“Let the Word Dwell in You”

Sunday, November 22, 2020

God sent Philip the Evangelist to encounter an Ethiopian eunuch on the road, and the first thing he saw the Ethiopian doing was reading from Isaiah 53.  Philip asked, “do you understand what you are reading?”  “How can I, unless someone guides me?” was the eunuch’s response (Ac 8.30-31).  Philip joined him in the chariot and taught him the Gospel of Christ, and the story suggests the eunuch carried the message home and so was the first to introduce Christianity to North Africa.  That is the most important takeaway—the salvation of many souls—but there are other things we can learn from this interaction.  This man was dutifully reading his Bible, yet he didn’t understand, and considered it out of reach.  He needed a guide.

Consider that the eunuch begins by asking Philip who exactly is the subject of phrases such as, “like a sheep he was led to the slaughter” (v32).  This reflects some effort already expended on his part to interpret the passage, and it’s an important question to ask about anything you read, particularly the words of God’s prophets.  The eunuch is clearly trying.  But he’s also clearly failing.

We may find ourselves in the same position from time to time.  Often it will be when we are attempting to engage with one area or another of God’s word, especially where prophecies are concerned.  Take Psalm 67—it’s short and sweet, just 15 lines of typical Hebrew poetry, and just over half of those lines are some variation on the theme, “let the peoples praise you, O God” (e.g. v3).  At first glance, we’re inclined to file it under “psalms of praise” along with about 50 others, which means we’re unlikely to come back and consider it in greater detail anytime soon.  Let’s look a little more closely.  That term, “peoples,” which we glossed over so easily a moment ago, is more specific than we might have thought.  It’s not a generic statement that people ought to praise God, but that “the peoples” ought to praise him.  It means the same thing as “the nations” in verse 4, or even “all nations” in verse 2.  It means the Gentiles.

The Gentiles are mentioned more than 100 times in the psalms, and in the vast majority of these cases they are pictured as enemies to God’s people, wretched sinners, targets of God’s wrath, or some combination of the three.  This time, we find a prayer for the nations to “be glad and sing for joy” (Ps 67.4).  This isn’t the only time such positive language is used, but it is the exception, not the rule, and in the case of this particular psalm, it’s not just a tangential point, but the core theme!  From the perspective of God’s people Israel, this joy among the nations results from seeing how God blesses Israel, not the Gentiles, but that doesn’t detract from the theme.  If anything, it intensifies it!  God was hinting to his chosen people that not only is he the God of all the earth and not just them, but that something much bigger is on the horizon.  It will start with Israel, but like ripples in a pond it will rush ever outward to “shake all nations” (Hg 2.7).  This short, simple, run-of-the-mill psalm of praise, so bland and easy to lose among the 149 others surrounding it, is actually a gem, a rare and precious blessing for the entire earth, a prediction of God’s “saving power among all nations” (Ps 67.2).  Just like we did at first, most Israelites clearly missed the point—even the early Christians were highly averse to preaching the Gospel to Gentiles.

Alright, what’s the big deal?  It’s one chapter out of a thousand, who can blame them for losing it among all the others?  Well, let’s take a quick look at the superscript: “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.”  When you factor in the psalm’s frequent use of the pronoun “us,” it’s clear it was intended to be sung by the congregation in worship.  How many Israelites sang these words in the assembly, without really understanding them?  How often do we make the same mistake?

It’s important that we pay attention to what we read, and exert the effort necessary to genuinely understand it.  It’s also important to do the same when we worship.  It’s good to make sure, first of all, that the words we sing are acceptable to God—with notable exceptions, they were written by fallible humans.  Poetic license notwithstanding, we are prone to misinterpret and misrepresent God’s word, and he’ll hold us accountable.  But further, while we generally think of our songs as merely tools of worship, they go beyond that.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3.16)

Notice that this verse focuses on the word— on teaching and admonishing each other, right alongside thanks to God in our songs.   A well-written hymn is an excellent teaching tool, a 3-minute sermon set to music.  If you commit it to memory, it’s a great way to “Set your minds on things that are above” (Co 3.2) throughout daily life.  Like the Ethiopian eunuch, perhaps we struggle to comprehend the imagery.  To wit, an original haiku:

A torrent of words

Flows past swiftly, beyond reach.

Poetry is hard.

Yet, when it involves our worship to God, it’s important!  As with the Scriptures themselves, we should invest the effort to understand what we are reading, and singing both to the Lord and to each other.  Sometimes, we’ll need someone to guide us.  Other times, we’ll just need to contemplate for a while.  At all times, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Co 3.16).

Jeremy Nettles

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