Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Bible Study Podcast. And we. I brought up the heavy hitters for this episode because we're going into a brand new series. We're calling it Summer in the Psalms. Let's go. When we're recording this, it's summertime out there. Hope you're having a great summer. And we're going to do things a little bit differently here.
Curt Harlow [00:00:18]:
We have Jason Caine from Blue Oaks campus.
Jason Caine [00:00:20]:
Glad to be back.
Curt Harlow [00:00:21]:
And we have Dena Davidson, the frontal lobe of Thrive College program here at Bayside. And since we're going into a brand new series, you guys, and a. A very different genre than epistles and history, which is mostly what we've been talking about on the podcast the last few episodes, I thought we'd take a minute before we read the passage today and just talk about this genre. So if you don't know what a genre is, it's a particular form of writing. There's. Depending on how you divide it, there's five or six, some people say seven genres in the Bible, and each one needs to get our attention for what it is if we're gonna rightly divide the Bible and come up with the original mean of the passage. So, Jason, if you were going to give someone advice about approaching the Psalms as a genre, what advice would you give them?
Jason Caine [00:01:13]:
Yeah, first piece of advice is when you're referring to a specific psalm, like, you want to say, hey, I love the 23rd Psalm. If you want somebody to read a psalm, you say Psalm, not Psalms. I don't know why, but that just bothers me.
Curt Harlow [00:01:27]:
And I feel like that's like Revelation and Revelations, correct?
Jason Caine [00:01:29]:
It's. It's Psalm number, whatever, the psal number.
Curt Harlow [00:01:32]:
We're not shaming anyone.
Jason Caine [00:01:33]:
We're not shaming you. Just a piece of advice last week.
Dena Davidson [00:01:36]:
So no shame, 100%. I was committing this.
Jason Caine [00:01:39]:
I was actually making the mistake saying Psalms 1, and then somebody corrected me, so I was corrected on that. So it's Psalm. It's Psalm. All right. So other than that, nothing. No, I'm just kidding. Let's go a little deeper. The genre of this particular book, or as Dena is going to tell us in a little while, there's several books in the book of Psalms is poetry or these are songs.
Jason Caine [00:02:01]:
So of course you don't read poetry the same way that you read a letter that was written to somebody. So that means that there's imagery and meanings that is there. They're not always being literal. They can talk about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And some might say he's talking about a literal valley. Some may say he's pointing to a picture, and that picture represents something. So you really have to do some diligent study to make sure is this literal or is this imagery that someone is speaking of? So consult a commentary whenever you're reading the Psalms. And I think another key to reading the book of Psalms is you read them somewhat like individually, they can be read individual in any particular order.
Jason Caine [00:02:36]:
There's not like a story arc that's to them. So that's the advice that I would give. How about you, Dena?
Dena Davidson [00:02:41]:
Yeah, as you mentioned, I just learned this, but the book of Psalms is actually split up into five different books, which I think is crazy. And one of the things that scholars point to is that that mirrors how the Torah is split up. So we've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So the that five is mirrored in the five books of Psalms, which that was brand new information to me. I just studied and found that. And they actually demarcate these because there's only five times that the Hebrew word for amen is used, and that's the cutoff between each book. So that's just really interesting. And I think if you're just diving in and you're reading Psalm 1, Psalm 2, Psalm 3, Psalm 4, that's not some of the information that you might pick up on.
Dena Davidson [00:03:24]:
I know that that was new for me. Go ahead.
Curt Harlow [00:03:27]:
No, no, you go. You're killing it.
Dena Davidson [00:03:29]:
I would say this was so key for me because I have an apologetics background. And a lot of times you're reading the Psalms and you're like, what are they talking about here? There is very colorful, violent, disturbing language. What are we to make of this? Because this seems so opposite of God's nature of justice. And, you know, we have literally David at one point saying, you know, dash these infants against the rock. And you're like, how does that square with God's nature? So a really important interpretive principle that I learned long ago is that sometimes when we're reading Psalms, we need to read them as expressions of the human heart directed towards God, not exactly as reflections, reflections of God's heart. There has to be a separation. We have to read Psalms as reflection of the human heart directed towards God, not a reflection of God's heart.
Jason Caine [00:04:20]:
That's beautiful.
