Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good morning, everyone. It is Friday, February the 7th, 2025. It is currently 10.50 a.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I know I'm supposed to be talking about that list I gave you yesterday, and which things on that list are permanent, which things on that list are provisional, which things on that list are both. That's what I need to be talking about. But, well, I got distracted, and I think what we're about to find out is that when it comes to our interpretation to some famous passages in the Bible, we should probably never say our interpretation is permanent because I think there's lots of times we need to change our interpretation because I believe our interpretations tend to be very, very wrong. In fact, I'm starting to think that the majority of our interpretations of Scripture are just completely fraudulent, wrong, self-serving, or self-indulgent, self-seeking. I don't even know all the different words. They're all self-focused. That's what's wrong. I've talked about this a million times. The whole problem with the church. The whole problem with the church is the church is an organization where people come together so that they can talk about themselves. I mean, sermon after sermon, it's about us. It's about us. It's about us. It's about our problems, our needs, our wants, our desires, our struggles. Us, us, us, us, us, us, us. We go to the Bible and we make it all about us. It's me, me, me, me, mine, I, you, we. That's what we do. And I understand why we want to go to church to hear sermons about us. I understand that. But the issue is what you want, maybe even what you need, shouldn't matter. Because what should matter is when we open the Bible, what does it mean? And I know this. Every single book in the Bible was written to someone other than you or me. It was written to specific people in specific settings. And I get so sick of the church saying, well, we have to consider the historical and textual context. Why? you're going to mention it for five seconds and then your entire interpretation, in most cases, is going to abandon who it was originally for in the first place. So why even play the game? You know what you should just say, the people the Bible was written to, they're all dead. They don't matter. It's all about us. That's basically what we should do. It's just playing a little game. It makes everyone feel, ooh, my church cares about the historical context for five minutes. So I get really bothered by, and this has been true within our study of Isaiah 40 through 55, sermon after sermon moves out the original recipients and moves us in, and they do so immediately. So as a result of that, I begin to question basically the way most scripture is interpreted, especially in the Old Testament. Because time and time again, I think, how did we get inserted into this? Now, the reason I'm saying all of this is early this morning, I picked up the Sermons 2.0 app, I hit play on a sermon, I think it was in my feed tab, I think, or I was just looking around, maybe I looked at newest sermons, I don't know. It was what, three, four in the morning? I have no clue what was going on. But I found a sermon entitled First Things. I'm like, okay, first things, that sounds interesting, right? What are the first things? Why should I know about the first things? How important are the first things? All right, do I have the first things? Do I need to get the first things? I need to know about the first things. And I hit play and immediately realized that this is a sermon on Psalm chapter one, the book of Psalms, Psalm one. And I'm like, oh, okay, interesting. I don't remember anything in the sermon. I don't remember anything. I don't know if I slipped back into a coma. I don't remember anything. I think the only thing I remember at the beginning is there were a lot of kids and it was loud. I don't remember anything that was said. But immediately, like once I woke up, I was thinking Psalm 1, Psalm 1. I don't remember anything about the sermon. And I started thinking, huh, I would bet that most sermons make Psalm 1 about us. Most would approach Psalm 1 in almost a lordship kind of way. I wonder if all of those interpretations are completely wrong. I wonder if we could do a different one. Now, I know that we should approach Psalm 1 from a law gospel perspective, but I was thinking maybe even that is not really being true to the original text. So, I started working on it. I have kind of a detailed outline of a new interpretation of Psalm 1, but you don't get that yet. because we're going to go to this sermon that I don't remember. We're going to listen to at least a little bit of it just to see which direction they're going to go. I mean, for some, I don't even know how it's possible. This is a sermon on Psalm 1, and the sermon is 20 minutes long. How can you do a sermon on Psalm 1 in 20 minutes? That is