How to Study the Bible: Lesson 2 – Focus on Poetry: Mark Lanier, 03/23/25

How to Study the Bible Lesson 2 - Focus on Poetry Mark Lanier, 03 23 25
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[00:00:00] It is a joy to be here. It is a joy to get to talk to you this morning about how to study the Bible. Uh uh. Congratulations again. Uh, uh, I see Doug toss over there. His one of his daughters, Rachel, was married, uh, uh, on Friday to a wonderful young man, Brett Friedman. And, uh, so just seeing our class member Doug Toss over there wants me to say congratulations again.

Um, uh, speaking of congratulations, I'm not allowed to show a picture yet because social media has to get it first, but. Uh, Becky and I had a grandbaby born finally after three week, three days in the hospital it seems, or however long. But, uh, this morning at 1:07 [00:01:00] AM so we have a new grandchild and I would show you a picture, but no, um, instead I'm trying to be a good father.

Uh, but next Sunday. It's all over the PowerPoint. Trust me, it will be there. Uh, uh, meanwhile, Becky sends her regrets for not being here this morning, loves you guys, but she is, uh, uh, on full grandmother duty this morning. Now, one last matter. I am excited about next week because next week we're gonna start Romans.

I have not taught Romans at CFBC in. I, I, I've never just taught through the book here at CFBC. I've taught it before, but not here. It is incredibly invigorating. It is incredibly important. It is transformational. I want to urge you to consider asking folks [00:02:00] who are not in a life group to see if they would be interested in coming to class.

I think it's something that that is really. A special and I'm really excited to teach it. Now, having said that, this little two part series that I've done for spring break on how to study the Bible, we will be returning to, because I'm not even beginning to get through. All that needs to be gotten through in this series, but it's just gonna be something that we pull out periodically.

And so next week we will start Romans. I hope you'll come. If you get a chance this week, read Romans. And uh, uh, get it fresh in your mind. Now. Ready for class? Yes. How to study the Bible. I cannot begin without playing a video clip, and we haven't checked the sound, so I'm hoping the sound on the computer runs.

But this, I'm sorry I cut this video, but I had trouble cutting it because I almost just played the whole movie. [00:03:00] It's one of the five best movies of all time, and I can give you the other four if you want. Let's see if it works. No, it doesn't.

Boom, boom, boom. Okay, we're just going to there now. Let's see if it works.

We have no sound. Alright. We're gonna do it the old fashioned way. It's just too good and uh, let's try it again to death. Oh dear Lord,

you made many, many poor people. Can you hear it? I realize of course, it's not a shame to be [00:04:00] poor. But it's not great honor either. Uh,

so what would've been so terrible if I had the small for,

if I were a rich man?

All day long. If I were a wealthy man, I wouldn't have to

idol old died Old idol man. And I build a big tall house with the rooms by a dozen right in the middle of the town, a finding [00:05:00] roof with the real wooden floors below. There would be one long staircase just going up and one never longer coming down. And one more leading. Nowhere just for show.

My he are the weather chicks and Turkey duck for pound to see and hear squaking just as noisy as they can and it

land like a Trump on the as if to say.

If I were a rich man[00:06:00]

all day long, if I were a wealthy man, I wouldn't.

Little man, I see my wife, my golden looking like a Richmond's wife with a proper double chin supervising abuse to still like. I see her putting on airs and strutting like a cock. Oh, what the happy mo is in screaming at the servant night.

The most important man time will come to, [00:07:00] they'll ask me to advise them Solomon the. If you please

problems that.

Want to make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong. When you are rich, they think you really know.

I will rich. I, however, the time of that, I like to sit in the synagogue and pray and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall. [00:08:00] Discuss the Holy Books with the Learn men seven hours every day. And that would be the sweetest thing of all.

Um,

if he were a rich man, he'd have the house. He'd have the servants, he'd have the animals,

but he'd have the time that he lacks to sit, pray, and discuss the holy books with the learned people. And he says that would be the sweetest thing of all.

We are [00:09:00] spoiled.

We have Bibles and in the history of Christianity for 90% of Christian history, most Christians have not been able to say that. There have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years when Christians did not own Bibles themselves at home. There have been hundreds of years where the Bible was not allowed to be printed in English, and people who were caught with an English Bible were subject to imprisonment and death.

