Now I know this wasn’t the point of your post but just one observation I made off of it.

I guess it depends on your interpretation of scripture whether we have enough knowledge to secure a desirable end of the road. You’re better than me at finding specific examples, but there seems to be enough warnings (especially in the proverbs) in the Bible about feeling like you know too much. If “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” then feeling satisfied in the presumed just punishment of another seems to be an unnecessary overstepping of human understanding.

By the way, thanks for the detailed definition of “repentance.” That made the word much more intriguing for me.

I wonder how much you could blame suburbanization for decreased church attendance. In general, I bet that the idea of a community is far less important now than it was before WWII (the ideal in many parts of the country [at least before the economic crisis] is to be as far away from other people as possible … nestled in mcmansions that are only reachable by car). If the biggest part of “mushy” churchgoing is the community aspect (which is how it seems to me) — being on committees, playing leadership roles, gossiping, showing off new clothes — then it would follow that the lack of value placed on being with other people decreases the mushy church’s importance.

When your children are little you dream of what they might become when they grow up……My dreams could not compare to the reality of what wonderful men they would become!

God has answered my prayers many times over, and for those many Blessings I am truly thankful.

A friend made a beautiful sampler for Matt when he was a baby, and the words say it all…..even though you were not carried under my heart, you will always be in my heart!

I’m not certain totally what you mean by cruel so I’ll state what I think you mean and respond to that. That way if I’ve misunderstood you, you can correct me: It would be cruel to condemn people who are without this knowledge that David has of the ‘end of the road’ or the path of wickedness, and it is also cruel to rejoice in the punishment God has for the wicked.

Well, I would agree that if we were left without any knowledge of what was required of us before a holy God and were then punished/condemned this would certainly seem to be cruel/unfair. But I would argue that we all have knowledge enough of what God requires of us to earn His judgement or condemnation. Paul makes this argument in Romans 1:18-25. We have enough to go on from the created order and furthermore we’ve been given a conscience which bears witness to God’s requirements which Paul also argues in Romans 1:32-2:1-5. And those two things Paul argues, and I would agree, are enough to render culpable because we have knowledge. In addition, we have written for us God’s plan for freedom from this judgement. Now this is a very simplistic explanation of what could be a much larger conversation with much more care and detail, I hope it doesn’t come off as trite, It’s difficult to respond fully to such important questions in a comment . But, thankfully, we have other means to discuss .

The other thing I think you’re touch on here is what so many people struggled with this past week as watched people rejoice in the death of Bin Laden. Is is right to rejoice in the death/judgement of another human being? This is a really complex and difficult question. There are many people involved, the families of the deceased along with the victims of their wickedness. I would say as a Christian, I never rejoice merely in the death of another human being, regardless of who they are. But, I think it is entirely appropriate to take joy, solace, comfort (what have you) in justice, it is not loving or caring to allow wickedness to go unpunished. I think it’s a question of how and in what we rejoice. I mourn death Bin Laden in the sense that it had to happen, that the world is in such a condition that women and men war against one another. But I take solace and great joy in fact that the wickedness of this life will not go unpunished or unchecked. I would argue that is what David does in Ps. 73. His focus is the actions of God in bring about justice “Truly YOU set them…Oh Lord, when YOU rouse yourself” (Ps. 73:18, 20) and then David moves to further confession “When my heart was embittered…I was brutish and ignorant…like a beast toward you” (Ps. 73:21-22). This is actually what separates David from the men earning judgement, his confession (repentance: literally means a turning away from and setting in a new direction). They mocked God (vs 9 & 11) rather than confessing and turning from their way. This is the heart of the gospel grace I speak of. God has provided a way for us to avoid this judgement that we’ve rightly earned and all that is required is confession of need (recognition that I’m responsible to Him and have offended him creating a need for his forgiveness) and a trust in what Jesus accomplished by living a perfect life and dying in our place to reconcile us to God. (Romans 5:6-10) “For while we were still weak…Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die–but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since…we have now bee justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

That’s my initial response we can chat more though. Thanks for reading and engaging my thoughts with such thoughtfullness. I feel cared for by that, I really appreciate it alot.

-Matthew

Very insightful commentary, Matthew.

The metaphor that you focus on in Psalm 73 is a killer (“pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment”)–really resonant, I think, in its portrayal of the “arrogant and wicked.” The rest of the description of the wicked (4-9) is great too, brutal in the graphic imagery it uses to condemn. (I particularly like the line “their eyes swell out through fatness.”) It seems that David’s brooding on what makes him angry, the process of airing out his feelings, plays an important role in allowing him to choose God as opposed to himself (to use your portrayal of the conflict). I guess you make this point, too, if indirectly. Rhetorically, his harsh descriptions also maybe make his point more resonant with readers who have felt similarly.

The “gospel grace” that David lands in seems a little cruel. (By the way, the Bible website that you link to has a terrible interface. I keep accidentally scrolling away from the damn psalm I want to look at.) David’s willingness to choose God is arguably contingent on his knowledge that those who don’t do so suffer terrible fates. (“Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!” [18-19]) Here a kind of joy in the awareness of the punishment that God has in store for the wicked is added to the compendium of their faults.

You agree that David’s choice is contingent on knowledge of the fate of the wicked when you say that “God allowed David to see what the end of the road was for these other people.” Is comparing the “end of the road” for the wicked to that of the pious necessary in order to live with a proper mindset? And is this kind of comparison is better than the kind that made you write this commentary?