right there. That's a miracle. Okay. People say miracles don't happen. It's a miracle. Okay. I'm being sarcastic here. So yeah, that's pretty amazing. But at the same time, let's be fair, right? I'm being a little sarcastic, but now let me get serious. Kind of trying to be a little funny there, but let me be serious for a minute. It is very possible that someone could cover Psalm 1 in 20 minutes and do a far better job and be in a far superior sermon than I could pull off in an hour and 15, in an hour and 20. Because some people say, you go too long, and there's probably sometimes truth to that. I could definitely manage my I could structure things and manage things in a better way. So just because you go long does not mean it's better. Just because you go short doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. But I'm just amazed that you could cover this in that short a period of time. Now, that may be because if I was a better communicator, I could do it in a shorter period of time. So we're gonna at least listen to this. What we're listening for, all right, what we're listening for is we're listening to basically capture his basic interpretive system. his interpretive framework for Psalm 1. I think it's gonna basically be kind of a moralistic, hey guys, if you wanna be blessed, you will do all of this, and if you don't, you don't. And I think there's some problems with that, and we will discuss it in a little bit. We'll discuss it in a little bit from a number of perspectives. My default is to immediately go into a law gospel interpretation of Psalm 1, which I think has basically been abandoned by a majority of Christianity, which I don't understand why, considering we supposedly aren't Catholics, but that's okay. I think most of Protestantism takes more of a Catholic approach to it than it does a true you know, law gospel approach. So I will mention that briefly, depending on which way this goes, and then I'm going to get to the new interpretation, all right? So the law gospel is not the new interpretation I'm going to offer. I'm going to offer a completely radical one that may ruin Psalm 1 for you, all right? Are you ready? Here we go. Let's at least listen to the beginning of the sermon and figure out exactly how they're approaching it. All right, Psalm 1, the first book of the Psalms. You'll turn there. It's the way of the righteous and the wicked. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff. The wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the ways of the wicked will perish. Heavenly Father, as we prepare to hear your word, we humbly come before you, acknowledging our need for your spirit to illuminate our hearts and minds. Your word is living, inactive, sharper than any two-edged sword. Yet without your guidance, we cannot truly understand its depths or apply its truths to our lives. We ask, Lord, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you would open our ears to hear, our minds to understand, and our hearts to receive the truth of scripture. Remove any distractions or hardness of heart that would keep us from listening to your voice. Help us to behold the beauty of Christ revealed in your word and be transformed by it. In his name we pray, amen. You know what I'm going to say? I say it every single time. A million sermons, a million prayers for God to help us understand, to open our eyes, to give us understanding, to help us understand, to remove distraction, to show us what it means, to illuminate it, to enlighten our minds. Prayer after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer, after prayer. And after 2,000 years, we don't agree. anything. Now, I don't know what you take from that. Pray, pray, pray. God, open my eyes. God, show me. God, give me understanding. God, lead us to understanding. Help us understand it. Help us see. Help us understand. Help us understand. Help us understand. And 2,000 years later, no one can agree on one verse that has to I don't know how else you can, I don't know what other conclusion you can come to than to say, guys. God's not helping us understand the Bible. He's not. If he was, after 2,000 years, you think we could have figured out something as, we could have figured out baptism by now, don't you think? Don't you think we could have figured out the Lord's Supper by now? I think maybe we could. Do you think maybe we could have figured out, I don't know, what's the proper governance of a church? I don't know. Is it congregational? Is it pastor? Is it elder? I mean, Is it a presbytery? All the different, I mean, all the different ways. How should it be done? I don't know. You see, what else? Do you think maybe after all of this time, God can help us figure out, I don't know, salvation? Do we understand it from a lordship way? Do we understand it in a Calvinistic way? Do we understand it in an Arminian way? What is the correct way? Is salvation secure? Is it not secure? I