We are spoiled with our Bibles and the ability to study them, and as a [00:10:00] result, sometimes we don't take advantage of it. So we're gonna talk about how to study the Bible and I've entitled this class. Welcome to the Sweetest thing of all. Here's what I'd like to do. I want to do three things in this class.

I want to talk, give a little Bible background, 'cause we'll try and do a little bit more of that every time we approach this. And then I want to really talk about how to read certain parts of the Bible. We're gonna focus today on wisdom, poetry, and then we'll have some points for home where we'll apply what we've tried to do and learn.

So let's start, and this will be brief, but let's do a little Bible background. Now, most everyone in here will know that the Bible can easily be divided into two different sections. You have the and the, [00:11:00] oh, y'all are good, but let's talk about that for a moment. Did you know the word Old Testament is not in the original?

That's right. Do you know the word New Testament is not in the original? Matthew doesn't start out, Hey, I'm gonna have this book first in the New Testament, new Testament's, our word, our phrase, old Testament's, a one of our phrases. Where on earth did that even come from?

Um, I try real hard to give accurate information when I teach and preach. I work assiduously hard. I am a lawyer. If I don't do accurate right information, I get in trouble by judges. Well, if I'm gonna be careful in my career, I really ought to be careful before the Lord Almighty, so I go to great pains to get this stuff right.[00:12:00]

Uh, I ran into Diane Davenport, uh, during the week and she had her granddaughter with her, and she was in church last Sunday when I preached. And I had talked about Mike, the headless chicken, and it had really made an impression on her granddaughter, and they had spent. The whole week talking about running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

And I said to her granddaughter and, and, and, uh, uh, and to her, uh, I said, you, you know, that's, that's real. That's not like one of these internet rumors. That's real. That really happened. And she said, oh, we know that because as soon as church was over, we went and we researched it to make sure that it wasn't just something that was on the internet, but that it's real.

And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wanna give you some real information here.

The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, and I say mostly because there are a few Aramaic words [00:13:00] scattered throughout. And there is a section of Daniel that's written in Aramaic. Aramaic is after the Ara people, the people of Ara who were local people in that area that, that had great influence. Uh, the, the way we read Hebrew text is with an Aramaic alphabet.

Uh, the, the way the letters are formed, I should say, is, is in an Aramaic form. And so, but, but most of the Old Testament. Was written in Hebrew, which was at the time of the events of the Old Testament, the language that the Jewish and Israelite people used. So it's written in Hebrew, their language. Got it.

The New Testament, on the other hand, was written in Greek. Matthew through Revelation are books that are written in Greek, because after [00:14:00] Alexander the Great conquered the Mediterranean world, Greek became the common language. Alexander the Great was from Macedonia, which is Northern Greece. He had been a student of Aristotle, and he took the Greek culture and the Greek language and spread it throughout the Mediterranean world.

So by the time of the New Testament, most people spoke Greek. If you wanna look at Jesus, for example, I think there's compelling evidence. Jesus could speak at least three different languages. He would've been fluent in Hebrew. He would've been fluent in Aramaic, and I think he was clearly fluent in Greek.

Greek as a language is the language. The New Testament was written in. The Old Testament. Meanwhile, by the time the Alexander the Greats influence had really taken over for several generations, and [00:15:00] most people were speaking Greek, Hebrew was a lost tongue, even among many of the Jews that had been dispersed throughout the the Mediterranean world.

So in about 200 to one 50 BC before Christ, the Hebrew Old Testament. It got translated into Greek so that the Jews living around the world would have that holy scripture in the language they spoke, read, and understood. Now, if you start going from the New Testament forward. Who was the great empire after Alexander the Great, his Alexander the Great had that big empire.

It was divided into four sections after his death. Uh, and they, they filter and change and, and you've got some machinations, but then there becomes a huge empire in the Mediterranean world. It is the Roman Empire. [00:16:00] And what was the language of the Romans Latin? So the common language in the centuries and decades after the New Testament starts becoming Latin.

