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Studio "B" Transcripts
Dr. John York is a professor of Bible at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He visited with the New Life Station's listeners for six days to introduce us to the Bible book called Psalms. You may now jump to one of the following:
HOST: Joining us today is Dr. John York of Lipscomb University. Dr. York is a Bible scholar that is going to be here visiting us for the next several days introducing us to the Bible book Psalms. Dr. York, you might want to take a moment before we begin and just introduce our listening friends to your teaching credentials and a bit of personal background. DR. YORK: I currently teach in the College of Bible Ministry at Lipscomb University. I enjoy teaching some preaching courses there and textural courses, primarily in the New Testament, although I teach some Old Testament. I also do some work with Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. That's particularly where I have been teaching Psalms recently. I have a wife of 24 years of marriage and two sons, one of whom is about to graduate from high school and another who is a sophomore in high school. I started at a small school in Portland, Oregon called Columbia Christian College and moved from there to Abilene Christian University where I completed a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree and then I pursued a Doctorate at Emory University. I finished that in 1989. HOST: Any special interests for you? DR. YORK: I have always loved music, but there was something about the Psalms in scripture that left me not thinking about them as music, but thinking about them as scripture. One day I awakened to the notion that they were originally a hymnal, the psalms are a song book as we would think of it. They began to come alive for me at that point, because I believe very strongly in the power of music and the way we tend to learn a lot of things and memorize a lot of things through the lyrics of songs that we don't otherwise pick up just in the reading. One of the things about the Psalms that I think is so powerful is that they were the hymnal of Israel for centuries and the hymnal of the Christian church for centuries. When you begin to think of them in that light and not just as a long book in the midst of the Bible, but as a series of individual songs just like you might pick up in a hymnal in one of the churches today, then they take on different meaning. For me that's been very powerful particularly as I realize the way in which those who put this book together centuries ago actually put it together like they had received the earliest instructions from God; as they had received the Torah in the first five books which they knew as the instruction of God. They received that in five books in the Psalms happened to be put together in five books. In the opening Psalms, as a matter of fact, they introduced the whole hymnal as the Torah of God. I particularly like the language that you get when you listen to this opening Psalm. This is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. His delight is in the Torah, the instruction of the Lord and on his instruction he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in seasons and his do not wither. Whatever he does prospers. That's the picture of the person who is meditating and delighting in Torah, in the instruction of the Lord. There is a sense that all the rest is going to be about that instruction, the bad times as well as the good times. I think that's what helps make these parts of scripture come alive for me. HOST: Why don't you talk for a moment about how the Psalms would have been used originally by the Jewish nation and how they have been used over the centuries by Christians. DR. YORK: I think in the beginning you'd discover as you read through these that they were used in all kinds of settings that were written over several centuries and so they reflect very different settings; either that of the individual in the best of times or sometimes the worst of times. More often they reflect the community perhaps at worship around the temple, perhaps in the midst of suffering as they find themselves besieged by their enemies. There are these cries for God at times and there are these other reflections at times of all that God has done for His people. And so for the people of Israel, it represents different times in their lives, life together as a people whether that's good or bad. Likewise for the history of the church, these became the place where people reflected on God and where I think a lot of people over the centuries found the vocabulary of prayer if not the vocabulary of their music, at least the vocabulary for talking to God. All situations that might come upon one in life were found in this material. HOST: Dr. York, you're going to be with us this coming week. Perhaps it would be a good idea as we wrap up our time today and give our listening friends a little bit of an idea of the kinds of things we will be doing in this book of Psalms during the coming days. DR. YORK: We'll spend our next time together talking about some large categories for understanding these different Psalms. I think there are some ways of viewing all of them. In particular categories like orientation or disorientation, circumstances in life that help us get a handle on the overall structure. Then I want to look at specific Psalms. I want to look at David and some of the things