Blessed - The Man

It has been a long couple of weeks for me. South Dakota has been a very white place over Christmas, and people didn't move around much. I was shacked up with my family in a farmhouse with no cable TV, Internet, or cellular service, so God graciously afforded me some study time.

I spent quite a bit of time on this passage:

Psa 1:1-2 HNV
(1) Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;
(2) but his delight is in the LORD's law. On his law he meditates day and night.

When trying to commit passages to memory, I try to take out the italicized words, meaning... the ones that were not in the original text. It's intellectually stimulating to sit on a passage that comes across as awkward in English. This one isn't so bad... in fact instead of awkward, I think it becomes more potent.

BLESSED the man - it's emphatic. Notice all the negative actions. Blessed is he who does not... and does not... and does not.

But then there is the one big positive action. The pathway to being blessed is to meditate on the law of the LORD. Do we do this? Much? Some might say... the Law has passed away - that's 'Old Testament'. Was this the stance Jesus took?

Or did Jesus say that not one jot or tittle would pass away from the Law? Yes, Jesus fulfilled the Law, but He also said that it all hung off of two commands:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and also... love your neighbor as yourself. Easy, right?

Tremendously simple! Horribly difficult. That Jesus fulfilled the Law means that to follow Him requires us to chase after these two commands.

It would be quite a feat to love God with everything you are... and your neighbor as yourself... and also to sit in the seat of scoffers, or walk in the counsel of wicked men, or stand as a stumbling block to sinners. Here is a question that we can consider rhetorical: do the biggest scoffers you know consider themselves Christ-followers?