So you've got a Hebrew Old Testament, which has also been translated into Greek, and you've got a Greek New Testament, but most people are starting to speak Latin. So what happens? Well, ultimately in 400 or so, Jerome translates the whole Bible into Latin. But before that, a number of of Christian teachers are teaching in Latin because that's what the people understand.

And one of my favorite early church teachers [00:17:00] was a fellow from Carthage, which is in North Africa. His name was Tertullian. Ian lived from about one 60 to about two 40 ad about 80 years. Now. This guy was really cool because. He was a lawyer, turned theologian, but he was trained in Roman law and Roman rhetoric, which was Latin based.

And so even as a theologian, he taught in Latin. And he phrased used Latin words that have come down to us still today in talking about the Bible. For example, it was Tugen who would write and teach about the [00:18:00] Threeness of God. You know how the Threeness of God, father, son, holy Spirit, there's a threeness to God.

Well, do you know what the Latin word for threeness is? It's trinitas, or as we say it now today, Trinity. And that was Tertullian. Or if you sing Holy, holy, holy, and you've got that line, God in three persons Blessed Trinity, it was GaN who talked about the threeness of God, existed in three personas. Which is persons.

Now he did something else too. Ian, around 200 AD recognized in the Hebrew Old Testament, a very important word, beret. Beret. We translate as covenant. [00:19:00] Uh, God has a covenant with Abraham. God has a covenant with the Israelite people. God has a covenant beret in Hebrew. Now, as I told you, this, Hebrew scriptures had been translated into Greek, and in the Greek translation.

There is the word de DAK. In fact, it was in the Ephesians two passage that pastor jut preached on this morning. Uh, and we'll preach on again. It's translated covenant, DAK, and so dike translates most often that Hebrew word for covenant. Now, if you take a passage of scripture.

Well, let's do it this way. I'm gonna come back to that. Let me show you this [00:20:00] passage, Jeremiah 31 31. And the next few verses Jeremiah said, behold the days are coming to clears the Lord when I will make a new covenant. That's that Hebrew word beret. That's, um, actually, uh, uh. DFAK is not used in the translation of it here in the tut, but it's covenant.

A new covenant. No, it is, I believe a new covenant with the house of Israel. Yes. This is translated D-F-A-K-A new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. What's he talking about? I keep reading. It's not like the beret, the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took 'em by the hand to bring 'em outta the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke though I was their husband, declares the Lord. This is the beret, the [00:21:00] covenant that I will make with the House of Israel. After those days in the future, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother saying, no, the Lord, for they'll all know me from the least to the greatest, declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquities and I will remember their sin no more.

So Tertullian teaches on this in Latin, and when he teaches on this in Latin, he has to use the Latin word for covenant. And the Latin word he uses is testamentum, and that's the Latin word for covenant. There's another Latin word too used in the Vulgate for this passage, but side note, Vulgate hadn't been translated yet.

[00:22:00] Jerome hadn't done it yet. So Ian is the one who comes out and says There's an old covenant, Jeremiah 31, and there's going to be a new covenant. And the old covenant in Latin is the weakest testamentum, and the new covenant is the no Ws testamentum, or as we translate the Latin into English, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that's where we get it from.

And so those are the names that have been ascribed to those scriptures and it's, it's a bit unusual now because, lemme go back one more time. A lot of people don't like to use the word Old Testament. They'd rather use the word Hebrew Bible because that is the Hebrew Bible. The problem is if you [00:23:00] say that's the Hebrew Bible, then your tendency is to say, this is the Christian Bible.

But this is not the Christian Bible because the Christian Bible includes both. So you kind of funny, but that's your little extra. Now, one last extra and then we're gonna get to the meat of the day. The Bible is a library of 66. Different books are technically 66 different scrolls, but there's a hook involved in this.

Let me explain. You've got the Bible. You've got a collection of scrolls that make this Bible up, and in this collection of scrolls or books, you've got a lot of different types of literature that require you to read them differently. You read the Psalms differently than you read the Gospels and you read the Gospels differently than you read Revelation.

Then you read the minor prophets or the [00:24:00] major prophets, you read Proverbs differently. Then you read the Sermon on the Mount.

So there are 66 books with lots of different types of writing that we study differently. But here's the key. There is still a constant theme in the Bible, even though there are different kinds of literature, it's a constant theme. The, the word meta narrative is often used. Meta means, um, uh, uh, put together.

