on/in the way/road of sinners he hasn't stood,
while on/in the seat of scoffers he hasn't sat,
(2) but only in the instruction of Yahweh, his delight is,
while on/in his instruction he mutters/meditates day and night,
Everyone wants to be happy in life. "The pursuit of happiness" is built into our Constitution. It's central to who we are. And this isn't just an "American" thing. This is a human thing.
And yet, it seems like hardly anyone is actually happy. We are a society that has everything, but enjoys nothing. We couldn't be less happy. We medicate with drugs, or alcohol. We seek refuge in mindless entertainment. We cope. And this seems to be true as often for Christians, as for non-Christians.
How can we be truly happy?
Know that God loves you. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to be blessed. And because God wants those things for you, He gave you Psalm 1. Psalm 1 tells you the path to happiness.
In verse 1, the psalmist begins by talking about the path in life that you need to avoid, if you want to be happy. You need to stay off the path of the wicked, and sinners, and scoffers.
All of these people have lots of ideas about how you can be happy. And these ideas, basically, revolve around sin.
The wicked have lots and lots of advice they'd like to give you about how you can get ahead in life and be happy-- but don't listen to them.
Sinners follow a well-worn path-- stay off of it.
And scoffers? Scoffers are the ones who look at everyone else in life, and know that everyone else is beneath them. Scoffers are proud. Not open to rebuke. Not open to learning. They "know" that people are stupid. The righteous, in particular, they think are stupid. And so they mock people who are committed to God.
If you want to be happy, you need to be careful not to get your advice from these types of people. They will steer you down the wrong path.
Let's reread verses 1-2:
(1) Blessed/happy is the man who hasn't walked on/in the counsel of the wicked,
while on/in the way/road of sinners he hasn't stood,
while on/in the seat of scoffers he hasn't sat,
(2) but only in the instruction of Yahweh, his delight is,
while on/in his instruction he mutters/meditates day and night,
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"ki im" means "but only." There is an exclusivity to this. BHRG, Second edition, §40.21.3
(3) Expresses a counter-statement after a negative statement
This use of ???? (#a) is typically translated as “but.” ???? ??? is sometimes used instead of ????. With ???? ??? the speaker makes it very clear that not only is an alternative involved, but that it is the only possible alternative (#b).
a
??????? ??????????? ???????????? ???????????? ??????? ????? ??????? ?????????
As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name (Gen. 17:15).
b
???? ???????? ???????? ????? ???????? ????? ???????????????
Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel (Gen. 32:29).*
Van der Merwe, C. H. J., Naudé, J. A., & Kroeze, J. H. (2017). A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (Second Edition, p. 436). Bloomsbury; Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
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If you want to be happy, you need to turn to Yahweh's instruction-- his torah. This book is the one thing that you delight in. And you need to find yourself muttering over it, chewing on it, day and night. You wake up, and you find yourself thinking about God and his instruction. You think about it all day while you're at work. And you go to bed, still muttering its words.
Why it is important to spend so much time in the Bible?
Our natural tendency is to drift away from God. We start to doubt Him-- we doubt his goodness, his love, his power. We doubt that his road, is the one we should take. We find ourselves getting distracted, wandering.
The more time we spend in God's instruction, the less likely all of this is to happen. If we just read this morning about the importance of avoiding idols, and still have that warning ringing in our ears, we are less likely to become idolaters that afternoon. If we just read this morning about the importance of being faithful to our spouses, we are less likely to flirt with someone, or lust after someone, that afternoon. And even when what we read doesn't seem so immediately practical, there's something about spending time in the Bible that restores our souls (Ps. 19:7), and brings us closer to God.
I say all of this, knowing that lots of church people don't find God's instruction particularly delightful. The only time they hear the Bible, is in church (and maybe not very much even there). Sermons are something to be endured-- the price you have to pay, if you want other things the church offers (like, "religion for your kids").
And when these same people do open their Bibles and read, they find that God's instruction does nothing for them. They read for 10 minutes, and stop, and they have no idea what they just read. 10 minutes of their life, just lost forever.
Is this you?
And if it's you, what has to change, for you to delight in God's instruction? Maybe 3 things:
(1) I think, partly, it's a matter of self-discipline. You can't wake up one morning, and go from doing a 5-minute Our Daily Bread, to spending an hour muttering over God's word. That's something you have to work up to.
