Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Need for Justice | The Writings | Psalm 58

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

What does a world without justice look like? Is God truly just? Why do you need justice? In today's episode, Jeff shares about the peace that comes from justice, as told in Psalm 58. 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 58

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 Jeff Parrott. Take a moment to imagine a world with no justice, no system for justice even. There are no courtrooms, no verdicts to carry out, no juries or judges. What do you think about a world like that? How do you feel thinking about a world like that? Would you want to live in that kind of world?

For many people, it's hard to imagine a world without a judge, without justice. It's hard to imagine because, if anything, our collective human imagination is captivated by the idea of a world with a good and righteous judge, with good and righteous justice. And examples of this are plentiful, but one of the most widespread indicators of this human desire for justice is seen in our pervasive interest in the universe of superheroes. So whether it's the Marvel universe with Captain Marvel and the Black Panther, or the DC universe with Wonder Woman and Batman and Superman, we long for the justice and their comic universes to be realized in our real universe. These fictional characters, they point to the factual longing that we have for justice, for the world to be put to rights once and for all. Now this deep desire for justice is emphasized in many parts of the Bible, including Psalm 58. Now, this Psalm is from David, and it will stir our hearts and minds to desire a good and just world. Yet, it will also challenge our hearts and our minds.

That's because Psalm 58 contains some of the most vivid poetic language about good and evil in the entire Bible. So here's a heads up going into this passage. This psalm has some verses that can be really hard to read and hear. Frankly, it would be so convenient to dodge some of the verses here. And while a move like that might feel more comfortable in the moment, it would ultimately be a cheap compromise. And I'm convinced that these difficult parts of the Bible are worth facing head on and they're worth grappling with.

And here's the reason. The Bible gives us a portrait of real life. Scripture is not a fairy tale. It's not a kid's book. It's giving us a picture of what our lives and our world are really like. And that sense of reality is one of the reasons why I trust the Bible. And one of the reasons why I submit to it as God's truth, the truth that communicates what our hearts most deeply long for.

Now as we prepare to explore Psalm 58, let's ask for God's grace to move through our time together. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath in this day, and thank you for your word. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Psalm 58. As we read these words, let these words, especially the challenging ones, let them read us and restore us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 58 begins by calling out the unjust rulers and authorities of the world, giving us a sharp contrast between good and evil. We read this in verses one and two. Do you rulers indeed speak

justly? Do you judge people with equity? No. In your heart, you devise injustice, and your hands deal out violence on the earth. Now, notice in these two first verses, the comprehensive and cutting description of these oppressive people. Both their hearts and hands work against the grain of God's good creation. Their lives are on a trajectory set against the goodness of God's kingdom. They're moving with the counterkingdom of sin and death and the evil one. And after this introductory lament, Psalm 58 uses poetic imagery to describe the depths of the oppressive power of these leaders by comparing them to venomous snakes.

This kind of language might remind you of the way that certain stories, maybe even superhero movies, portray the villain in a way that feels embellished, and yet at the same time describes how evil, evil really is in the world. As we move on, we pick up in verse 6, where Psalm 58 moves into a section of imprecations or curses against these unjust oppressors that David's describing. Now, this is the section in Psalm 58 that may be hard for some of us to read or hear.

And before we get into them, let's just throw out two important reminders about interpreting scripture. First, these statements in the Psalms, they are intentionally exaggerated artistic expressions of lament and longing in the face of real injustice. So while the words here are poetic, they point to real pain in the lives of people who are being oppressed. Second thing to remember here, the original audience of these words, it's the people of God under the rule of unjust foreign and domestic leaders. So these words here, they're written for us, but they were originally written to them and their day and their time. Let's remember to not fall prey

to what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery, where we assume that we're somehow more advanced than the ancient biblical authors. We should have a humble learning posture with verses like these, letting them shape not only our perspective in the way we see, but also our presence and power in the way that we live. Okay, with all that in mind, let's get into the implications of Psalm 58. We read this starting in verse 6. Break their teeth in their mouths, O God.