he has to say to God as he reflects on himself and the relationship to God, in the good times and in the bad times when David recognizes how great God is and when David recognizes how sinful he is. HOST: Let me ask you to wrap up our visit today with perhaps your sharing just a piece of one of your favorite Psalms with our listening friends. DR. YORK: Let me read from Psalms 2 which I think forms the rest of the introduction because on the one hand it reflects about difficult circumstances in the lives of people and on the other hand it reflects on the sovereignty of God who is ultimately in charge. The Psalmist begins by asking the question, "Why do the nations conspire and the people applaud in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and His anointed one. Let us break their chains they say and throw off their fetters." But listen to what God says. "The one enthroned in Heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath saying have installed my king on Zion's Hill. I will proclaim the decree of the Lord and he said to me, "You are my son and today I become your father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the end of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron septer, you will dash them to pieces like pottery. Therefore you can't be wise. Be warned you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. God is in charge." put the jump point below between each segment Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? HOST: Joining me here again today is Bible scholar Dr. John York. Dr. York will be introducing us to the Bible book called Psalms. Today you wanted to talk with us a bit about some of the variety you found in the Psalms. That is one of the unique things about all of scripture that many people are probably not familiar with is that the Bible is a collection of many different types of literature, but even within the Psalms itself there is a great deal of variety. DR. YORK: It's not unlike the circumstances of our music world today in which different songs reflect different moods and different settings whether it's of the individual or it's the community. The great thing about this material collected we call the Psalms is that it is written by several different authors. We're most familiar, I suppose, with David the great king of Israel, but he's just one of several who wrote these psalms. The psalms also reflect the circumstances that are sometimes quite joyous and other times horrendous in terms of the experiences of the people or the experiences of the individual. I thought it might be helpful to read some of the different ones and reflect on them under three different broad categories. Some people call one of these categories psalms of orientation, they are psalms written in the context of satisfied world being - when life is going well and one understands God's blessing and these are professions of faith. Let me just read a part of Psalms 33 and that will give you an idea of what this orientation, this sense of affirmation that God is on our side sounds like. "Sing joyfully to the Lord you righteous. It's fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the heart. Make music to Him with a ten-string lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. This is from Psalms 33 and it gives you the sense that we know God is on our side and victory is at hand. But life is not always lived in victory. Sometimes life lives in the worst kinds of tragedies or worse yet, it's lived with the animal chasing us. There are other psalms called songs of disorientation and these have a lot of personal lament or communicated lament involved in them. A good example from David comes from Psalms 35 where he says, "Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Take up shield and buckler; arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Say to my soul, "I am your salvation." May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame; may those who plot my ruin be turned back in dismay. May they be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them away; may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. Since they hid their net for me without cause and without cause dug a pit for me, may ruin overtake them by surprise - may the net they hid entangle them, may they fall into the pit, to their ruin." You can find some language that is even more harsh than this in terms of the wish of the psalmist that his enemies would just be destroyed by God and sometimes it's so brutal that we're hardly believing we just read this in scripture. I think the point of these psalms is to say God is a God who is there to hear our cries, whatever the circumstances, whatever the anger of the distress or the dismay that may be a part of our circumstances. There are also psalms of no orientation, of coming out on the other side and of realizing that in those worst moments God did not abandon us. He was still there for us and he has now seen us through. I think a good example of that is Psalms 66. If you start reading near the middle of this. "For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs." You hear this language that reflects on the difficulties and of their crying out to him. But this is also a psalm that ends with these words, "Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!" Now all the way through you can find different psalms that reflect these basic three understandings - 1) either of orientation of that sense that