Statutes

I had a revelation this morning in my Bible reading. In Exodus. (It is just starting to dawn on me how especially interconnected the Law and the psalms are. Makes sense, as the main Scripture the psalmists would have had would have been the Law.) Maybe I've had this revelation before; maybe you all have had this revelation before and will yawn as you read. But I was pretty excited, so I wanted to pass the gist along.

 

It's Exodus 13, and the subject is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. God gives the instructions for keeping it, then says this (v. 10): "You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year." Those little chimes went off in my brain: ding, ding, ding. Statute. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, that makes me think of Psalm 119, which used "statute" every time it needs a synonym for God's word or law. But God just said that a Feast was a statute. That's not a law like, "Thou shalt not steal" or "Thou shalt not kill." It's not even a law that most people keep any more these days.

 

So I did a quick Bible search on the meaning of "statute." Strong's Concordance and my Bible spread on my lap as I sat in my papasan chair, pen scribbling notes in my prayer journal. (So much for extra prayer time this morning.) Who needs official Bible studies when studying the Bible unofficially is this intriguing?! I went to Psalm 119 and started jotting down what we're supposed to do with statutes. All the while, I kept thinking of a feast being God's illustration of a statute.

 

v.5-direct our ways to keep them

v.8-commit to keep them

vv.12, 26, 33 (and more)-ask God to teach them to us

v. 16-delight in them

vv. 23, 48-think about them

 

At this point, I sketched an initial definition of statute: a law, but seems to be a law governing outward display or associating an event-maybe statutes are [God's] analogies for us! A truth associated with a picture-or a picture associated with truth.

 

Statutes don't just seem to be just commands. They are commands, but they're a bit of a different brand of command. They seem to be things-outward displays of God's truth. They seemed to be pictures with a point. They are valuable because of the points they illustrate.

 

I continued jotting notes from Psalm 119.

 

v. 54-make them songs or sing about them [Feasts?! Now there's a stumper.]

v. 64-another "teach me" verse, but this time attached to "The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love"

Here I started wondering how many other pictures God has given us. We infer from other passages that we can learn about the Creator through Creation, but here's indication that God has put pictures all around us to help us see His steadfast love!

 

So I drafted a second possible definition for statute: the will and/or character of God expressed in action (something visible)

 

More verses . . .

v. 68-That God is good and does good is the basis for learning His statutes

v. 78-affliction teaches us

v. 80-have blameless hearts in His statutes

v.83-don't forget His statutes, no matter how hard life gets

v.112-perform statutes-act them out, make them ours

v. 117-regard them continuously

v.118-don't stray from them [trying to have wisdom outside of them is pointless]

v.155-the wicked don't seek them

v.171-praise God because He teaches us His statutes

 

Thinking of statutes as pictures sheds a whole new light on some of those other verses about statutes! Asking God to teach them to me becomes asking Him to explain what He created those pictures for. What do they illustrate? What more do they illustrate that I've never realized?

 

Delighting in them means enjoying them. Enjoying pictures like the Sabbath day or the tabernacle! (I haven't done enough homework to establish positively that God calls Sabbath and tabernacle statutes, but I know they're both pictures, similar to feasts being pictures, and they're both in the Law.)

 

Meditating on them means thinking about them. What do they mean? Why did God give them? As I think about it more, most of God's laws are pictures (statutes), even "Do not kill" and "Don't eat vultures." It makes it a whole lot more fun reading through passages like the Gorbachev one (the one about leprous outbreaks on the head) to ask God, "What truth does that illustrate about You?"

 

Last year I got so stuck reading Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. Stuck used to mean, "I don't understand any of this. Dad, what's the point in reading the Bible if you don't get anything from it?" I could clock my daily Bible reading at approximately 11 minutes (faster in the genealogies). Now stuck means, "Whoa, this is cool. What does that mean? And that? Oh yeah, I saw that in this other part of the Bible. This is amazing! Father, show me more!" Now my Bible reading time takes way more than 11 minutes, and often hogs prayer time, too. EXODUS! (What's wrong with me?)  I thought maybe this year I'd be more calloused, but if this morning is any indication . . . It's going to be a long few weeks until Joshua.