Lord, tear out the fangs of those lions. Let them vanish like water that flows away. When they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short. May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along, like a stillborn child that never sees the sun. All right, there's a lot going on here. Let's go back and explore these cries for justice, especially the hard ones. When David calls for God to break the teeth in the mouths of the oppressors,

he is not asking us to punch them in the face or give them some kind of Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. this is not talking about the teeth of people, but the metaphorical teeth of either the venomous snake or the aggressive lion. The point of the plea is this. God would you take away their ability to use their power to dehumanize others and destroy your creation? This is a prayer for God to use his power to take away their power. You get the same effect when you read verse 7 of this Psalm. Now let's move on to verse 8, where we enter a... a tender section of scripture and for good reason. In verse 8, David proclaims his desire for these evil rulers to disappear. And he does that using two images. And one of them is really difficult.

It's the image of a stillborn baby. I want to pause and just name the fact that this might hit on a profound wound for many people, maybe from personal life experience or from the lives of people that you love. Now, if that's you, I'd love to first tell you. I'd love to first tell you, I'd love to you just that God sees you and loves you and delights in you. This image here is not meant to minimize the pain that you felt from loss, but to acknowledge it and give it meaning. David is not trying to discomfort or offend people who are suffering here. He's trying to console them with a picture of reality that, while being very intense, would have made sense to his original audience. he is drawing upon some of the strongest language and imagery possible in the human experience

to express how awful injustice really is. Now, one other difficult image in this Psalm stands out to many modern people, and it comes up in verse 10 where we read this, The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked. Wow. Okay, thanks David for that. That feels very graphic, because it is. In fact, some religious traditions don't even read verse 10 of Psalm 58 because it freaks them out so much. And I get it, right? But for the people of the ancient world, this is not a gross statement of gratuitous violence. It is a comforting statement that clarifies the weight of injustice and the need for a final lasting peace. The image here is of no more violence.

no more oppression. This is a picture of the end of evil for people who have found no avenue to freedom amidst the onslaught of violence. It feels so counterintuitive to us, but this really is meant to be a word of consolation, of peace. Now, if reading or hearing things like this makes you uncomfortable,

then I'd suggest that you're responding to this Psalm correctly and faithfully. It should make us uncomfortable because evil does not make sense. It's not the way that life should be. And yet it is still a very real part of our world, of our lives today. The Bible doesn't just want us to have the language of justice. It wants us to long for justice. Now, we've said this before in difficult passages,

but the parts of the Bible like this that tend to challenge many people, especially in our modern cultural moment, these are worth exploring not just on your own as an individual, but in community. So I encourage you find a friend or a mentor or a group to read this Psalm with and explore the metaphors that it uses. Please don't wiggle out of passages like this. wrestle with them. Now the last verse of Psalm 58, it strikes a core that resonates through all of us. David describes the response of people after experiencing the lasting justice of God. We read this in verse 11.

Then people will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth. Now, this is a really fitting end to such a striking song with such strong imagery. The repeated word here, surely, it indicates that all of this poetic language is pointing to something very, very real. Surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges the earth. So this longing for justice in our lives, it does not exist only in our stories and our hearts and our minds. It really exists in the living and loving creator of all things, the creator who will put the world to rights and put our lives to rights too.

With the sure nature of this future piece, let's consider the kind of posture that this Psalm would create for God's people living in exile, under oppression, under injustice. How should this change the way that we live? First, the entire tenor of Psalm 58 is one of collectively crying out to God for justice, not using violence or vengeance as a means of bringing about our own sense of justice. We aren't meant to react to evil violence with our own justified version of violence. We rely on God's justice within God's timeline. We are a people who depend on the one true judge. And we can also return to that question that we started with, using our imagination.

Yet, instead of imagining a world with no justice, we can imagine a world with true and perfect and lasting justice. And we don't just imagine it. We anticipate it and live like it's already here. We can do that because of the finished and future work of King Jesus. This is where Christianity is so different from any other religion or philosophy or superhero storyline. Biblical justice is brought into the world through the victory of sacrificial love. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, the justice we need is not just displayed, but accomplished. And here's what that means for us today.

We are a people who not only long for justice, or a people who can love because that justice is guaranteed. We can love in our neighborhoods and our workplaces, our friend groups, and yes, we can even love when we engage with other people online. All of life is an opportunity to live and love like there's a real and righteous judge who's making all things new. God help us to be people who long for your justice. Help us to be people who live and love differently because your justice is accomplished in Jesus. Amen.