Curt Harlow [00:04:21]:
That is exactly right. The big difference between poetry as we know it and this, Jason, is poetry. And therefore there is a lot more metaphor in it, a lot more analogy in it. And There is a lot more emotion in it, and that's true of poetry in our culture. Right now. The difference between Jewish Hebrew poetry in Psalms and our poetry is there's going to be a lot more repetition in this poetry. So our poetry rhymes. Roses are red, violets are blue, Hebrew poetry resolves.
Curt Harlow [00:05:01]:
I make a statement. I make a statement a different way. And here's the big point. That repetition tells me this is a big point. Or I make a statement, and then I say the exact opposite of that statement to make the point clear. And what's always really interesting to me about this, of all the different forms of poetry, there's many, many different forms of poetry. This repetitive, this. What do they call it, Dena? This parallelism in Hebrew poetry translates well.
Jason Caine [00:05:33]:
It does.
Curt Harlow [00:05:34]:
It's meant for translation. If Hebrew poetry meant to make a big point and it was a rhyme, we would be reading this going, this is horrible. We would not rewrite this into any of our modern songs or hymns. And yet we do. Another principle is you have five books. So I don't think about it as the Book of Psalms. There's nothing wrong with calling it that way. But the way I try to think about this is the library of Psalms.
Curt Harlow [00:06:03]:
So through the years, inspired by the Holy Spirit, these were collected. So what that means is we're getting the best of the best. That the Holy Spirit says, I need to be in the canon of the Bible. So it's a little bit like Proverbs is the same way. There's a lot of wise things that were said in Hebrew culture as they walked with God, who. Not all of those sayings made into the Bible. What we have here is a collection. This is like when I get on my Spotify and I say, I want the best hits of the 1970s.
Curt Harlow [00:06:34]:
I do not want a song that I never heard of before. I want the best hits of the 1970s. This is the book of Psalm. Okay, one more question before we get into. Seems to me, Jason and Dena, that this book gets neglected. Like, you will find people that their whole Bible would just be the Book of Romans, right? And there are people. Their whole Bible would. The book of Revelation.
Curt Harlow [00:06:58]:
Their whole Bible would be the book of Genesis and only the first three chapters. A lot of people, this book, it doesn't seem like anyone goes, yeah, my whole Bible is the Book of Psalms. What is that error? And why is the collection of these songs, this Jewish poetry? Why is it so critical to theology?
Jason Caine [00:07:19]:
Yeah, I think one of the things, if we're talking about it being critical to theology. I think it lets us know how we can relate to God. As you read the Psalms, you'll see how honest the authors are. You'll see how they literally talk about their feelings and they say things that you wouldn't expect. And you read it, and oftentimes you're like, I can say that to God.
Curt Harlow [00:07:37]:
Yeah.
Jason Caine [00:07:37]:
And I think what it teaches us is that God can handle our frustrations and that God wants us to be honest with him. And we don't have to pretend like we can't say these things to God that we're actually feeling. He's aware of them anyway. And I think being able to vocalize them, what often happens is you. You see, I'm thinking of a particular Psalm, Psalm 71 or 72. I'm getting way ahead because we aren't covering. But God begins by saying, asking God, like, why do you let my enemies succeed? Why do the wicked prosper? And then he gets to the conclusion of that, and he says, man, I almost slipped until I saw what God was doing. And so there's this honesty that they have, and then there's some reconciliation that happens at the end.
Jason Caine [00:08:17]:
And I think that's a beautiful thing to the era that you're.
Curt Harlow [00:08:19]:
And we're just afraid of those emotions.
Jason Caine [00:08:22]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I think we're afraid of them. But I think that there's something freeing about knowing, yes, I can be honest with God about my emotions. But then I also think the lesson that is to be learned there is my honesty with God then allows me to really see who God is.
Curt Harlow [00:08:39]:
Yes.
Jason Caine [00:08:40]:
That God can hold that frustration. Then to your point about, like, you rarely hear anybody say, my favorite book of the Bible is Psalms, or people don't fall into those fallacies. I don't know exactly what that is I'm imagining because it's not storytelling per se. You know, some preachers will say all preaching is storytelling, but it's not necessarily storytelling in that way. Some psalms, we can have an allusion to what's happening historically, but others, we have no clue. So it kind of feels as if it's just floating out in space for a lack of a better term.