mean, on and on and on. What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? I can just go on and on, scripture after scripture after scripture. where there are hundreds, thousands of interpretations. We saw it just the other day. There's not even agreement on the audience for the Sermon on the Mount for crying out loud. Like, it is sometimes the smallest details which we don't understand. We heard just the other day a sermon where I think they gave this typical kind of statement of God giving us understanding, God helping us understand, and then they made comments about 33 AD that were completely factually in error because they were borrowing information from 66 AD. God did not intervene. God did not stop it. God did not say, let me explain to you how this really works, even though in that sermon, Supposedly a prophetess gave a prophecy over this pastor's child about being musical. I mean, for crying out loud, if God is speaking like that, could He stop us from misinterpreting His Word? And I know I get frustrated by it every single time we listen to a sermon. I understand that that's just what we're expected to pray. But at some point, does anyone just go, I don't get it? If the pastor is praying and God is answering the prayer of the pastor, then no one in the congregation can question his interpretation, because he prayed for God to lead and guide him in his preaching and teaching, so then his preaching and teaching is influenced, guided, protected by God, so the teaching has to be correct. So then no one in the congregation can ever criticize the preaching. But if the people in the congregation are praying for God to open their eyes and help them understand, and they come to a different interpretation than the pastor, then is God answering the prayer of the people in the congregation but didn't answer the prayer of the pastor? Because how can two people pray for God to help them understand the scriptures and come to two different understandings? Man, alive! I don't get it! drives me insane. It really does. All right, and guess what we're getting ready to find out? I wonder what's getting ready to happen here. Is he getting ready to offer an interpretation of Psalm 1 that agrees with everyone in church history? Well, I can guarantee you that's not the case. So were the people in the past wrong and God led them in the wrong? See, the minute you involve God in the interpretive process, you just end up with so many like, is God playing a game on all of us here? Please take your seats. So tonight's sermon comes from Reverend Dale Ralph Phillips. Now he's a former pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. and a former professor of Old Testament at Reform Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. Whoa. So he's just going to read someone else's sermon. This is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard in my life. So he's just going to read someone else's sermon. Hey, tonight's sermon comes from this person. Here's his qualifications, so he's just going to read someone's sermon? Did that catch anyone else off guard? Tonight's sermon comes from... Have you ever heard anything like that in your life? Hey, tonight's sermon, I'm going to basically give you the sermon of someone else. It's one thing to say, hey, I heard this sermon from so-and-so, and that's going to be the basis of what I'm going to speak, but you think you would be engaging it, right? Hey, he said this, but what about that? And he said this, and what about, like, That is, I got to back that up. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. Is it just me? Maybe some of you are used to this. I'm going to play this again. Hold in your word and be transformed by it. In his name we pray. Amen. Please take your seats. So tonight's sermon comes from Reverend Dale Ralph Phillips. Now he's a former pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. and a former professor of Old Testament at Reform Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. For my note takers, as we heard Pastor Miguel this morning mention, the importance of taking notes, three headings. We're gonna be talking about the direction of the believer's life, the description of the believer's life, and the destiny of the believer's life. Okay, number one, this whole thing is baffling. Hey, where's my note takers? Why do they need to take notes? If you're just reading someone's sermon, just give everyone a copy of the printed sermon and be done with it. Why don't you just email everyone, text everyone? Hey, here's the sermon for tonight. Boom. And, but did you note the outline? Did you get the outline? Did you see what the outline did? Did anybody notice the outline? I'm going to back it up. Listen to the outline. Did you see it? Did you hear it? Come on. You had to catch it. Did you catch it? Going to back this up. In Jackson, Mississippi. For my note-takers, as we heard Pastor Miguel