Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Pursuing Truth | The Writings | Psalm 14

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Are you living life as though God isn't real? What shapes your world-vision? How do you decide what is true and untrue? In today's episode, Patrick examines Psalm 14 for answers. If you enjoyed this episode, you should read more by J.H. Bavinck. Check out his book Personality & Worldview, translated by James Eglinton. Also: You should 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 with others, so 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 14

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. The other day, my wife realized she spent our entire marriage living a lie. You see, she's always lived as though I like capers. That I like capers in baked cauliflower. That I like capers on charcutory spreads. That I like capers on salmon filets.

But a few days ago, I told her the truth. I don't like capers. I don't hate them either. but I never really eat them. She couldn't believe that I'd held this back for over a decade of marriage. Now, living as though someone likes a food who doesn't like that food, that's not a big deal, especially if that person never tells you it's the case. Of course, you could try to get past all of your as-those by asking questions.

Do you like capers? Do you like cauliflower? You could constantly be seeking the truth about someone's dietary interests. But we rarely do that, especially with incommission. consequential matters, like capers. But we also rarely seek the truth in more consequential matters. It's totally possible to live as though many things are true, which are not true. And it's easy not to investigate whether those things we live as though they're true really are true. In a materialistic secular culture, it's easy to live as though God isn't real without ever really

investigating the claim is God real. Just like it's easy if you grow up in a religious environment to live as though God is real without ever investigating that claim. The thing is that one of those beliefs is a falsehood. The other one is a truth. But the two people holding those two beliefs, one saying God isn't real, one saying that God is real, well, they share one thing in common. They live by their intuitions about the world, the way of seeing the world that they've inherited and imbibed. An early 20th century Dutch theologian named Johann Herman Boving calls this a world vision. A modern bobbings scholars named James Egglinton, he defines a world vision as, quote, a set of intuitions about the world formed in all individuals by their family and home environment,

their teachers and education and the broad culture within which they live. Everyone has a world vision. You have a world vision. They're both caught and taught. They shape our personalities, even as our personalities shape our world vision. But what's important is that, your world vision causes you to see the world as though certain truths are true. Truths that we take for granted. And those truths have a way of shaping how we live. Are you aware of your world vision? All the things that you take for granted?

Have you examined it? In his book, World View and Personality, Johann Herman Bovink describes several people driving down a road, each with his own world vision. One is a speedster who loves nothing but driving as fast. as he can. Everything around or on the road, whether it's debris or goats or children, they're all crumpled up into a single thing for him in his world vision. They are all obstacles. Another person driving down this road is an engineer. Nature around him is full of possibilities.

He thinks of how they could cut roadways and build bridges into the space. Everything gets crumpled into that one thing in his world vision. Another is a geologist who sees the craggy cliff faces and layers of sediment and finds himself rebuilding their geological history in his mind. Again, all of the things around him get crumpled into one thing in his world vision. Another is an economist. and he's considering how the land could be deployed for more efficient economic use to create labor and jobs. And another one is an artist and he's struck by the sound of the wind and the strange cycle of life and death that creates beauty and decay all around him.

They all have a world vision, a way of seeing the world. No one person can see all of the reality around them because each of them is limited. But also, none of them ever really stopped to consider whether there is a different way to see than the way they see. That's the thing about world visions. They're intuitive. They're assumed. They become our norms, our givens. They're what we take for granted.

They create the as thoughness of the entire world around us. And we rarely slow down to examine all these things we take for granted. Do you slow down? This finally takes me to today's passage, Psalm 14. Psalm 14 describes someone who lives as though there is no God. That's his world vision. Let's pick up in verse one. The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

Let's pause there for a second. The psalmist clearly sees this as a tragedy. He describes someone who thinks this way in the next verse as corrupt, and he says that their deeds are viled, and he says that there's really no one who does good. But his foolishness is not merely his unbelief in God. It's the fact that he allows his unbelief to go unexamined. He has a world vision. He lives as though.

God isn't real, but he never examines the truthfulness of that world vision. Verse 2. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God, all have turned away, all have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Do all these evil doers know nothing? It's a sobering passage. Just think about yourself. Do you seek truth? Which is a way of saying, do you simply have a world vision? a bunch of intuitions and assumptions about the way the world is? Or do you examine that world vision in pursuit of truthfulness? It is very rare that anyone does this. And yet, it's something we all desperately need, because to question our world vision is to build a new world, to deny ourselves

and to deny the falsehoods we've believed, and to find something deeper and truer. This is what Bavink calls a worldview. It's a journey towards truth, a journey towards God, which is a always tempered by the reality that part of us doesn't actually want that journey towards God. Part of us doesn't actually want that journey towards truth. We want to live in our falsehood and we want to live in our lies. There is this discord in us which Psalm 14 is getting at when it says. Does anyone seek after God? Does anyone seek after truth?

There is a part of all of us that wants to live as though God is not real. And yet we also long for him and want the truth. Bovink summarizes this perfectly. He writes, Each worldview is a living proof of that notable discord that abides in the human soul. A human being does not rise above it. This is because the relationship between the human being and God is always a rye. Sin's delicate poison has sunk into all his powers and all his desires.

A human being cannot do other than both seek God because he longs for him in the deepest part of his being and evade God because he fears and hates him with every. fiber of his being. Psalm 14 is exploring that reality, and it ends with a prayer that God would act to save the weak and the oppressed from those who live as though God is not real. Verse 4. They devour my people as though eating bread. They never call on the Lord. But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. You evildoers frustrate the plan of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.

This prayer is both cosmic and personal. When we live as though lies are the truth, we become children of the first liar, Satan, and we create a hell out of heaven and a heaven out of hell. We wreck and destroy this world because we're living out lies. And apart from God's action, there is no way to restore what our twisted world visions have wrecked. And so we pray, come Lord Jesus, restore, resurrect, and renew. And yet I can't help but see a more intimate prayer here in Psalm 14. You see, I am personally in need of salvation. I need my mind, heart, and habits to be refurbished. I need to develop a worldview that seeks after truth and thereby reconstruct myself and reality. But I'm not capable of doing this on my own. For that, I need God's grace and the power of the Creator Spirit who both made and remakes all things.

What's your world vision? What do you live as though is true but you've never examined? Pray for God to act in your life, to help you to seek the truth, to seek him, and to deny yourself so that you may be remade in his image.