Curt Harlow [00:09:08]:
Right. We're attracted more to strong narrative, correct? Yeah, yeah. So the strong emotions in it kind of scares us, and we're attracted. We prefer strong narrative. Dino, how would you answer that question? Why should we put psalms at the top of our it's important list?
Dena Davidson [00:09:23]:
Yeah, well, one, just pinging off of what Jason said. I've sat with students and I've said, hey, it just really seems like you're disappointed in God. And like, oh, no. Like, God, amazing. I would never be disappointed in God. And, like, what you're seeing kind of translates into disappointment. And so then I'll always. I'll go to a psalm of lament and say, I want you to read this out.
Dena Davidson [00:09:43]:
And they'll read it to me. And I say, now I want you to say these words to God. And there's this block. They can't. They can't do it, even though they see David doing it here in Scripture. Like, I could never talk to God this way and say, okay, but it's in the Bible so that God can help us understand. He wants you to talk to him this way. And we just have this mental block about not being that free and honest and open.
Dena Davidson [00:10:09]:
So I think that's huge. It's one of the reasons that Psalms, the book of Psalms, and these particular Psalms have been so impactful in my life. But I think another huge reason why this has to be at the heart of a book that we study is that if you are not familiar with psalms, you. You do not have as clear a picture of who God is as he wants you to have.
Curt Harlow [00:10:33]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:10:33]:
I think about the people who are like, we need to disconnect ourselves from the Old Testament. It's just too hard to interpret. We've got the New Testament. Let's stick with that. There are passages in here that are so formative in understanding God's nature and his character and his heart and his mind, that if we do not immerse ourselves and meditate on this book, we are missing out on knowing God as God wants to be known.
Jason Caine [00:10:57]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:10:57]:
Okay, I got two theories on why Psalms is in need of a press agent.
Dena Davidson [00:11:03]:
I would say there you go.
Curt Harlow [00:11:05]:
One is, and this is a little cheeky, but I think it's true. Many of us, and I will throw this on me and Sally had a English class at some point, maybe several of them, middle school, high school, and college, where bad poetry was taught. Sure. Really bad poetry. So true and abstract modern poetry that one really geeky English professor loved. And you're like, I cannot get this. And I think actually poetry in Western culture would have died if it wasn't for the movement called Hip Hop. Hip Hop.
Curt Harlow [00:11:43]:
Like, if you would ask any average American that wasn't a super literary geek before hip Hop, what do you think about poetry? Oh, it's the worst. The worst. So the second we say is a genre called poetry, I Think a lot of people just immediately turn it off because they've had a bad experience. And then even as hip hop really started to go mainstream and make some inroads into the culture, you had a lot of pushback. Oh, this isn't real music. This isn't. This is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just the idea.
Curt Harlow [00:12:18]:
Poetry is a lot to me, like playing the violin. There are two types of violin players. Incredible, miraculous. Oh, my gosh, I'm so moved. That is emotional. I could feel that. And. Oh, that hurts.
Curt Harlow [00:12:34]:
That hurts to listen to that. And I think poetry is the same thing. When it's done well, I knit you together in your mother's womb. Like I said, I quote that more than probably any other verse in the Bible. When it's done well, you feel it. And when it's done poorly, so we go for the assumption it's done poorly, then. My other point is to echo yours. I think it tells us too honestly about who God is.
Curt Harlow [00:12:59]:
And so it's. The authority of God is often the big theme in a lot of these things. The freedom to be honest with God, and that's who he is. We would like a safer God, who we have to be. We know the rules. And then, you know, from the very first Psalm we're gonna see this when we read is the pursuit of my learning and relearning what is right and what is wrong. And it's great and fun to hear about the grace of God, that God chose me while yet I was still a sinner. Romans, it's great to hear that God's going to be the victor over all evil in our world, and his kingdom will vanquish all things.
Curt Harlow [00:13:37]:
That's Revelation. A little bit more uncomfortable for me to hear that I have not surrendered to the King, and this is why I have problems.
Dena Davidson [00:13:47]:
Yeah, that's true.
Curt Harlow [00:13:48]:
And the Psalms does very good at that. Okay, speaking of which, I'm gonna read this psalm out to you. That was good introduction to the genre, guys. Great job. I'm gonna read The Psalm. Psalm 1. We're right there. Pull out your Bible, unless you're driving.