this morning mention the importance of taking notes, three headings. We're gonna be talking about the direction of the believer's life, the description of the believer's life, and the destiny of the believer's life. So the direction, the description, and the destiny. Did you get that? The direction, the description, and the destiny of what? the believer's life. So we're in Psalm 1, and instantaneously, we are inserted into the text. We're gonna look at Psalm 1 tonight under three headings, the direction of the believer's life, the description of the believer's life, and the destiny of the believer's life. Instantaneously, it's just like, boom, Psalm 1, Now, I am going to go in a completely—I'm going to challenge this in a dramatic way, but let's at least let him take this just—we're not going to listen to a lot of this. I'm already baffled here. So, this is a sermon where he's reading someone else's sermon, and someone else's sermon took Psalm 1 and instantaneously made it about us. All right, here we go. The first question we need to ask tonight is why Psalm 1 is Psalm 1? Why is it placed here first ahead of every other Psalm? All right, now that's a good question. I like that. I like that. Why is Psalm 1, Psalm 1? Why does it go before all the others? I think that's a great question. I love good hermeneutical and interpretive questions. I'm gonna be curious of his answer, right? Now, if the Psalm is about us, then I'm assuming the answer is gonna have something to do with us. But if the answer doesn't have anything to do with us, then, all right, we'll see how this goes. In the church today, we need help with praise. So why isn't Psalm 150 Psalm 1? We need to learn to worship. So why isn't Psalm 100 or 95 Psalm 1? What could be more winsome than plastering the mercy of God across the front page of the Psalter? So why isn't Psalm 103 at the beginning? Maybe we need to show how attuned the Psalms are to human needs and troubles. So why isn't Psalm 73 Psalm 1? Or with the breakdown in family life, Maybe Psalm 128 should be here. Or perhaps we first need a grand view of the majesty and wonders of God. So we think Psalm 139 should be Psalm 1. So why is Psalm 1, Psalm 1? Because it packs a matter of such supreme importance. In this Psalm, two ways, two humanities, two destinies are clearly spelled out. If you turn to Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, we see where Jesus summed up the concern of Psalm 1. It says, enter by the narrow gate. All right, so he's claiming that Jesus in Matthew 7 is summarizing the concern in Psalm 1. Now, is the purpose of Psalm 1 and the purpose of Matthew 7 the same? Now, Matthew 7, is that a part of the Sermon on the Mount? Now, there's a lot of interpretive assertions being made there, right? I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, right now I could get way off track here and I could start doing a little bit of work and it's like, is he reading Matthew 7 back into Psalm 1? Is he reading Psalm 1 into Matthew 7? Or is it just like, well, these two passages seem to have described two different ways or two different paths, so I'm just going to just put them together because they seem to be similar. Again, death by cross-reference sometimes bothers me. I'm not saying that this should not be something that shouldn't be investigated, and maybe he's on—well, it's not him onto something. The sermon he is reading could be onto something, but we'll let it go a little further. Again, he's making it all about us, or not him, The sermon he's reading is making it all about us. We'll just let it play out and then we'll take this apart. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. Psalm 1 depicts this in terse, stark, black, and white, as if announcing, let the clarity begin. The psalm is saying to you, nothing is so crucial as your belonging to the congregation of the righteous. The psalm contrasts the righteous and the wicked. We will not ignore the contrast, but we'll develop the teaching from the angle of the righteous or believing person. So this brings us to our first point, the direction of the believer's life. Notice what the psalm highlights about the direction of the believer's life in verses one and two. Here the psalm shows where the righteous man gets his signals for living, what drives him and moves him and leads him along. And as if he has no concern whatsoever for decent marketing, the psalmist begins with a negative in verse one. The righteous man is described by what he shuns. The happy man, or the man enjoying God's blessing, is the separated man, a man who is not in neutral, but who has a bias against evil in all of its forms. The three clauses are meant to say that the righteous man rejects the totality of evil. However, a la Derek Kinder, we can categorize these matters a bit. He's just reading someone else's sermon. This is the craziest thing I've ever seen. It would be one thing if