With a group. There is a narrative in the Bible that in spite of the fact it's 66 different books over a host of different genres written by a host of different people over a thousand year time period. There's still a driving plot line in that book. [00:25:00] I liken it to a tapestry. This is a photograph of the Bayou Tapestry.

It's one of the world's most famous tapestries. It's just, it's as long as this stage. And the Bayou Tapestry was woven to tell the story of the Norman Invasion of England in the 11th century. And if you ever go look at it, this thing just goes on and on and on and on and on. But you've got different types of.

Of, um, pictures in a sense, different types. You've got different colors of thread. You've got horses, you've got people, you've got boats, you've got riding, you've got birds. You've got all these different things. But they all tell a coherent story. They tell the story of the Norman Invasion of England. And that's the way it is with scripture.

So we read scripture and understand. We read it in different [00:26:00] ways for the different parts, but we also read it as a whole and we try to understand the Bible as a whole. Does that make sense? And that's important. So that's your Bible background. Now what I'd like to do is talk to you about how we read different parts in the Bible.

The Bible has lots of different types of writings, different genres, and as a result, you tend to read and study them in a different manner. Some ways it's very different. Some ways it's not so different, but there are different nar, different ways to read the Old Testament narratives and study different ways to study the Psalms and the poetry, the wisdom, the Old Testament law, and that's just the Old Testament.

You can take all of that stuff and move it aside. You still have different ways you read the gospels than you read the Book of Acts. You have different ways you study the epistles than you study Revelation. And so you've got all of these different ways. And what I'd like to do to illustrate [00:27:00] that and to zone in on the Old Testament psalms and poetry, and I picked this to go first because it's something that's.

It not so readily known by most folks. If you go to seminary and you take a course on the Psalms, this is what you'll be learning. At least if you went where I was, uh, uh, I took Psalms, I took it in Hebrew. Actually it was a Hebrew class for me, uh, an advanced Hebrew class. And, and this is the stuff. That we would study some of it.

So let's take the step back. One of the major aspects to ancient Hebrew poetry is something called parallelism and parallelism. Let me get rid of that down on the bottom, driving me crazy. Um, parallelism[00:28:00]

I've represented here by two parallel lines. And parallelism is the idea of saying something once and then saying something on a parallel thought. So there are different ways that this parallelism works. I frequently tell people that in American poetry, often in English poetry, one of the earmarks of poetry is rhyming.

Well, that wasn't a poetic earmark back then. Uh, it, it, it, but, but although there are some word plays that are involved sometimes, but, but the, one of the, the main features of ancient Hebrew poetry is this parallel structure, and it can take different forms. And so [00:29:00] modern scholars. Have come up with labels to use to help explain the different forms of parallelism that we find in ancient poetry.

One of 'em is called synonymous parallelism. A synonym is something that means the same thing. Um, there are synonyms for, uh, uh, all sorts of things. We can talk about a hill or a mound. Now mounds slightly different or mountain that can be slightly different, but, but they're synonyms in a sense. So scholars in today's world will use this phrase synonymous parallelism.

And what they mean by that is that you've got two different phrases or more that echo each other. So you read it and then you have an [00:30:00] echo, and that echo is there to give a nuanced meaning to it. Poetry is not just something you read through for a narrative. Poetry is something you're supposed to chew on and absorb and develop a flavor for.

And so synonymous parallelism. Here's an example of it from Psalm 19. One, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Now, if you're just reading that in a narrative fashion, you're just going right through it. But this is a poem. This is ancient poetry, and it's parallel in a synonymous way.

So you can look at the glor, the heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims is handiwork. Do you see? Heavens and sky are synonyms, declare, proclaims, synonyms, glory of God, [00:31:00] handiwork, synonyms, and, and if you look at it that way and you start thinking through it, you will see that, that this.

Adds a depth by making a variation. There's a nuanced meaning. I wanna show it to you with the Hebrew. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork in the Hebrew word. You've got Hashem. Maam. You actually began with the heavens Declare thele the glory of God. And then it says his, the, the work of his hands proclaim the sky above or the, the expanse, I think is the way it's often translated.