Curt Harlow [00:14:00]:
And then I'm gonna come to you, Dena, and we're gonna ask the question for this particular psalm, what should we do to interpret it correctly here at the Bible study? All right, Verse one. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not prosper. What, whatever they do, prospers not. So the wicked, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. What do you see here, Dena?
Dena Davidson [00:14:55]:
So good you mentioned the parallelism. So I want to point that out in Psalm 1. So starts with this word blessed. And over and over again we're going to get this image in Psalm one of what it looks like to be blessed, to prosper, to succeed, to flourish.
Curt Harlow [00:15:14]:
You could interpret that to be happy.
Dena Davidson [00:15:16]:
Yes, to be happy. And then the opposite is to perish, to wither, to die, to not prosper, to not succeed. And so I think about the blessings and curses passages in Deuteronomy, which. So this book, the first thing that the Israelites would have been familiar with is the Book of the Law. And so they would have been familiar with all these blessings and curses that God gives for disobedience. And here we see Psalm 1 starting out, repeating this, Blessed versus perishing, blessed versus perishing, blessed Versus perishing. So I think, for me, I'm always interested to see the connection between what is here and what God has said before. And I see that connection.
Dena Davidson [00:16:03]:
This is fundamentally God saying, once again, I will show you the way to be happy. I will show you the way to be blessed. I will show you the way to actually get what your heart wants. You think it lies in a different path, but I'm going to show you the actual path toward, towards prosperity and blessing and flourishing. And the opposite of that is going to be death and perishing.
Curt Harlow [00:16:25]:
So that's what I said. Very good, very good. Jason, what would you add to that? What do you see in this passage?
Jason Caine [00:16:29]:
Yeah, so I like how it starts right out the gate is saying, this is how you are blessed. This is how you flourish in life. And I think there's a desire for all of us to experience blessing in our life. All of us want to have a measure of happiness. But this word blessed gets deeper, a deeper level of happiness, that whose source is in God. When I think about the word blessed, I think of a garden that's just flourishing. Fruit is coming off the trees, it's green. And you can look at a garden down the street, and it's withered and it hasn't had enough water and it's death and dying.
Jason Caine [00:17:00]:
So flourishing just gives this image of what does life look like? What does a good life look like? And the psalm writer lets us know in verse one. A person who is blessed is a person who does not do certain things. What are those things that they associate with those who are wicked, that they follow the path of sinners and that they keep company that isn't good for them. And I think all of us, we know that, like we as parents, all of us are parents for our children. We want them to have great friendships because we understand that you are the sum total, it's been said, of your five closest friends. And I think the songwriter is making the point that if you associate with people who are centered and not just associate with them, when you follow them, when you are in their company, when you make them, when you're not trying to influence them, but they influence you, then you will not experience what blessings is like. But then he says, this is how you are actually blessed, by doing two things. Delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on the law of the Lord.
Jason Caine [00:17:57]:
I think those are two profound lessons. How do I take delight? This is the question that I'll pose when I preach this message. How do we take delight in the law of God? Because if you think about the law like, who takes delight in the laws of the land that they live in? Oh, I just love speeding limit. I just love that I have to obey all the things that they say. But really, in the kingdom of God, if you want to be a person that is truly blessed, you have to find a way to find delight in the things that God has said. How do I find delight in the fact that God has told me not to commit adultery? Well, I'm not going to wreck my life. And that's what a truly blessed person is like. So I think just drawing this parallel that's there.
Jason Caine [00:18:35]:
And again, that repetitive language that he uses in verse number one, to your point earlier, he's saying the same thing three different ways to make an intentional point. He's sending a text message, he's adding an emoji. He's putting an exclamation point mark there to make sure that they get it.
Curt Harlow [00:18:51]:
Yeah. I always ask myself, what gets repeated. That's the main point. So it is association. I like it. So it's not just, I have lost people or evil people in my life. You can't, you know, as Paul said, if we're going to do that, we'll have no one in Our life. Life, it's, am I walking with them? Am I standing with them? Am I seating with them? So there is a.