you were reading maybe a historical sermon, like, you know, I'm going to read from Spurgeon, or I'm going to read from Calvin, or Augustine, or Tertullian, or Athanasius. I mean, like, maybe pulling from some early church father. That'd be very difficult and wordy to read, but okay. It's just weird. He's reading someone who's a pretty relatively modern person. I think the person may even actually be alive. I don't get it. I don't understand what is happening, right? So he's just reading it. That's why it's only like 20 minutes long. He's just going to read right through this. There's no expounding, taking apart. But you can already hear the basic premise. Hey guys, Psalm 1 is what you are supposed to do and the implication is you can do it. Psalm 1 tells you what to do and the implication is this is what we must do and this is what we can do. Now I completely reject it outright from right there, all right? I think this is very important. Most pastors Most pastors typically read Psalm 1 as a prescriptive text where the believer is viewed as being fully capable of obeying and thereby receiving the blessing. It's like, hey, you want to be happy? You want to be blessed? You want to have this wonderful life? Well, you have to do this. Or you don't do this and you do this. That's the way it's typically preached in church after church after church. It's how I was taught as a teenager. If I want blessing, I will not do this and I will do this. It's prescriptive. That's how it's constantly to do this. Now, I will argue all the sermons who approach Psalm 1 as a prescriptive text that we can obey, that we can accomplish it, 1,000% fails to account for both human depravity and the reality that no one, not one person, apart from Jesus Christ himself has ever perfectly fulfilled the law of God. No one has. No one has delighted in God's law even if we're close to perfect. No one. And we play this game. Oh, wait, to be blessed, you have to meditate on God's law day and night. So what do we say? Well, have a morning devotional and do an evening. See, that's day and night. There you go. You'll do a little morning devotional, and then you'll do a little nighttime. Even if you go with, that fulfills it, that if you do a morning devotional, you do a nighttime devotional, that fulfills it. Even if you were to go with that concept, you know how many Christians do not do morning and evening devotionals? So then that means no one is blessed. And if the key to blessing is meditating on God's day and night, then why do churches only have services on Sunday? Or why do they only have services on Sunday and Wednesday? You think the church would be open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They would be open in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, because the way of blessing is coming to meditate on God's word. So if you're going to make this a requirement that we can do, well, then you can't water down the requirement. I think the problem—if you look at what someone's describing, it describes the ideal. The righteous man who delights in the law of the Lord meditates on it day and night, and they prosper in everything they do because they are being blessed, because they are—well, guess what they're not doing? They're not walking in the council. They're not standing in the way of sinners. They're not sitting in the seat of the Scorpio. I mean, you have to do it—not do and do all of this stuff, but you would have to do it perfectly. No fallen human being—I'm going to scream this—no fallen human being meets this standard. Not even believers. No one meets the standard. Not you. not your spouse, not your pastor, not your small group leader, not your Sunday school teacher, not your kids, not your neighbors, not your friends, not me, no one on the Sermons 2.0 app, nowhere on Christian YouTube, no one meets it! And if anyone thinks that they do, they're literally insane! If Psalm 1 is read basically like a checklist, hey, this is how you get blessing, then it will place the weight of obedience on you. It will place the weight of obedience on me, which ultimately will lead to either, are you ready for this? It will lead to either self-righteousness, because you'll think you're succeeding. You're going to have to convince yourself. You're going to have to become self-righteous. I do this. I don't walk in the council. I don't stand. I don't sit. I meditate on God's law day and night. And you have to elevate and convince yourself, wrap yourself in a facade of self-righteousness so that you think you pull it off. And if you think you pull it off, you are delusional. You're delusional because you have a corrupt nature inside of you. So you either have to wrap yourself in a robe of fraudulent self-righteousness, you have to pretend and think and convince yourself that you're actually doing it, or you know what it also can lead to? It will either lead to self-righteousness or it leads to complete and total despair. because you know what you're going to realize? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, just this week, you're going to realize you're failing. You're going to realize you don't do it. You're going to realize you're never going to pull it off. Never, never. Meditate on God's word day and night. Meditate on God's word day and night. You know how many times things in your life gets in the way, and you're more preoccupied with this, and you're more preoccupied with that, and you're focused on your desires, you're focused on your wants? You're focused on self? I mean, wait, next Friday is Valentine's Day? People will be focused on their wants, their desires. Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily bad. I'm just saying it's far different than, hey, I'm going to meditate on God's Word day and night. I'm going to focus on this. I'm only going to focus. And people say, well, no, it doesn't really mean that. Yeah, because you've got to lower the standard so it somehow fits all the things you want to do. Super Bowls on Sunday, right? So people are going to be focused on that. It's amazing that we can fit in all the stuff we want to do, and all the things we love to do, and all of our desire, and all our desire for pleasure, and this, and for family, for intimacy. We can pursue all of that, but somehow convince ourselves that we meditate on God's Word day and night. we delight in it above everything else. Come on now! That we desire the Word of God more than gold and silver, more than food. We love God with all of our heart. We love God above everything else. Our whole life is given to God. We speak a big game, maybe on a Sunday, but as life plays itself out, it's about It's about me. It's about us. It's about us. It's about us. It's about us. I mean, just think about how self-centered we are. Sometimes in conversations, it's all about us, us, us, us, us, us, us. And we barely even acknowledge anybody else in the conversation. We're self-seeking. We like situations where I get what I want. I get what I need. I don't know if anybody else does, but I get what I want. It is so common to the human condition. If you make Psalm 1, hey, a prescriptive list on how to become blessed, now, I will argue it is a prescriptive list in this way. It gives you law. That law shows you your inability to do it, condemns you, makes you find yourself in the pit of despair going, I'm never going to be blessed. I'm never going to do this. And then you hear the beautiful words of the gospel where you hear of Jesus Christ who did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He did not stand in the way of sinners. He did not sit in the seat of the scornful. His delight was in the law of the Lord, and he did meditate on it day and night. And you're like, oh, that's awesome. And guess what? When you put your faith in Him, His obedience to this is accredited to your account. And then guess what? In Him, you are blessed with all spiritual blessings. So all the blessings are not based off your obedience to this, but Christ's obedience to it. That's a law and gospel understanding of the psalm. If you want to make it about us. So Christ is the blessed man. Christ is the blessed man in Psalm 1, just as Christ is the blessed person in the Beatitudes. But as I was listening to that entire sermon, it makes it all about us, makes it all about, you could tell, it's all about us, it's about all, the whole idea behind that Psalm is it's about us and we can do it. We just have to do it. And if we do, we get the blessing. All right. It's the typical, there's nothing unique about that. The only thing unique about that sermon is it's a sermon where someone is reading someone else's sermon, which is just kind of bizarre, right? I don't even, like, even if I was to read someone else's sermon, I'd be stopping 527 times to offer ideas and thoughts and conjecture and questions. It's just interesting. Okay. But here's where I wanted to get to. I'm going to throw it out as a question. Do you think it is possible that Psalm 1 should be interpreted as speaking to Israel and their covenant relationship with God. Is it possible that we should keep ourselves out of Psalm 1 and we should understand Psalm 1 as being spoken to Israel in the context of their covenant relationship with God? I think not only is it possible, I think it's plausible and I think the church at large for some weird reason never even entertains this approach. So I had to utilize AI at this point, right? I was going to start structuring out my hermeneutical challenge to everyone else, but I'm like, well, maybe I'm wrong here. Because many times I bring my possible hermeneutical approach to a text to AI, and AI will say, you're out of your mind. What is this? It doesn't say it exactly like that, but it will push back and challenge me. So I asked AI, hey, do you think this is possible? Here's