Psalm 119: Four Images to Love the Word Again

Introduction

"How I love your law! It is my meditation all day long." Benjamin Peterschmitt, at La Porte Ouverte Chrétienne in Mulhouse, takes this verse from Psalm 119 as his starting point. The psalmist doesn't say how much he studies, how much he respects, or how much he believes. He says how much he loves.

Since the start of the new season, the church has been returning to the basics of the Christian life: faith, wisdom, the new creation. This Sunday, it is the Word. The pastor makes it clear that he doesn't want a message that boils down to "you need to read the Bible more." He prefers to ask a different question: "Why don't you read the word of God more?" His answer: often, "we don't realize what it is."

To show this, he takes four images from the Bible. The Word is a seed, a scroll, a sword, and a lamp.

Message Outline

1. Our Homes Are Full of Bibles, but They Stay Closed

Psalm 1 describes the person who meditates on the Word: like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season, with leaves that never wither.
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, French Protestants gathered in ravines, ditches, and barns, sometimes up to 3,000 people at a time, to read and meditate on the Word. What was preached was copied out and read again in their homes.
Families soaked themselves in the Scriptures: they read together and had the children memorize passages by heart. The Bible was forbidden, so it was hidden in cupboards, and some women even hid small booklets of psalms in their hair buns.
At home, the pastor starts every morning with a coffee and the Word. His greatest joy is when everyone in the house picks up a Bible, sometimes an illustrated one or a comic-strip version, and the whole family reads in silence around the table. He encourages parents: "You are the primary agent of this transmission," rather than relying only on Sunday school.
Today, we have Bibles of every size, in several translations, in audio, in pictures. "But it isn't opened as much as it used to be. What happened?"
Between May and August, he read the whole Bible in three and a half months, sometimes switching to the audio Bible. The question isn't the format or the number of verses: "Are you really thirsty to read it?"

2. The Word Is a Seed

"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11). The sower is God himself: the Father's desire is for the Word to be sown in our hearts so that it bears fruit.
A seed is small, but it holds all the potential of life. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes through the word (Romans 10:17). We have been born again through an imperishable seed, the living and lasting word of God (1 Peter 1:23).
The path: everything passes through, work, messages, emergencies, demands, "in our society that runs at 1,000 miles an hour." If the seed doesn't have time to sink in and rest, it gets trampled. The pastor illustrates it: a month after his first sermon of the new season, few people remembered what it was about.
The rocky ground: the roots lack moisture and dry out. "For something to stay moist, you can't give it time to dry out." That is why we need to stay close to the Word every day.
He cites a poll on his Instagram account: out of 271 responses, 134 people read the Bible every day, or 49%. He also cites a Lifeway Research study of 2,130 American Protestants: 31% read the Bible every day, yet 74% say it is authoritative in every area of their lives. "That's an illusion": the Bible cannot exercise its authority in a life that doesn't come near it.
The thorns: worries, riches, and pleasures, which today look like anxieties, distractions, and screens. He mentions Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where the libraries are open but nobody feels like going anymore. "If there are so many challenges to reading it, it's because it is powerful."
The good soil: those who hear with an honest and good heart, hold on to the Word, and bear fruit with perseverance. Hearing it isn't enough; you have to hold on to it inside.

3. The Word Is a Scroll You Eat

In Ezekiel 3:1-3, God tells the prophet to eat the scroll. He could have told him to look at it, copy it out, or proclaim it. Instead, it has to go inside him first.
Jeremiah says that when he found God's words, he ate them (Jeremiah 15:16). The Bible rarely speaks of the Word in terms of reading: it speaks of clinging to it, treasuring it in your heart, eating it, loving it. "Stop saying: I need to read more. Say: I love it more."
To know what devouring means, watch a hungry child: there are no more rules or manners. The pastor is glad that the room for the first Bible study turned out to be three times too small, and he hopes the church will be known as "a church that devours the word."
He compares the Word to digestion: ingestion, digestion, absorption, distribution, assimilation. Jesus himself spoke of another kind of food (John 4:32). We take it in through reading, preaching, or listening. Then we chew on it through meditation: "The word of God keeps working when you close it."
It passes through the wall of our doubts, our intellectual limits, and our fears. It goes on to nourish joy, peace, the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, our words, our decisions, our relationships, and our fight against temptation. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16).
In a brief aside, he invites people to come back to church and to the youth group with paper Bibles. As a student, he always carried a Bible and opened it during his free periods.
"How sweet are your promises to my taste, more than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103). He doesn't always understand right away, but the goal isn't first of all the intellect: it's the soul and the spirit.
In Revelation 10:10, the little book is sweet as honey in John's mouth, then bitter in his stomach. The Word makes us see the seriousness of sin and the situation of the lost. "You can't proclaim the word if it doesn't create a burden in you for the lost." This bitterness must not turn us into bitter Christians: we take it in so that we are transformed and can declare it to others.