Curt Harlow [00:19:15]:
I am following the pattern, as you said. And then one of the big keys, I say to people, if you're going to read the Bible, well, you got to get some farmer sense in your head. You got to get some environmentalism into your head, some agriculture, because the payoff here says, you know, don't walk in the same cadence with them. Don't go marching with them. Don't stand on the same street where they stand. Don't sit in their little powwow when they're making fun of everything. Don't embed yourself there. That's an embedding.
Curt Harlow [00:19:46]:
No, embed yourself in the law of the Lord. And if that happens, and here's where you gotta have a little bit of understanding, the person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, whether they prosper. So I got this little app on my phone. You could take a picture of the leaf and the AI will tell you what's wrong with your leaf. And in my front and backyard, I have a lot, a lot of plants. And the sun hits my house in a weird way. And so there are some very shady spots, and there's some very sunny spots. And then there's a lot of partial shade spots, which is difficult to navigate.
Curt Harlow [00:20:27]:
So I kind of have to put the plant. I'm moving them around all the time. And it's funny, when you find the right spot for that plant, it just goes crazy. It gets so healthy. And when you get the wrong plants in a week, the leaves will begin to say, they'll have a spot on them. They're prone to a disease there. And. Or one side of the plant is getting scorched.
Curt Harlow [00:20:52]:
And then the other thing, and this is really getting geeky on this, but I do drip irrigation. And guess what? If you put drip irrigation on this side of the plant, it does really well. If you put it on this side of the plant, it doesn't do well at all. So this idea of access to water and that the nourishment comes from not sitting with the cynical and walking in step with the people that have bad motives and want to hurt people. It comes from putting your roots into something that gives life in sustenance, which, of course is the law of God. And then the big idea here about the wicked, it's so funny, he takes a different form. The first half, he's going, don't don't, don't, don't. And if you don't, you're gonna do.
Curt Harlow [00:21:38]:
And this is what good's gonna happen now for the wicked. It's not advice at all. It's description. You're. And the bottom line description. So it's chaff that blows away. And you won't get access. You won't do well in the judgment, and you won't get access to righteous people.
Curt Harlow [00:21:55]:
More healthy good people will go out of your life. And in the end, you're gonna. And so all of this, that repetition comes to one side. You, no matter what you're scheming, no matter how clever you are, no matter how smarter you are than everyone else, you're mocking everyone for the stupid stuff they do. You will live an unsubstantial, easy to blow away life in the end. And, and this is of course, the measure of every great life. But I've done several funerals where everyone had to make it up. Not many people came.
Curt Harlow [00:22:32]:
And everyone that spoke had to be so diplomatic about saying, yeah, this guy didn't do a great job of bonding with others. And then I just did a funeral recently of a mom who died suddenly with cardiac issues. And everyone from seven or eight aspects of her life, career, life, former, where they used to came up and they had substantive things to say about her. And you're like, yeah, it's sad she died. Not as old as we would hope, but man, she lived like five lives, it seems like. And that's the contrast being made here for the wicked. It's just gone. Yep.
Curt Harlow [00:23:11]:
You're on the road to being blown away. Yeah. You're nothing. Yeah.
Jason Caine [00:23:14]:
Which again, highlights. You said you need a little farmer. And you, when you read the Bible, this process that it's talking about in verse number four, it's talking about how wheat is harvested essentially. And that points to several different stories in the Bible. The story of Gideon and Shaft was the mess that was left over. The grain would stay, the wheat would stay, but the shaft was blown away. It was nothing, no weight to it.
Curt Harlow [00:23:38]:
If this shaft is what they try to put into bread at Whole Foods.
Jason Caine [00:23:43]:
Is that so?
Curt Harlow [00:23:43]:
Yeah. Instead of just nice white bread, it got this, you know, chaffy bread.
Jason Caine [00:23:50]:
Correct.
Curt Harlow [00:23:51]:
So.
Jason Caine [00:23:52]:
So again, it's understanding that there's a process that, that this Psalm writer is, is talking about. So it takes, it takes a little research. And when you see words that you don't know in Scripture, man, what's. What is shaft? And then once you find out what shaft is, well, where does it come from? And what is the opposite of shaft? And again, it just. It's poetic language that once you can unpack, does some phenomenal things for your faith.