what AI said. It is very possible. I'm like, ooh, I got a very possible. That's all right. Maybe I'm onto something. Now, I love this. AI said, it is very possible. and even likely. Whoa! I've got a very possible and an even likely. I'm like, I'm on to something here. I'm on to something. All right. Great. All right. Now, I know, look, I know this, I know this blows up all the years. You've heard sermon after sermon after Psalm 1. You've talked about how great the sermon was. You probably went to the pastor. My law gospel approach to Psalm 1 already blows that up for many people. I'm about to just ruin Psalm 1 for you. I'm about to utterly, absolutely ruin it for you. But at least AI says it's even possible and likely. And one of the reasons I love AI as a tool, and I don't know why Christians, I still think Christians don't understand the amazing thing. See, if I just did a search on Google for things about Psalm 1, I'm just going to get all the standard answers, right? just going to give me this link, this article, this sermon, and it's just the same tired stuff that's been said a million times that I think in many cases is extremely wrong. At least with AI, I can bring a hermeneutical approach and it will engage me, challenge me, agree or disagree That's amazing. And not only that, you see, now if I go to other people, if I was to go to other people and say, hey, what about this about someone? They'd be like, you're out of your mind. What are you talking about? And then they would just immediately disagree with me and get defensive. So then those conversations are usually a waste of time. But with AI, it's like, hey, it's very possible. It's even likely. Well, why is it possible and likely? Here's what AI said. It is likely that someone should be interpreted primarily in the context of Israel and their covenant relationship with God. This approach aligns with how blessing and curses function within the framework of the Mosaic Covenant. Yes, I know. I don't know why anybody else doesn't see this. Everything about Psalm 1 screams Mosaic Covenant. Remember when we did? the study on the dispensations, and for all the dispensations, we also looked at all the covenants. Remember that? Remember, that was a very important study. You may need to go back and listen to all of that. Well, if you remember the Mosaic covenant, even in our study of eschatology, we talked about some of these things as well, right? We still need to finish the Davidic covenant there, all right? But, and the framework of the Mosaic covenant, as soon as you think, if you read Psalm 1 and you don't, your mind immediately, This is the weird thing. How can Christians read Psalm 1 and think about us and not read Psalm 1 and go, that's Deuteronomy 28, 29, 30? But the church trains you to read Psalm 1 and go, the believer's direction, the believer's description, the believer's destiny. How about the believer's nothing? How about Psalm 1, Mosaic Covenant, all day, every day, So, AI says, look at Psalm 1 and the context of the Mosaic Covenant. Psalm 1 presents a contrast between the righteous and the wicked, describing how the righteous man is blessed and the wicked are judged. This structure mirrors the blessings and curses found in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. where Israel was explicitly told that obedience to God's law would bring prosperity, stability, and security, while disobedience would bring judgment and exile. It's literally Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26 in poetic form. That's what it is. It drives me crazy. All right, then AI. AI quotes this, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, Psalm 1-1. This echoes the covenantal expectation that Israel was to separate from nations and walk according to God's law. Exactly what God told Israel to do. Don't walk after other nations. Don't be like other nations. You follow my law. Don't be like them. Separate yourself from them. Don't intermarry with them. Stay separate from them. Walk not in the counsel of the ungodly. Verse 3, he is like a tree planted by streams of water. In the Old Testament, Israel is often depicted as a tree or vineyard that was meant to bear fruit through obedience. And they reference Isaiah 5 and Jeremiah 17. Isaiah 5 and Jeremiah 17. Let me state it again. In the Old Testament, Israel is often depicted as a tree or vineyard that was meant to bear fruit through obedience. So, it's even using imagery that would already be used in the Old Testament that would kind of point you, not to you, but to Israel. The wicked are like chaff and the wind, or that the wind drives away, Psalm 1 4. This reflects the judgment themes found throughout the prophets where Israel or the nations was warned about being scattered like chaff if they turned away from God. You see this in Hosea chapter 13 and Daniel chapter 2 verse 35. So the tree imagery, the chaff and imagery, all used in the Old