{"id":2685,"date":"2014-07-23T17:18:35","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T17:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=2685"},"modified":"2014-07-23T17:18:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T17:18:35","slug":"commentary-on-psalm-107-part-1-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2014\/07\/23\/commentary-on-psalm-107-part-1-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on Psalm 107: Part 1: "Good""},"content":{"rendered":"

This series is a theological \/ spiritual commentary on Psalm 107<\/a>. \u00a0I don’t pretend to have great expertise in critical Biblical studies, which I find incredibly valuable, but this is an exercise in theological and spiritual exegesis.<\/p>\n

Good.<\/h4>\n

Psalm 107 opens with a familiar refrain:<\/p>\n

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
\nhis love endures forever.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the most basic statement of God’s character in scripture. \u00a0The LORD is “good.” \u00a0The word “good<\/a>” in this text is the same word used for the creation in Genesis 1<\/a>. \u00a0This tells us much about what it means to say that God is “good.”<\/p>\n

Water and sky, land and trees, fish and birds, are\u00a0“good.” \u00a0These things nurture and sustain us. \u00a0They are\u00a0life<\/em>. \u00a0Without them, we shrivel and die, we cease to be. \u00a0 Our\u00a0human<\/em> being itself is “very good” (Gen. 1:27-31). \u00a0God is “good” as\u00a0life itself<\/em> is “good.”<\/p>\n

The word “as” in this sentence suggests that this is an analogy. \u00a0When theologians speak about “analogy” we mean that because God is truly God, we can say nothing that fully measures or contains Him. \u00a0To say God is “good” as trees and water and birds are “good” is not to limit God to the “goodness” of those created things. \u00a0Rather, it is to say that if we imagine the highest “good” of any of those things, we must try to imagine it infinitely more so when we try to think of God. \u00a0If water gives quenches our thirst, sustains our bodies, and revives our spirits, how much more does God do the same? \u00a0If\u00a0a lack of water causes us to shrivel and die, how much more does a lack of God do the same?<\/p>\n

Of course, we cannot truly understand the “infinite,” so to say that God sustains us infinitely more than water is already to admit that the\u00a0excess<\/em> of God’s “goodness” over that of creation is itself something our human minds cannot contain. \u00a0“The LORD is good” therefore is no modest claim. \u00a0Is it a claim we can truly learn to trust?<\/p>\n

Photo Source: Terry Ratcliff \/ Flickr<\/a>\u00a0(Creative Commons)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series is a theological \/ spiritual commentary on Psalm 107. \u00a0I don’t pretend to have great expertise in critical Biblical studies, which I find incredibly valuable, but this is an exercise in theological and spiritual exegesis. Good. Psalm 107 opens with a familiar refrain: Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[72,74,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripture","category-spirit","category-thought"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Hj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}