Curt Harlow [00:24:14]:
Okay, what should we do about this, you guys? This is another reason why I think sometimes the psalms are more challenging or not everyone's favorite. We could tend to just read them. Look for the inspirational part. Oh, God knit you in your mother's womb. Ignore the. The hard parts by. If you walk in lock step with the wicked, you're going to be in big trouble. And what do we do about this? What's the application? Monday morning, after you hear this preached in every Bayside campus, what should some.
Curt Harlow [00:24:47]:
What are what. A couple ideas, you guys. That's what people should do.
Dena Davidson [00:24:50]:
Yeah, go ahead.
Jason Caine [00:24:52]:
If we're looking for practical application, verse 2, figure out how to delight in God's Word and meditate on God's Word, it's making the point again. That is the word of God that is going to change your life. And I think as pastors in our preaching, we want to point people to the Word Word because those who find a light in the law of God will be blessed. And so the place I want to point people to is, how do I take delight in God's Word?
Curt Harlow [00:25:15]:
What does the highest say no to the bad. You got to say yes to the good. And you know who does a great job of that? The people that watch this podcast.
Jason Caine [00:25:22]:
There we go.
Curt Harlow [00:25:23]:
That's right. Congratulations. You are walking in the way of trees getting watered.
Jason Caine [00:25:28]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:25:29]:
And everything. Dena, what would you do?
Dena Davidson [00:25:31]:
I want to go off of what Jason said and then come back to the previous verse. But one the most vulnerable things that I do when it comes to reading scripture is, and I only do this with psalms, I read it out loud. And part of what it meant to meditate to the Israelites was to say it out loud. So when we think of meditation, we think of emptying your brain so that there's nothing there.
Curt Harlow [00:25:56]:
But that's a very nonsense sentence. Until my brain is empty.
Dena Davidson [00:25:59]:
Yeah, until I'm empty. And I, you know. Yeah, it's just a very Eastern idea. But then there's this Hebraic idea of what it means to meditate, and it's very different. It's a filling of the mind, and it is a filling of the mind with God's Word. And as we believe God's presence, which we experience through interacting with His Word. So one of the things that I do is I just. I have a hard time delighting in Worship music.
Dena Davidson [00:26:25]:
Like I go into a Bayside service, and when I connect with God, it's through a sermon. It's not through the worship music. But I want to be a worshiper. I want to connect with God.
Curt Harlow [00:26:35]:
And.
Dena Davidson [00:26:36]:
And so one of the things that I do to help me with that is I read the psalms out loud. So I will say, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. And then I'll pause, and then I'll say something to God. God, your way is better. Your way is higher. I agree with you that if I would just listen to you, then my life would be better. So that, I think, is a practical application point to meditate, perhaps try this week speaking this psalm out loud, but hopping back up to verse one. Who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked? I think an easy application point is who am I listening to that doesn't fundamentally share the values and the path and the truth of God's word? Who am I listening to? They're on my Instagram feed.
Dena Davidson [00:27:26]:
They're in my inbox. They're, you know, sitting next to me. Who am I listening to and picking my cues off of for how I should live my life that really has nothing to do with this blessed way of living that God says in his word will lead to the life I want to have?
Curt Harlow [00:27:41]:
Okay, let the record show that Dena had two applications, and the last one she stole from me, that was. That was the one I was going to do.
Dena Davidson [00:27:48]:
So I get a third. So I, I hopped off of Jason's, and then I stole yours.
Curt Harlow [00:27:52]:
You've got a big brain. Quit bragging, if that's what I'm saying. So I, I, I'll. I will give my little lows and fishes of my interpretation of verse one, because I think verse one one is the most challenging verse in the passage. And I always want to say when I'm applying, can I put myself in the most challenging one? And the emphasis I'll put on this, although I love the question, who am I listening to? Is a great question. Who does not walk in step? Who am I partnering with? Is what it is. So you're walking in step, and this happens all the time. It happens in, of course, romantic relationships.
Curt Harlow [00:28:31]:
I'm going to fix her. I'm going to fix him. And I'm walking in step with them. And first of all, I am so glad I'm in a marriage where I am not trying to fix Kelly. I'm trying to keep up with Kelly. I do not want to be In a fixer upper marriage, I want to be in a she changes me, inspires me and adds to me and we're truly partners. It happens in business. I all the time have Christian businessmen come to me and say, man, I'm in a real mess.
