Don't use Scripture, treasure it.

  

 

"Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts." Psalm 119:98-100

 

Too often, for many of us, reading and studying Scripture becomes a tool which we use to outwit our opponents, critique culture, evaluate sermonic soundness (truth), and test other Christians’ spiritual growth.

 

To be sure, the Psalmist does say that God’s word makes him wiser than his enemies, a step ahead of those who oppose or persecute him; cultivates in him a more insightful understanding than those who teach him or others God’s word; and enables him to possess a more comprehensive knowledge than those who are respected for their spiritual position and longevity in the community.

 

But, to be sure, these things are not the reasons for which the Psalmist meditates on God’s word. He doesn’t keep God’s precepts in order to be wise beyond his age, his teachers or his enemies. Rather, these things are the unintended, even unasked for, results of loving God’s Word, of loving God first.

 

If I use Scripture to get wisdom, I become arrogant. If I treasure Scripture to know God, I become wise.