Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How You See The World | The Writings | Psalm 24

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Do you understand the world around you? How do you make sense of it? Where does God come in the picture? In today's episode, Patrick uses Psalm 24 to discuss the importance of having God at the center of your worldview. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 24

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. If you want to mind the depths of the Old Testament, it's helpful to have a grasp on ancient Hebrew cosmology. I know, I know. That's a big word. And maybe you're afraid I'm about to put you to sleep, but I promise I won't. The truth is that just like you have a picture of the world and how it functions, so did the ancient Hebrews. That's what I mean by cosmology. The important thing about your picture of the world is not so much whether it's scientifically true, but what that picture

tells you about the nature of reality, the nature of your life, the nature of the world around you. You might find what I just said ridiculous and dangerous. Don't worry, I'm not anti-science. Of course it matters that we imagine the earth revolving around the sun and the sun and its planets in an arm of a galaxy and that galaxy as one of a nearly infinite number of galaxies in the universe. Yes, all of that matters. But unless you're a world-class physicist or chemist, your world picture has holes. Here's what I mean by that. You probably don't know the rates at which the bodies in space move, or precisely how they do so and why they do so. You can't explain how light travels as a particle and a wave. You can't, with confidence, speak about dark matter and black holes. You probably can't tell me the heat of the Big Bang or how it produced anything around us.

I don't say any of that to shame you. I can't do any of those things either. I say it to say that having a comprehensive, material understanding of the universe isn't possible. No one has it. But that's okay, because you can live well in this world without having that. Those may be fun trivia facts, but knowing the answer to any one of those questions I just asked, well, that will tell you little about how to treat your spouse or your children, your roommate or your co-worker, your friends, and your family. Knowing the answer to any one of those questions will tell you nothing about how to live a good life, a meaningful life, nor can they tell you anything about the non-material reality all around us, the spiritual reality. But all of that said, our world picture, our cosmology, it sometimes does

have one side effect. It could, of course, point us towards an incomprehensibly good, wise, and knowledgeable creator, but more often than not, we allow our world picture to explain God away. In our world picture, God is absent. There's just physical stuff. And that belief, whether we believe it explicitly or implicitly, it does have an influence on how we define the good life, how we treat others, how we live in this world. It's a decidedly different world picture than what the ancient Hebrews had. It's not how the ancient Hebrews saw the world. They're world picture, their cosmology was on the one hand a lot more earthy than ours. They spoke of what they could see and hear more than what might be off in space. But more importantly, their world

picture was porous. It was like a sponge. Spiritual reality intersecting and sponging into the physical, one absorbing the other. Two overlapping realities of physical and spiritual, intersecting at all times in different ways and different places. That's how they saw the world. Psalm 24 shows us the ancient Hebrew world picture, and by the end of it, it does tell us something different about the good life, something different than many of us believe. Psalm 24-1, The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it, for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. So let's pause.

When they thought about the world, they thought about a world made by God, established by him, founded by him for his purposes, for his glory, and of course for our good, which is found in glorifying and enjoying him, the founder and creator of everything. Verse 3, who may ascend the mountain of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place. Again, we need to pause. Like many ancient people, Hebrews imagined the place of the gods as being on mountaintops. Think about Mount Olympus, for example. And mountains made sense, because on the one hand, mountains tops are dangerous and inaccessible, just like the places where gods live. They're covered in clouds. They're covered in fog. They're struck by lightning.

But they also thought about the dwelling place of God as a mountaintop because mountains reach upward into the heavens. They're a natural meeting place for gods and humans, a natural place for heaven and earth to intersect for physical reality to become especially porous. But the Hebrew world picture is also a rejection of those old stories. First of all, because mountains aren't a place where many gods live, no, there is only one God, one king of kings, no one matches his power and his majesty. Second, because their holy mountain, well, that was in Jerusalem. And this is actually kind of ironic because Jerusalem isn't much of a mountain at all.

It's not as high as the other mountains around it, like the Mount of Olives. And this makes it clear that Yahweh's holy place is humble, just like he is. More importantly, when he comes down to meet with his people, it's always an act of grace because he descends further than any other God does. We don't ascend to him by our good works. No, he comes down to us. He rescues us. He saves us and brings us to himself. The psalmist goes on to say, who may enter into his holy presence on his holy mountain, which would be, again, Jerusalem, the temple. Verse four, the one who has clean hands in a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false God,

they will receive blessing from Yahweh and vindication from their God and Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek your face, God of Jacob. Jesus later said, Blessed are the pure and heart, for they will see the face of God. And when he said that, he was recalling Psalm 24. And now you can see how this world picture changes us. If heaven and earth really do intersect, and if there really is only one Holy God, God who comes to make his home with us, then he's not distant. He's not absent from this picture at all. This world is not just material stuff. It's charged with his grandeur and purpose. Does your world

picture have space for God? Do you understand that the good life can only come when you enjoy it with the one who literally founded the cosmos and designed it? When we seek to live with the grain of God's created order in his presence. When we do that, there is joy. There is praise. All creation cries out. The city itself sings his praises. Verse 7.

Lift up your heads, you gates. The psalmist is imagining the city of Jerusalem surrounded by a wall with many gates. And he's saying, lift up your heads, you gates. Be lifted up, you ancient doors that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. lift up your heads you gates lift them up you ancient doors that the king of glory may come in who is he this king of glory

yahweh almighty he is the king of glory you were created to worship and enjoy the king of glory and he is not distant he is not far he marches into the city into the temple into his holy mountain and into all of creation he is everywhere he is with you he comes down to be with you So enjoy him. Praise him. Love him. Purify yourself for him. That is a true picture of the world.