And that's the way the Hebrews written. So it's written and, and, and we don't get it in the English, but in the Hebrew, you see how it's written, kind of [00:32:00] where it folds on itself. It, it, it, it goes. Green. Blue, yellow, yellow, blue, green. That's called a chiasm. It comes from the Greek letter. Kai. Lemme show you a chiasm.

Here's a Greek kai, and, and it's, it's that letter X in the Greek. The idea behind it is that if you're going this way, you can see, you start out here. And you come down to there and then you rebuild the same thing going back out. And that's what happens here. And the point of it is to emphasize or draw your attention to that center part.

If I've lost you on this, don't worry, I'm gonna come back if we have time. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims is handiwork. This is written in a chiasm, so I'm gonna reorder it for you so that you can see it in the Hebrew. [00:33:00] See this is the Hebrew ordering of the words, and it's to draw your attention to this highlighted area, the al, the Ada.

This is the draws your attention to the fact that the glory of God is his handiwork, the glory of God and his handiwork. Now, what is his handiwork? Scripture talks about it. One of it are these universe, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you've appointed, but we're also his handy work and what this poetic just all wrapped up in that one little verse.

What it's doing is it's calling you to worship and praise God. Because his handy work, the work of his hands is the glory of God that's worthy to be [00:34:00] praised. And that's what we have there. Lemme give you another example of poetic parallelism, and this is from Isaiah. Isaiah 44 22. I blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist.

Do you see the parallel? I blotted out your transgressions. And your sins are parallel, like a cloud and like a mist are parallel. And, and when you see 'em and read 'em and think about them that way, it adds depth through that variation. Why? Well clouds, you can see clouds move. Go out on a windy day, see the clouds and you can watch 'em move.

You ever done that? But have you ever seen mist evaporate and just sort of watch it? You, you're not gonna see it. It's so gradual. And what we've got here in a [00:35:00] contrast is the way God deals with our sins in a fast and a slow manner. And so it's beautiful. Forgiveness is done. God forgives you of your sins through the blood of Jesus, you are forgiven.

But many of you will find out that you still have these sins that pester you like crazy, and that's because it's always still a process. God can move them like a cloud or he can evaporate 'em like the mist, and it just takes time. It is something you can see or it's something that's gradual and that's all wrapped up in that one simple verse.

Now lemme show you a second kind of parallelism, and this is called antithetic parallelism by modern scholars. And you're not gonna be surprised if you think through it much. Antithetic parallelism is where the two phrases contrast each other instead of act as synonyms. And so that contrast gives a [00:36:00] meaning.

So Antipathetic parallelism, Psalm one, six. The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. See, it's parallel, but in an opposite way. He knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. So we have the Lord knows and we have will perish. Opposites. We have the way of the righteous, the way of the wicked opposites.

They're antipathetic to each other. And this adds depth through contrast because as we read this, we begin to understand the Lord knows, and that Hebrew word for no yaah means he's intimate with. Remember Adam knew Eve, his wife, and they had a baby. It's an intimacy. So the Lord is intimate. He's involved.

He is with the way of the [00:37:00] righteous, but the way of the wicked man, it goes where it goes and it perishes. Now, there's also chiasm in this too. I don't have time to go into it, but you can see in the Hebrew that they have put. The way of the righteous and the way of the wicked in the center, because you've got a choice here.

You've got a choice and, and you want to see that. One end of it is God's intimacy. The other end of it is perishing. So it's your choice and, and you, you, you get a choice. Divine care or inevitable destruction. I mean, it's your call. Where do you wanna live? You get to pick, wanna live in the way of the righteous, where God thrives.

You wanna live in the way of the wicked, where it's death perishing. Lemme give you another one. [00:38:00] The memory of the righteous is a blessing. The name of the wicked will rot name. Of course, the Hebrew word Shem doesn't mean just what your label is it. It's talking about who you are, what you've done. Your resume, the memory plugs into Jarret's sermon this morning of the righteous is a blessing.

The name of the Wicked will rot, and these are opposites. In a parallel structure, the memory of the righteous versus the name of the wicked, a blessing or rotting. That's again, your call. You get to pick which one you want. You wanna go rotted or you wanna go blessed. Hmm, that's your choice. Let me give you another type of parallelism, synthetic, or building parallelism.