4. The Word Is a Sword That Works on You First

"For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
We first think of a weapon against the enemy. But here the sword works on the inside, because "the first enemy we have is ourselves": our pride, our compromises, our excuses. The heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), and Paul confesses: "For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice" (Romans 7:19).
The pastor tells about the early days of his marriage. Not very expressive, he would answer "no, nothing" when his wife sensed something was wrong, simply because he didn't yet know how to name it. The arguments went on until the day she told him: when you don't know what it is, just tell me that something is bothering you. We are complex beings, and the Word goes deep, where words struggle to go.
Trauma, conditioning from upbringing, wrong readings of the world: he says he believes in therapy, in psychologists, and in counseling, and has experienced them himself. "But nothing will surpass the power of the word of God to sort things out in your heart." The first step is to stay close to the Word.
"I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you" (Psalm 119:11). The sword corrects us so that we stay on the path of sanctification.

5. The Sword of the Spirit to Face Your Enemies

"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17). The Spirit who hovered over the waters, who raised the Son and filled the first church, has a weapon, and he entrusts it to us.
Jesus used this sword in the face of temptation (Matthew 4). "But do you use it against the enemy of your soul?" The pastor admits he is bad at remembering references: they are useful, but what saves you in the fight is knowing the Word on the inside.
In Nehemiah's day, the builders worked with one hand and held a weapon in the other (Nehemiah 4:17). What good is a sword that is never within reach when you need it?
Satan isn't the only enemy: there is also illness, a looming divorce, a son's atheism, doubt, fear, wars and rumors of wars.
He tells about visiting a hospital in Strasbourg to see a mother from the church whose baby, for whom the church had prayed, was having heart surgery. Sitting next to the crib, he took Psalm 18, not to read it, but as a sword, declaring the words about God giving the shield of his salvation and arming us with strength for the battle. The hospital room became a place of spiritual combat. The operation went very well: operated on a Monday, the child was home by the following Wednesday and, according to the doctor, if she keeps recovering like this, she will not need another heart operation.
"There is a time to weep, but there is a time to fight." Facing divorce: what God has joined together, let no one separate, and a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Facing a son far from God: "but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." God has equipped you to win.

6. The Word Is a Lamp for the Next Step

"Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105). It lets us tell light from darkness, good from evil, true from false, in a world that calls evil good and good evil.
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. When facing questions in society, the pastor always starts by saying what he stands on: the Word is his foundation, for the family, for men and women, for the news of the day. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceful (James 3:17).
He shows an oil lamp his mother brought back from Israel. Not a "10 GW" flashlight: a small flame that doesn't light up much beyond itself. "The word lights up the next step. And walking by faith means being able to take the next step."
We sometimes ask God for the road map of the next ten years. The Word is a lamp, "not a giant construction-site floodlight": you have to stay very close to it to move forward, step by step.
The Jews of Berea received the word eagerly and examined the Scriptures every day (Acts 17:11). The pastor wants his church to be like them, because the darkness is growing thicker: "If you aren't close to the word of God today, what will happen when you are forbidden to be?"

7. Tasting the Pearls of the Word

He quotes Spurgeon: "Every verse is like a many-sided diamond."
First pearl: the oil of the lamp. Gethsemane was very likely a place where olive oil was pressed. Oil was used to purify and to anoint kings, prophets, and priests. Jesus was pressed there until his sweat became like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). He is the King of kings, the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek, the one who fulfills prophecy, and on the cross this oil was poured out to purify us.
Second pearl, for families grieving the death of a child, before or after birth. For a long time, the pastor had no verse to give them. Then he received these words of Jesus: "Allow the little children to come to me! Don't forbid them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14). "Those little children are in the kingdom of God, and it is the word that declares it."
His conclusion: he isn't asking you to make a decision to read more, "that's no use." His prayer: "Lord, give us this love for the word again."

Key Takeaways

The psalmist doesn't say "how much I study your law," but "how I love it." The real issue isn't the amount of reading, it is love and thirst for the Word.
The Word is a seed: it needs time to sink in, daily moisture to keep its roots alive, and space cleared of thorns to bear fruit.
Like Ezekiel, you have to eat the scroll. When you meditate on it, the Word keeps working after you close the Bible: it is sweet, and it creates a burden for the lost.
The sword works on you first to sort out your heart, then it becomes the Spirit's weapon against illness, fear, or family crises.
The Word is a lamp, not a floodlight: it lights up the next step, as long as you stay very close to it.

Personal Application

If you had been asked, with a show of hands, how often you read the Bible, what would you honestly have answered?
Which thorns (worries, screens, distractions) are taking the place of the Word in your days right now?
After you read, do you take time to "chew" on what you've read? What text do you remember from this week?
What enemy are you facing right now, and what passage can you take up like a sword to declare over your situation?
Can you honestly say to God: "I love your word"? If not, dare to ask him to give you that love back.

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "How I love your law" mean in Psalm 119?

For Benjamin Peterschmitt, the psalmist doesn't say "how much I study," or "how much I respect," or "how much I believe in your law." He says "how I love it." Our relationship with the Word is more than an intellectual effort: we can cling to it, hold it close to our hearts, and love it like a person.

Why is the Word compared to a scroll you have to eat?

In Ezekiel 3, God doesn't tell the prophet to look at the scroll or copy it out, but to eat it. The Word has to enter us first. It is sweet as honey, but in Revelation 10 it also becomes bitter: it makes us see the seriousness of sin and creates a burden for the lost.

Why is the Word a lamp and not a floodlight?

The oil lamp of ancient times didn't light up very far. According to Benjamin Peterschmitt, the Word lights up the next step, and walking by faith means taking that step. God doesn't necessarily show the next ten years: he lights up today, then tomorrow, as long as you stay close to his Word.