this is the norm because God is here; 2) life is good and that sense of disorientation in which the other reality of life has come upon us or 3) new orientation, a return of God's presence in ways that affirm that he has been there all along. HOST: So regardless of what circumstances of life any one of our listening friends may find themselves in, there is going to be something in the Psalms that will address the way they feel. DR. YORK: There will be words for all of our feelings. There are words for the great highs and the greatest of lows. That is one of the reasons why I love this material. During the great highs it is easy to turn to God and say the right words. It's during the deep depressive lows that we struggle and we are afraid we're not even suppose to come to God with those words. The psalmists do and I think they give us permission, not only to use their words but sometimes come up with our own to express those deepest pains and hurts. HOST: Can I put you on the spot for a moment and ask about your own personal experiences in that regard. Have there been times when you have used the Psalms to express your joy or the Psalms to express some sense of foreboding or disaster or tragedy in your life? DR. YORK: I suppose that a lot of scripture tends to come alive in crisis for us. Some of my crisis came in some of our early married years when my wife suffered through three different miscarriages. There is nothing more traumatic than losing a child. Even though that is an unborn child, there is still great loss. These words were helpful to me in those kinds of times. I've had other times where people very close to me, sometimes people who were really helping me make it through in some difficult financial circumstances, suddenly died. When you have no place else to turn, even turning to God can feel somewhat empty. I, and a lot of people like me, have found our source of strength by coming to these words in scripture in Psalms and hearing these words cry out to God for us. Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? HOST: Today you said you wanted to take us to one of the Psalms in particular, the eighth psalms in the Bible book Psalms, where we get a bit of a look at God's view of man. This particular psalms, I think written by David as Bible scholars seem to believe most of these psalms were written by him. DR. YORK: Yes. There are a lot of psalms that actually have headings at the beginning of them. In this case, the heading reads, "For the director of music, according to gittith." This is a word referring to some kind of musical term that we're not quite sure we understand, but clearly it goes on to say a psalm of David. This is a psalm of orientation, as we talked about last time. I really like the psalm because it is David first reflecting on the glories of all the creation and then putting humans in the midst of that creation as he tries to understand what God did when he created us. Look at these words, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place." He looks out over all of creation. Maybe David was out when he was a boy and taking care of the sheep one night and he looked out at the heavens and he just imagined all that God has done. The he asked this question, " What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" Those are just parallel phrases. He's not trying to distinguish two different people with man and son of man, just the nature of humans. Then he write, "You made him a little lower than the heavenly being and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas." Then he concludes, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Let me go back to that phrase, "You made him a little lower" and one translation says, "You made him a little lower than God." The point is David has this view of the creator of the universe who has made everything with his fingers, with the touch of his hand. Yet just below that he made humans. If one doesn't have a high view of God, I think one ends up with a pretty low view of humans because otherwise we see ourselves in all of our badness with the inhumanity, the inhumane ways in which we treat one another and the way we treat this created world sometimes. But if we understand there is a creator God out there who created us in his image just a little lower than him. That says we are something special in the eyes of the creator himself. We are ordained and by that God to act and be and live in ways with one another and with this earth that had to do with the creator himself, with the genius of creation, and with that high calling that comes from his sovereignty when David says "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth" he's not just talking about God, he's calling us to live in the presence of that God as the one made just a little bit lower than him. What a powerful image of who we are designed to be by God in this created world. HOST: Dr. York, one of the things that interests Bible scholars and just simple Bible students like myself about the Psalms and about David in the Psalms is that we know so much about his life that it's hard to resist the temptation to try to use the various psalms in conjunction with the various events of his life that we know about. We're talking here about a man that was very earthy, and of great passions and appetites, very much an accomplished warrior that was feared by his enemies for his ruthlessness, yet capable of such remarkable spirituality and expressing that