And you're not gonna be shocked over this, but this is where two [00:39:00] phrases build on each other. Here's a good example for you. The law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul here, the law of the Lord is perfect. And then. Law is understood here. It's reviving the soul and reviving the soul is building on the law of the Lord.

Being perfect takes it up a step. Now this is interesting because you can take this and if you look at, uh, you see the nuance in the build. If you take this. Oh yeah, I did this. You got a choice. Look at it. The law of the Lord, Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. Reviving comes from the Latin word, the ivvo in Latin.

Um, uh, which means to bring to life again, to take that which is dead and bring it to life to revive it. You know, you got a choice. The law of the Lord will take this and make it that. [00:40:00] That's pretty cool stuff. It'll bring life. Now go back to it though. This is only half of Psalm 19, verse seven. So you've got building parallelism, but the other half has got synonymous parallelism to it.

The testimony of the Lord is sure. So the testimony of the Lord goes with the law of the Lord. Perfect. Is synonymous with Sure reviving the soul is making wise the simple. So you've got this poetry form within another poetry form and it winds up being so beautiful with the depth and variation because we know it can revive the soul and bring life where there's nothing.

But it also can give us what we need to know for life. It can make wise the simple, it gives you wisdom for life. And you pick that up through this Old Testament parallelism. [00:41:00] I'll give you another one. There's what's called emblematic parallelism, which is built off the word emblem. And not surprisingly, this is where you have a literal phrase that's linked to an emblem or to a metaphor, or to assimilate.

Let me give you an example of it. You read this parallelism in Psalm 42 as a deer pants for flowing streams. So pants, my soul for you, oh God. You see the parallelism there as a deer pants for flowing streams. So pants, my soul for you and, and it's using a metaphor of a deer, desperate for water to me.

Desperate for God. And so this poetry is teaching us that spiritual desire isn't just intellectual, it's as visceral and urgent as our physical thirst. [00:42:00] We don't study just to study 'cause our intellectual curiosity needs to be satisfied or fed. We study because our soul, who we are, needs God. It's a visceral, it's an urgent need and that's wrapped up in that poetry.

Lemme give you another kind. I referenced earlier, Castic parallelism, 'cause we saw it in two of the other verses, but look at it in Psalm 1 24 7, we've escaped like a bird from the snare of the Fowlers. The snare is broken and we've escaped. If you put it in Hebrew, we've escaped like a bird from the snare of the Fowlers.

And then the parallel phrase, the snare is broken, and then we have escaped. Or if you put it into the Hebrew word order, you've got it there. And what it does is it draws your attention to that [00:43:00] middle from the snare of the Fowlers. You, you've got the, the snare is broken, the trap is broken. And before it we've escaped and afterwards we've escaped.

This is teaching us that when we're trapped, when when we've made a bed, we don't wanna sleep in when we've goofed up or when we're in trouble, and it's not our fault. The danger is completely framed by God's full deliverance. And that's who we have as God. I, I'll give you another one. We, we can do this till we run out of time staircase.

And don't worry, we run outta time in seven, eight minutes. Staircase, climactic parallelism. This, you'll know what it is. It makes common sense. This is where you repeat something, [00:44:00] but you add more and you increase the intensity like going upstairs. And so here's a great passage to show this. It's from Psalm 29, ascribe to the Lord, oh, heavenly beings ascribe to the Lord, glory and strength.

See, he's repeating. But he's ratcheting it up. He's adding more stuff and it actually goes even further. So if we expand this verse where you see it driving intensity, look what happens if we look at it, uh, think I have it here. Come on. There we go. Ascribe to the Lord. Oh, heavenly beings ascribe to the Lord.

Glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory. Do his name and then worship the Lord, which means the same in the splendor. Of holiness. And so you got all wrapped up in this poetic aspect, the who, what, why, and how. [00:45:00] Who worship ascribe to the Lord, heavenly beings what ascribe to him glory and strength.

Why? Because the glory is due His name. So how you worship him in the splendor of holiness? Make sense? Yeah, I love this stuff. I better get moving. I did want to ask, why did they do that? Well, first of all, there are lots of reasons. Parallelism is great because repetition reinforces the ideas. It also allows them to give a nuanced meaning that is inherent in poetry.

