God’s Word for You
Psalm 119:99-100 More wisdom, more understanding
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, October 12, 2024
99 I have more wisdom than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my study.
100 I have more understanding than the elders,
for I guard your precepts.
Those who have been blessed with Christian teachers must lift themselves away from those memories for a little while. Our author is not saying that he has more wisdom than them, or more understanding than they do. He is saying that, because he meditates and guards the Word of God, that he has a greater wisdom, a deeper understanding, than all other teachers; those who are not believers. Why? Because the Word of God clarifies one’s entire life, and mind.
If someone is struggling over their identity (a common trouble these days for young and old alike), what more welcome blessing can there be than to have God himself tell you that you are his own dear child? You are forgiven, cherished, and loved. This is the message of the gospel. That unconditional love sets you down with your feet under God’s own table. You are always welcome, always invited, always at home with him.
This is why you have more understanding than the elders. And here we must even recognize that there are many of those elders today, members of an older generation (whether I belong to it, too, or not) who say that they are Christian, but who have been taught to say, “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” only because it wasn’t clear that the poet who said it was describing the arrival into heaven, but pop culture turned it into the searching and the longing of the damned, who don’t know Christ, and who reject the idea of a Savior from sin. “Be it as your wisdom will,” O Sceptic, but true wisdom has two sides: the law, when God opens his lips against you, and the gospel, when God proclaims that he has forgotten your sins (Job 11:5-6).
Make the testimony of God your study. Read it—a passage, a chapter, a Psalm—consider it, and let it be part of your whole day. Meditate on it as you put away the dry dishes and as you set the oven going to make supper. Consider it as you travel from place to place, and as you wait for a friend to arrive. Bring it out on your lips at just the right moment when someone asks or says something that leads you to say, “I was reading my Bible this morning, and this is what it said….” For many people, to see a friend remember some of the Bible is like a magic trick; but to hear them quote it at an appropriate moment without sounding like they’re surprised that you didn’t know any better is true wisdom at its best.
Verse 100 uses the verb “guard,” which can also mean “keep” (verses 22, 56). But “guard” especially means to preserve, and to keep from harm. This means to be certain that when we talk about the gospel, that we are understood correctly. There is a brood of vipers in our communities and towns, a whole denomination whose ministers are taught to preach out of both sides of their mouths. They behave arrogantly, thinly disguising that they agree with those who doubt that miracles could ever be true, and who philosophize that any talk of resurrection is the language of memorial and not of reality. At the same time, they behave with condescension toward the simple folk in the pews who believe every word the Bible says, who trust in Jesus for their forgiveness and to bring them, body and soul, into heaven on the Last Day. Their faith gets chipped at, chink by chink, over the years, but we can only pray that the Holy Spirit will preserve them. Isaiah prophesied about them even as he condemned the sinning people of Judah: “Women rule over them. O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path” (Isaiah 3:13). May God watch over those good people and guard them against the arrogance and unbelief and false teaching of so many who lead them. May the Holy Spirit bring them faithful ministers who have more understanding than their elders.
Consider the saints of the holy Scriptures. Did Deborah doubt that the LORD Almighty was with her, or that he truly is the God of heaven who looks with grace on his people? Not for a moment. She prayed and praised his holy Name. She recited the righteous acts of the LORD for all to hear (Judges 5:11). Did Samuel think that Moses was nothing but a legend of the dusty, distant past? Not at all! He proclaimed the name of the LORD and the faithfulness of Moses the man of God, who brought Israel’s forefathers out of the land of Egypt (1 Samuel 17:6-8). Did Jesus Christ our Lord ever consider that Adam, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah or Jonah were imaginary legends? No—he had the wisdom to know that the Bible presents nothing of mythology, but only the history of God’s people for God’s people to learn from and give thanks for. “Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced” (Psalm 105:5).
As it was then, so it is now. We are the ones who have more wisdom and understanding than the wide world all around, because we believe the whole Bible to be the truth; most especially the atoning sacrifice of Jesus our Lord, who rescued us from our sins and who will carry us all into heaven, forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.