Monday, January 11, 2010

Ps 10:1ff. for Jan 11

Whatever is well-known has a chance to be ignored or scorned. And we won't notice unique things about it. Such is Ps 10:1.

Think outside the box for a second here. What kind of religion does 10:1 imply? If God were a projection of an Ancient Near Eastern despot (pick one!), who would conceive of saying this kind of thing to him? The very fact that this question just gets "thrown out there" says that we're not dealing with projections of authoritarian mindsets. An authoritarian mindset would not allow this question, and would zap the questioner, not see that the question got put in the Bible!

So, is it true, that the bold, brash questions that the "new atheism" has about God, are new? Blank no! Here, right in Psalm 10, is God, in effect, sticking the question about Himself to us, through Psalm 10. 'You want some of Me? Go ahead. Get the questions out! Take your best shot!'

10:2 cannot be matched for the sheer disgust it implies as it depicts the evil it depicts. That would be an antogonistic position's "best shot" at God, that not only is evil merely "tolerated," but, over and over again, evil is agressive and is still being aggressive against what can best be described as its victims. At the top of the chain of nature in this category is -- man. "The wicked," 10:2.

So, if God has the "temerity" to get us to pose these questions to Him and see to it that they get put into the Bible, it stands to reason, if He is saying to go ahead and phrase the complaint as best we can, that the complaint has a resolution. I don't know why the One Year Bible stops at 10:15. Let's not be afraid to look at the whole of Psalm 10 for resolution.

But, if you want to stick with "today's" reading ... there's some of the resolution in verse 5.

2 comments:

Sean said...

This ranks close to the top

David M said...

This is a really good one. These verses address one of the most common objections of agnostics and atheists. Next time I'll know to go straight to Psalm 10 if someone claims there is too much evil in the world for there to be a God.

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