Psalm 119:160/ No Cherry Pickin'

"The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever." Psalm 119:160

 One of the great challenges Christians face is staking our lives on partial truths. Many professing Christians have gone astray because they ended up with a lopsided view of a particular biblical topic by cherry pickin' passages. 

This Psalm says, "the sum of your word is truth." The word "sum" means exactly what you think it means; "the whole amount." This means we must examine the entire scope of scripture to see the truth with clarity. 

 For example, in James 2:24 he writes, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." But Paul writes this in Romans 3:28: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." If you only read the former you may live your life trying to earn salvation. If you only read the latter you may live like a heathen but think you are saved. We have got to understand the "whole amount" of this topic in order to arrive at a life-altering truth. 

 In context, Paul is dealing with Jews who are accustomed to obeying the law to obtain right standing in the eyes of God. So, when Paul says, "justification," he means "righteousness before God."

 The context for James is different. He's wanting believers to understand that a saving faith will be accompanied by works, which will prove the faith is authentic. 

 So, when Paul says "justified" he means "righteousness in the eyes of God," but when James says, "justified" he means that a person's faith has been proven authentic by his works.  In this way, the "sum" of these passages brings the truth into greater focus: we are justified by faith alone, and that faith will prove to be authentic as it produces good works. 

 So, how can seek the sum of God's word? 

 One way is to think in terms of concentric circles. Say you read a passage in the New Testament and a topic comes up, ask the following questions:

What does this sentence say about this topic? What does this paragraph say about this topic? What does this chapter say about this topic? What does this book say about this topic? What does this biblical author say about this topic?What does the entire New Testament say about this topic? What does the entire bible say about this topic?

 This will take time, but modern technology helps. You can use search engines to do this. You can use concordances to do this. And the cross-references in your bible will be your new best friends because there you will find most of the work has been done for you.

 We should be very cautious against forming our theology based on a handful of passages. This will not serve our souls well. We need a full helping of the truth--comprised of everything from Genesis to Revelation—to sustain us in life and godliness. 

 If you want to dig deeper into this, need help, need prayer, or have questions—please reach out to us here: Roots Help & Prayer Form.

In Christ, 

Pastor Kevin