(2) I think, partly, it's a matter of living a compromised life. If you are listening to the advice of the wicked, or walking in the path of sinners, God's word isn't going to do anything for you. Live like this, and you can't delight in God's instruction. It's impossible. If you find yourself reading God's word, and thinking, "This is such a burden," -- that's a good time to look at your life. Maybe there are specific sins that you've tolerated, that you need to repent from. Maybe you know what keeps you from delighting. One of the things my pastor would often say when I was a kid, was that this book will keep you from sin. And sin will keep you from this book.
(3) For me, the other thing that's helpful is not being afraid to use commentaries or other academic works. A long time ago, while I was in Bible college, I got a copy of Leslie Allen's commentary on Joel/Micah/Obadiah/Jonah (NICOT) for super cheap. And I basically inhaled it. I could've read Micah a hundred times, and not gotten as much out of it, as if I'd never opened Allen's commentary. And his commentary gave me a base to help understand other parts of the Bible better.
Eventually, you'll find that you don't need helps as much. But at first, honestly, having a gifted teacher open a biblical book up to you, will help you delight in God's instruction. It will open up your way of thinking, and imagination, to see the Bible in fresh ways. And there's no reason to resist this.
So if you can find a commentator that's right like 80-90% of the time, that can both explain the text, and why the text matters-- do it. Spend a little money, and buy everything they've ever written, and inhale them. The 10-20% of the time they are wrong, and it seemed okay, don't worry about. You can figure that out later, maybe. And even if you're wrong, at least you're in good company.
If you work at these three things, what you'll realize, at some point, is that you now delight in God's instruction. You find yourself looking forward to your quiet time. You find your thoughts are preoccupied with God, and his word. And when you notice this, you'll realize that you are far more happy than you used to be. Far more blessed.
You'll also realize, eventually, that you spend your time a lot differently than you used to. You've cut back, or cut out, TV. You're hardly ever on Facebook. Hardly ever play computer games. You think about the ways you used so much of your free time, and you only feel regret. You've found something better.
Verse 3:
(3) and he is like a tree having been planted by channels of water,
which its fruit it gives/bears in its time/season,
while its leaf doesn't wither,
while all/everything that he does, he makes prosperous/successful.
The person who delights in God's instruction, prospers. He bears fruit. And everything that he touches, he makes successful. His business is more successful. His family prospers. His friendships are more genuine. Life is good for him. The psalmist makes a big deal about this: Everything that he does/touches, ends up being successful.
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The verb here I translated as "make successful, see Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Clines):
DCH: 1a. make prosper, make prosperous, make successful, of Y. making a person prosper (2 C 26:5; 4QapPsB 483), making mission/deeds of people successful (Gn 24:21, 40, 42, 56; 39:3, 23; 4QJubf 394.12 [[?? ?????]]), of people making their own path prosperous (Dt 28:29; Jos 1:8; Is 48:15; Ps 37:7)."
This is the hiphil-- to make prosperous, not simply to "be prosperous." The blessed one MAKES everything he touches successful.
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Let's read Genesis 39:1-6:
39 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
2 The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
The promise the psalmist holds out in Psalm 1:3, is the promise to be like Joseph. If you truly, fully, only delight in God's instruction, everything you do will be successful. You will be a blessing, and source of abundance, for everyone you know. You will be Joseph.
Verse 4:
(4) Not so the wicked--
but only as chaff that the wind blows him/it away.
(5) Therefore, they shall not stand-- the wicked-- in the judgment,
while sinners in the congregation of the righteous,
(6) because He knows-- Yahweh-- the way/road of the righteous,
while the way/road of the wicked shall perish.
Yahweh's congregation, right now, is a mixture of people. Some are righteous, and some are wicked. Right now, the wicked stand within the righteous, and they maybe seem to be doing just fine (or maybe, not at all). And when you look at this congregation, maybe it seems like God doesn't care how people live. Or, maybe, like God doesn't know what's going on down here.
But the psalmist ends, in verse 6, by saying that this will not last. There is a day of judgment coming, and God will separate the wheat from the chaff (cf. Matthew 3:12). The psalmist is certain about this, why? The psalmist knows that God knows. God knows the way of the righteous. He sees how they live. He sees their faithfulness and loyalty to him. The righteous walk the same road that God walks. They live in the light, as He is Light.
Notice what the psalm doesn't say here. We expect the psalmist to next say that God also knows the road/way of the wicked. But there is a sense in which that's very wrong.
God doesn't know the way of the wicked. It's not his road. That's the road of darkness, and wickedness. And God has nothing to do with those things. He doesn't "know" that road. He doesn't "know" people who walk on that road.
And that's the road that leads to death. People walking that road perish.