Curt Harlow [00:29:02]:
Sometimes it's a legal mess, sometimes it's a Should I be honest about this because we're doing something unethical? I didn't do it, my partner is doing it and that's walking in step with people. Sometimes we get into theological camps where we're walking in step up with a group of people and I might even totally agree with the actual doctrine, but the motive of that camp is to beat up other Christians, not even to say in love. I'd like you to consider are you thinking and believing about Christ the right way? But man, I want to go online and make posts and name names and say who I think is an idiot. And man, that is a walking and so I just go look at my life and go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, who am I walking in step with? And I'll give you one more specific application to this walking in step. And it's when the body of Christ meets. And you know, when I first became a Christian, I was this is almost one of the first things I was taught is read, study the Bible for yourself just to your point, Jason, and read it well and read it smart. It's not just important to believe, it's inspired. It's important to look at that inspiration with intelligence, bring your full mind to it and master that whether you're going to be a pastor or not.
Curt Harlow [00:30:26]:
Then the second thing I was told is go to church and go to church every weekend and go to Bible study and go to small group. And now it just seems like, you know, there's going to be a special thing. In Tahoe, my kid has a soccer practice. I just was up too late last.
Jason Caine [00:30:42]:
Year.
Curt Harlow [00:30:44]:
And then this same person comes in my office and goes, I don't know why, but I feel distant from God and I feel like the people don't appreciate me and I don't have enough friends. Well, tell me, when you come to church, how does that work when you're there at church? Oh, well, I haven't been to church in six years and I just say it's just so important if you on Sunday morning are locking steps with soccer or recreation or there's so many different activities, even just going getting work, I'm a workaholic. If you're walking in step with those things I think you're going to see a lot of that becomes chaff.
Dena Davidson [00:31:25]:
That's so good. I was convicted about that for my family. I shared in staff meeting that I missed like three Sundays in a row. And I realized every single one of those weeks I had taken my kids to family dinner. Our a big extended family. We have family dinner every Sunday. I was like, I. I never even thought about missing family dinner, but I kept my kids out of church for three weeks straight.
Dena Davidson [00:31:49]:
And I'm like, what. What kind of value system am I passing on to my kids that the family of God is less important than their family? I. That's not what. I was not intentionally doing that, but it was just this moment where I was like, I have got to get myself straight. Because what I'm thinking passing on to my kids is not reflective of what I believe God says in his Word. Like, I have to get to church. And that's as someone who works at a church. So it can just be so easy to let the actual Sunday morning experience of gathering with God's people and worshiping just be on the back burner.
Curt Harlow [00:32:26]:
Yeah. Family of origin is so much more powerful than we think. So the way I say it is what you do in times of crisis, your children will do in times of crisis. They may make a lot of different choices from you, but what you modeled and clung to in times of crisis. So if what you modeled and clung to was travel, soccer in times of crisis, guess what they're going to cling to in times of crisis? They're going to be watching soccer or playing soccer. And God bless soccer.
Dena Davidson [00:32:55]:
It gets a lot of attack.
Curt Harlow [00:32:57]:
But. But I wanted to see in church. All right, hey, you guys, thanks for tuning in. This is just the beginning of our discovery of Psalms. By the way, there's five different sub genres within the Psalms. We're going to learn all five of those as we go along. Don't miss it, don't miss it, don't miss it, don't miss it. And would you please, right now, before you forget, tell someone about the podcast, the Bible study, get on the Instagram and like it, make a comment, ask a question to us, subscribe to it, and of course you can can find it.
Curt Harlow [00:33:25]:
Everyone knows this by now. Everywhere that you can find your podcast, but especially the Thrive Podcast Network. Is that. Is that right?
Dena Davidson [00:33:33]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:33:35]:
Thank you. Bri. Bri, what are we doing next week? Psalm 2. Psalm 2, right after Psalm 1.
Dena Davidson [00:33:40]:
Bernice.
Curt Harlow [00:33:41]:
Bernice, our incredible, incredible. One of our communicating teams from UC Davis. We've not had Bernice on yet. You will really enjoy Bernice. Smart as a cookie. UC Davis student. You don't have to. She's UC Davis grad.
Curt Harlow [00:33:54]:
I don't have to say that, but definitely turn in for psalm to me, Dana and Bernice next week. God bless you.