in such a remarkable way. DR. YORK: It's fascinating to imagine the different times in his life when he might have written this. Was this written the day or the night after he killed the bear that was attacking the sheep? Was this written after his first child was born? Was this written when he was being pursued by King Solomon when King Solomon was trying to kill him? He's hiding from him. There's so many different places you can place David and then imagine these words and it reshapes them. Not unlike all those different circumstances we find ourselves in from great highs to greatest lows. Yet always we are called back to the creator God who made us in his image. HOST: One of the strengths that I have always appreciated about David is that regardless where he was in life, high or low, he always managed to maintain a close connection with God. Yet many of us when we get to those low spots have a tendency to want to pull away not only from God our creator, but all of those around us as well. DR. YORK: In our next segment, I want to spend some time talking about David at one of those greatest lows when he had pulled himself away and found himself coming back
Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? HOST: You're going to ask us to consider the 51st Psalm. Given the nature of this psalm, it might be a good idea for you to do a little bit of an introduction for us. Introduce us to this man, David, and the situation he finds himself in. DR. YORK: David was one of the famous kings of the Israelite people. David was known as a man after God's own heart when God called him to be king. He was anointed by Samuel and was known as the greatest warrior king that Israel ever had. After that warrior sense came great victory for all of Israel as the kingdom was united around him in ways that even in the days of Solomon and soon after that it began to disenegrate a little bit. So as Israel would centuries later would reflect back on their history, they were always looking for a son of David to come back to the throne. In fact, even today, they are looking for a son of David. Jerusalem is known as the city of David. There is all that positive about him. On the other hand, there are the real life struggles of David in the midst of becoming the mighty and powerful king, David was still human. His humanity came out in the strongest in some ways and ugliest in others. He stayed home one spring and the people, his warriors, went to battle without him. While at home, he was tempted by a young lady that he saw named Bathsheba and he ended up committing adultery with Bathsheba. In an effort to hide all that was happening with Bathsheba, he brought her husband Uriah back into town. Uriah was out fighting a battle and when he came back into town he was so honorable he refused to even enter the house of his wife. Out of that whole thing, David ended up killing Uriah in order to cover up more of his sin. He kept refusing to accept responsibility for that and so the prophet Nathan came to him one day and exposed him and made him aware of all that he had done in ways that David could not refuse it. It's out of that realization of his sin that Psalm 51 is written. It is very, very powerful. David, the man after God's own heart, the man who by his actions had so fully and clearly denied God, writes these words, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleans me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned." He had a man killed in battle. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, but he understands all that what he did to other humans was still at the core and a front to God. "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place." And then this cry to be clean. "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not case me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." David's faith is such that he believes God will indeed restore him and when restored David says, "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and winners will turn back to you." David says, "I will become your spokesman again because I know I will experience your cleansing. When I am cleansed I will lead others to that cleansing as well." HOST: Let's talk about that cleansing for just a moment. That certainly is one of the great strengths of the Judaic Christian tradition, this idea of repentance, being able to lay those burdens, those sins, those iniquities down at the feet of God and leave them and go on with life. Please talk about that for a moment. DR. YORK: Sin is ultimately defined by God's holiness and it is that holiness of God that is such an affront. That is sin is such an affront to that holiness. When we sin like that, we basically are saying, "God not your will be done, but my will be done in ways that ultimately are destructive to us." But God is a God who never stops pursuing it. Back in the 23rd Psalm there that language, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." You read on down through that and he says, "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." And he says, "Surely goodness and love will follow me." And the language really says surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life. God's grace, God's mercy, God's desire to forgive us actually chases us because God wants us to be in his presence. He wants to forgive us. But he waits for us to tell the truth about our lives with the promise that if we will tell the truth, he will still love us.
Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? HOST: Dr. York joins us today to talk about the Bible book Psalms. He has been with four days so far this week and will be with us for a day or two more as we discuss this great Old Testament book of the Bible. Today you wanted to talk with us about the 73rd Psalm. Undoubtedly in our listening audience there are those who are experiencing some of the darker moments of life. We all face those moments from time to time, some more than others. You mentioned that this psalm in particular is one of those that can be of some assistance to those that find themselves facing the darker moments of life. DR. YORK: I think that one of the most difficult struggles we have is when our own circumstances are not going well and we look around us and there are people that appear to us to be thieves, cheats, or scoundrels of some kind and they just seem to get more and more and do better while we are just doing worse and worse. One of the reasons that I love Psalms 73 is here is a guy who looks out on circumstances around and he's been taught to believe God is good, but he wakes up one day to realize that he'd become pretty cynical about everything else around him in life because all the bad guys were winning and he getting nothing out of it. He has a revelation. It's that revelation that I think is very powerful in this story. I want to read major segments of this psalm out of a particular English translation done by Eugene Peterson. It goes by the title, The Message. Listen to how he phrases some of this. He starts out, "No doubt about it. God is good. Good to good people, good to the good-hearted, but I nearly missed it. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people at the top, envying the wicked who have it made who have nothing to worry about not a care in the whole wide world. Pretentious with arrogance they wear the latest fashions in violence, pampered and overfed, decked out in bows of silliness. They jeer using words to kill, they bully their way with words. They're full of hot air, loud mouths, disturbing the peace. People actually listen to them. Can you believe it? Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words. What's going on here? Is God out to lunch? Nobody is tending the store. The wicked get by with everything They have it made, piling everything up riches. I've been stupid to play by the rules. What's it gotten me? A long run of bad luck that's what - a slap in the face every time I walk out the door." Maybe life has not been that bad on us, but there are those moments, aren't there? We feel like everybody else goes their way and I'm getting nothing out of this. HOST: I am reminded of that cynical phrase Americans like to use, "No good deed goes unpunished." DR. YORK: There is this sense he has that somehow the world is upside-down. But then he stops. What he says next is a reflection that these are his thoughts in his private moments, these are not what he is sharing with the world, with good reason. He says if I had given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children. When I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache. Until I entered the sanctuary of God, that is until I came into God's presence. Here is a reflection, no doubt, on the temple, but it's that sense of being back where God is so that one sees a new reality or at least a truer reality then the "movie screens" of our world around us. He said, "I discovered the truth, then I saw the whole picture. The slippery road you put them on with a final crash in a ditch of delusions. In a blink of an eye disaster, a blind curve in the dark. Like a nightmare, we wake up and rub our eyes nothing. Nothing. There is nothing to them and there never was. When I was belingered and bitter, totally consumed by envy, I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox in your very presence. I am still in your presence, but you've taken me by the hand. You wisely and tenderly lead me. Then you bless me. You're all I want in heaven. You're all I want on earth. When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, God is rock firm and faithful. There is that sense when we come back together with God's people, when we come together in that assembly for worship that we experience the true reality, not the false reality that prey upon us during the week. When we come together to worship him, we are reminded that he has a vision that's greater the present. His vision is eternal, his vision has a view of reality that's completely different in what's going on in this temporary world. You can look at our world just in this century and discover that even 70 years is not all there is to time. Sometimes we get bogged down with what we see in the short-terms of 2 years or 5 years or 10 years or 20 years. But just think of all the change in this century alone. It reminds us that whoever is a the top today probably won't be there tomorrow. The only thing that remains unchangeable is God and his love for us. HOST: It puts me in mind of the fact that a Christian perspective colors the world in such a different way. Can you talk about this for a moment how a Christian's perspective on the world in a number of respects, not just this particular one of the justice to be found in our world? So many different areas of life a Christian perspective brings a fresh approach to most anything that can be done in life. DR. YORK: Whatever our circumstances, and again I think it's most acute when we are in dire straight because something has to provide us with hope. Whatever the circumstances of life are, belief in a creator God particularly this personal one of scripture that continually affirms his great and steadfast love for us, yet affirms that there is more to life than all the riches in this world or all the poverty of this world. There is a great vision of a God who wants us to be in his presence, not just for a life time on earth, but for an eternity. When you can take on that perspective, it allows you to see this short term in a very different way. HOST: Today you have helped us get a different perspective on the world and what happens around us. Tomorrow we're going to wrap up with a different perspective of God himself. DR. YORK: What does God look at when he looks at his creation here? What does he see? What is he watching for?
Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? HOST: We are joined with Bible scholar Dr. John York, talking to us about the Bible book Psalms. These are a remarkable series of discussions. Over the last couple of days you have shared with us thoughts of some of the Psalms that are particular favorites of yours. Today you said you wanted to talk about the 130th Psalm, but there was some place else you wanted to begin before we got there. DR. YORK: I was reminded as I thought about the 130th Psalm of the opening words from David in Psalm 25 because there is a particular phrase he uses here that I think is really important in understanding, not just how David sees himself before God, but how all of us humans are to see ourselves before God. He says, "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me." It's that phrase "I lift up my soul" and perhaps we are familiar with this idea of lifting up our hands in this outstretched position when we are praying or talking to God. It's a means of communication in treaty. But for Israelites like David, to lift up the soul was a gesture that portrayed not just the treaty of prayer, but one's whole life, one's whole identity as being stretched out and up to God. I like that notion that when we stretch out our hands we are saying God here is my life that I hold up to you because I am at your disposal. I am in your care and your mercy. That's important to keep in mind when we read the 130th Psalm. Both of these happen to be psalms of lament, those psalms of disorientation that we talked about. But there is a phrase in Psalm 130 that I find to be extremely meaningful. These psalms, by the way, begin back in about 120 and run through 134 are all entitled "a songs of ascent." They were songs that Israel sang together when they would make pilgrimages up to Jerusalem. If you've ever looked at a map, or you know that region, you know that Jerusalem is higher topographically than the rest of the region and the land around it. To go to Jerusalem is always to go up. These are songs of going up. Psalm 130 is a song of going up. People would travel to these feasts and celebrate their identity as the people of God in Jerusalem. This particular psalm reflects on making the journey when life's not been too good. As a matter of fact, the psalmist says, "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice." Out of the depths is shorthand for saying out of the depths of the sea, the recognition that I am drowning here and I am crying out to you. Please Lord let your ears be attentive to my cry of mercy. But the psalmist also knows what God hears and sees when he looks down on his people. He writes, "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?" If you watched for sins, Lord, we'd all be dead. There would be not a thing any of us could do about it. But the psalmist writes, "But with you there is forgiveness." God doesn't sit up there watching for the next mistake we make. He doesn't watch for our iniquities. He watches to forgive. That's what David counted on in that 51st Psalm that we read together earlier this week. When I cry out for mercy, when I plead for a clean heart, I know that I'm talking to a God that doesn't watch to collect and list my sins against me. We have this picture, I think sometimes, of judgment scenes where God is standing there with a counter, with a great big list of everything we have ever done wrong in our lives. He just starts checking them off and the more he checks off, the worse we feel. But this song says no this is not the kind of God I am here to worship. I worship a God who doesn't just watch and check off my mistakes; he watches to forgive. Because I know he is a forgiving God, I am empowered to become and to be more, not less, to do more right not wrong. The psalmist goes on, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchment wait for the morning." Then he turns to the people. Again, picture these people all marching up to Jerusalem singing this song and now he turns to Israel and he says, "O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He will redeem Israel from all their sins." What a promise to believe in, that God isn't this angry, vengeful, "I'm going to get you", evil eye watching us. He is that lover of his people, who pursues and wants us to turn and repent and he promises to forgive. HOST: Dr. York, having been born and raised in the Christian tradition, it's only been in the last few years that I have begun to study and understand about the various other faiths of the world. One of the things that has struck me time and again is this very difference that God portrayed or pictured by the Bible and the Christian faith is a loving, forgiving, approachable God as opposed to a God who may or may not allow you to approach him and may or may not forgive and in many cases is very intent on punishing the gods of Buddhism or the god of Islam or any of the various other faiths of this world. DR. YORK: I think that is one of the tremendous gifts that one finds as one reads scripture. It's easy in religious traditions like Christianity and Judaism when you don't spend enough time with these words, you can come to believe just in the general practice of religion. But this is an angry God like every other god. This is a God that has to be appeased. Surface readings of the Old Testament can lead you to believe that this is a God of vengeance who if you don't make those sacrifices on time and you don't do that, he'll get you. As you read things like the Psalms you discover that that's not the portrait in scripture at all. As you read the New Testament and see and hear the words of God so loving the world that he is willing to send his son to allow a part of himself to become flesh and dwell among us and die for us, it's a picture of a personal God and a personal relationship for these people who long to love and be loved, not that angry, capricious "gonna get you", vengeful god of other faiths. Would you like to return to the top of the page, or perhaps you would like to return to the Studio "B" transcript page, or to the list of ALL transcripts? The New Life Station is pleased to provide transcripts online for a number of KNLS programs. 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