Poetry is not as simple as Little. Miss Muffet sat on a TT eating her curds, and way along came a spider and sat down beside her, and she crushed him with her spoon. Um, you know, she, [00:46:00] you, you, you have nuanced meaning that's there. It's also beautiful. I mean, when you start looking at all of this and it makes it more memorable.

And remember, most people never had Bible. In antiquity, so they were memorizing these songs, this poetry.

Now, let's go to the final point, because I want to deal with this a little bit in our points for home.

Psalm 77, 6. Let me remember my song. The Psalms are songs. Let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart. Do you see the parallelism? Remember and [00:47:00] meditate. My song in the Night. In my heart,

there is.

There. There are passages in the Bible that I can read pretty quickly. There are other passages that I need to chew on their passages that I just need to dwell on. These psalms of poetry are not ones that you just sort of whip through. These are ones you need to memorize. These are the ones you need to think about.

These are the ones you need to chew on. These are ones you need to study. These are ones where you, you do sit there and you say, well, look man, I just don't get that in the Bible. Uh, you know, I better come to church. I got no hope in the Bible. 'cause I just, I'm, I'm not doing that. I don't even read Hebrew.[00:48:00]

That's okay. Close as I come to Hebrew is when my husband makes my coffee. That's a, yeah. He, he brews the coffee that, that, sorry, dad jokes. You know, you don't have to, you take these scriptures and just take, if it's poetry especially, take it and just start thinking about it. Praying about it. Think it through, look for the parallel structures and see if it doesn't illuminate something that might have been missing.

And don't, don't be, um, type A in your scripture reading. For the longest time, I was type A in scripture reading. I gotta get through five chapters today, or I won't be through the Bible in the ear. It's okay. You don't have to make the [00:49:00] Bible in a year. Sometimes you can take one burst and chew on it and absorb it.

Um, I, I, I, I'm not a good eater and I, I say that. Advisedly because I'm real good at eating. I mean, I can eat. Ooh, I can eat, but I tend to eat real fast. I mean, why choose something 30 times when you can swallow after five and get another bite?

That's not the way we should be with the Bible. There are times where we just need to, to think about it and then pray about it. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be [00:50:00] acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, words of my mouth, meditation of my heart parallel. Be acceptable in your sight.

Taking it the next step. I want the words. I want the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. By the way, the Hebrew word heart la means in our word mind. I want the, the words that I say. I want the thoughts that I think to be acceptable to God. That's a profound way to live, but that's a prayer wrapped up in that poem.

And we should be praying as we read scripture. Lord, open my eyes. I wanna better know you in your word. And then last point for home. Um, [00:51:00] enjoy the banquet. There is so much food at the Lord's table for us to eat in His word. Look at this. Just feast upon it. We've talked parallelism. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise and simple. I gave you that as an example earlier, but look at how it continues the precepts of the Lord. We have the law parallel to the testimony, parallel to the precepts, and we have what's perfect, what's sure parallel to what's right. And then it revives the soul.

It makes wise the simple, it rejoices the heart and then the commandment of the Lord. Law testimony, precepts, commandment, all parallel is perfect. Sure, right. Pure. All parallel, revives the soul makes wise to simple. Rejoices the heart. It [00:52:00] lightens the eyes. See that poetic parallelism. Oh, it's not true. It continues the fear of the Lord.

Now we've gone. Antithetical is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true, righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold. If I were a rich man, I'd have the time that I like to sit in the synagogue and pray. I'd have the time that I lack to discuss the Holy Books. More to be desired are they than gold?

Even much fine gold. They're sweeter than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. They are the sweetest things. Study the word and we'll start doing that in Romans next week. If you'll come back, let me bless you in Jesus' name, Lord, in the name of Jesus, I ask your blessings upon all who see this Lord enlighten our eyes, [00:53:00] open our minds and our hearts.

Stoke the flames of desire to get into the riches of your word, to come together to study.

Lord, we don't wanna simply be a life group of connections. We wanna be a life group that comes together to study your word. And not to take it lightly, but to be here ready for you to speak to us through your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.