reading out loud

The Word for today:
Psalm 101

Let's bear down today for some advanced Bible study...

Today, we will consider the concept of voice in scripture. Look at the first verse of Psalm 101. Who is speaking?

That's easy, we say. It's David. The ascription says so:
A Psalm of David.

Alright. Who is speaking here?--
I will behave wisely in a perfect way...I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. (Psalm 101:2/NKJV)

Could that still be David? David was an adulterer who conspired to have the husband of his paramour murdered. So how can he say I will behave wisely in a perfect way.

Here's how:
1. King David is a child of God, speaking for himself. Just like you and me--two other rank sinners--he is predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ; to be transformed into that image from one degree of glory to another. (Roman 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18)

So David can honestly say that I will behave wisely in a perfect way--because some day he will!
Thus we hear the voice of King David in Psalm 101.

2. David is a prophet, speaking for the LORD.
Spoken through the prophet David, these become the words of Jesus Christ, the eternal King.
Thus we hear the voice of King Jesus in Psalm 101.

3. David, as a Bible author, speaks as both man and God at the same time. (If you're spooked, you're not alone.) Just as Jesus is both God and man, the Bible is both a God book--written by God; and a man book--written by man:
For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)
The Word of God was not just on their tongues, it came from deeper within:
The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. (2 Samuel 23:2/KJV)

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The Bible is complete, so you and I will never speak with the third voice heard in Psalm 101. But we will speak with the other two voices which are heard there:
1. We (obviously) will speak for ourselves as children of God.

2. As the body of Christ, we are Jesus' voice to the world. In this urgently real and consequential sense, you and I are the Word of God.

You might have thought you were standing silently in the rain, when all along you've been reading out loud.

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