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So we read Psalm 1, and we find ourselves confronted with a choice. As we go through life, what we want, is to be happy, and prosperous, and successful. We want a good life.
Those are perfectly valid desires. And those desires, are also God's desires for you. God wants to bless you. He wants you to be happy, and prosperous, and successful.
The question-- the choice-- is this: How do we accomplish that? Whose advice will we trust, for how we can make this our reality?
On the one hand, the wicked have very definite ideas about how you can be happy and successful. They have a particular road that they walk. And they are happy to give you advice to "help" you get ahead in the world. This advice may seem to make good sense. You may find it compelling. You may even find yourself on their path, testing it out, thinking that it's a pretty good road (James 3:14-15).
But the psalmist encourages you to stop, and consider how that road ends. Stay on this path, and it will get you killed. You will perish (Galatians 6:8).
There is another option. What the psalmist teaches, is that if you want to be truly happy, and successful, your delight must be in God's counsel. You have to value God's advice for how you should live. You have to find yourself in his Word day and night, muttering over it, being careful to keep (Joshua 1:8)/fulfill (Romans 8:4) it.
Those are your two choices. You will either listen to God, or you will listen to the wicked. And you will either end up happy and successful, or you will end up dead (Matthew 6:33-34; Romans 8:12-14).
Nothing I've said this morning is very complicated, right? I say all of this, knowing that you don't really need to me help you understand this. Psalm 1 is not a hard psalm.
The real question is, do you believe it?
Do you trust God in this? Do you trust that God is good? That He wants you to be blessed, and happy, and successful? That He wants only what's best for you?
Let's turn to Hebrews 11:5-6:
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.”[a] For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
One of the marks of evangelicals, is that they usually don't believe God rewards those who earnestly seek him. They understand they are supposed to obey. They understand delighting in God's instruction-- or at least, they understand that they are supposed to.
But they don't actually think it will change how God treats them. They don't think they can claim Psalm 1. Or Hebrews 11. They don't think God rewards people who earnestly (=zealously) seek him. They're scared to take these verses seriously as Scripture.
And because they're scared, they often don't truly, fully, commit. It's like we are driving a truck down the highway in third gear, thinking we are serving God well. But we don't realize there is a higher gear. There is a higher level of commitment, of loyalty, that we haven't sought. We end up half listening to the wicked, and half-listening to the Bible. We don't really delight in anything.
And because we live this way, we are only scratching the surface of what God is willing to do for us.
I said at the beginning that Psalm 1 is designed as a kind of introduction, or framework, for the book of Psalms as a whole. How I think this works, is that the psalms as a whole are designed to help you throw yourself completely on God. To give yourself entirely to Him, radically trusting Him, praising him, obeying Him. When life is hard, they give you words to protest to God, and challenge Him to be loyal to you, as you are to Him. And they help you trust Him, while you wait for his help. When life is good, they give you words to praise Him. And when God rescues you, they give you words to thank Him.
And Psalm 1 introduces all of that, by giving you a picture for how life should look. Your life should not be a constant struggle. Life shouldn't be hard. Your life should be a happy one. A blessed one. A successful one. One that's truly committed to the God, who shows loyalty to those who seek him. One lived in fellowship, and partnership, with God.
And if life is a struggle, look down at your feet. Consider what path you are really on. Consider whose advice you take, for what will make you happy.
And make a decision for God. Delight in His instruction. Commit to walking on the path of the righteous. Seek the happiness, and prosperity, that comes from knowing God, and being known by Him (Galatians 4:9).
Do this, and you will be radically successful in everything (Genesis 39:2).
So today, look at your feet. Think about what path you are on. Think about whose advice you trust. And make a decision about how successful, and prosperous, and happy, you want to be in life.
Psalm 1 Translation
(1) Blessed/happy is the man who hasn't walked on/in the counsel of the wicked,
while on/in the way/road of sinners he hasn't stood,
while on/in the seat of scoffers he hasn't sat,
(2) but only in the instruction of Yahweh, his delight is,
while on/in his instruction he mutters/meditates day and night,
(3) and he is/shall be like a tree having been planted by channels of water,
which its fruit it gives/bears in its time/season,
while its leaf doesn't wither,
while all/everything that he does, he makes prosperous/successful.
(4) Not so the wicked--
but only as chaff that the wind blows him away.
(5) Therefore, they shall not stand-- the wicked-- in the judgment,
while sinners in the congregation of the righteous,
(6) because He knows-- Yahweh-- the way/road of the righteous,
while the way/road of the wicked shall perish.