Testament, not about you, but in relation to Israel and other nations and blessings and cursing that came with obedience or disobedience to the law. Thus, this is what AI says, I'm quoting directly, Psalm 1 may not primarily be about individual believers in any era, but rather about Israel as a corporate people under the Mosaic covenant where obedience led to blessing in the land and disobedience led to exile. And that's exactly what happened. If you obey, you get the land, everything's wonderful, everything is great. You disobey, curses, no provision, exile, captivity. Psalm 1 is the poetic expression of everything Israel needed to be reminded of. If Psalm 1 is rooted in Israel's covenantal framework, then the failure of Israel to fully embody the blessed man becomes evident. Just as Israel failed to keep the law and suffered exile, no individual Israelite, except Christ, could fully live up to the standard Psalm 1 sets. This interpretation strengthens Christological reading. Jesus, as the true and faithful Israel, fulfilled the law perfectly, Matthew 5, 17. He is the true blessed man who delighted in the law day and night. He took upon himself the curse of disobedience, Galatians 3, 13, even though he was perfectly righteous. In him we receive the blessings promised to the righteous, Ephesians 1, 3. Israel couldn't, Christ did. Israel failed, Christ did not. Now, you could argue, not only did it, I mean, this is clearly to be about Israel, but if you want to insert us into it, we're just like Israel. We fail, we fail. And guess what happens? Under the law, We would get curse, punishment, exiled. We are like chef thrown into the wind. I mean, however you want to describe it, we would be the same way, but we look to Christ who fulfilled it, then we are saved, and then we become the blessed man in Christ. But it's about Israel. That's its focus. That is the focus. Now, I have here an in-depth study of Psalm 1 from an Israel covenant interpretive framework, all right? I can do a whole, I'll just give you a little bit of, just a little bit of this. I'm skipping way down in all of my notes here because I've been working on this throughout the morning because I was just like, this is crazy. But let's just briefly consider the Mosaic covenant as the framework for blessing and judgment. Psalm 1 must be read in light of, let me state that again, Psalm 1 must, it must be read in light of Deuteronomy 28 through 30, which outlines the terms of the Mosaic covenant. I cannot, right here above Psalm 1 in your Bible, you need to write Deuteronomy 28 through 30. And if you don't understand Deuteronomy 28-30, you have no business interpreting Psalm 1. And if you preach Psalm 1 without mentioning Deuteronomy 28-30, then you are then taking Psalm 1, ripping it out of its historical, textual context, you're making it about us, and then you're probably going to make it prescriptive, and you're going to lead to either self-righteousness or total despair. unless you approach someone from a law gospel perspective. And if you're going to approach it from a law gospel perspective, I think you would want to go to Deuteronomy 28 and 30, because Deuteronomy 28 and 30 demonstrates exactly what's going to happen to anyone who attempts to live under the law, which is going to be all the curses, which is what Israel constantly got. See, in Deuteronomy 28-30, you have blessings for obedience. Deuteronomy 28-14, Israel's prosperity, stability, and security in the land all comes from obedience. If they obey, they get all of those things. See, if they obey, they, Israel, will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. That's speaking of Israel. We want to make it about us. Hey guys, if you obey, then everything you do is going to prosper. Everything you're going to do. Life is going to, you're going to be like a tree planted next to the waters. You're going to be fed. Now what some pastors will do, well, that doesn't mean like in a physical materialistic way. It means in a spiritual way. So, I mean, you may obey God, but, you know, you still may get cancer, your spouse may die in front of you, your child may be murdered, you may end up alone, you may end up without, you know, your life may be trash, but just know spiritually this is true. So then we try to back it up and try to make it just spiritual because we know it doesn't work out in a practical way. Now, some will try to make it a practical, materialistic way, especially prosperity gospel. But the whole thing hinges on your ability to obey it. Well, if I'm even giving the spiritual blessings based on my obedience to it, you know where that's going to lead me. It's going to lead me to despair because no one is going to obey this even remotely right. So then what do pastors do? Well, you're not going to do it perfectly. As long as you do it somewhat, then you get the blessings. But if I do it, then it just becomes a mess. those blessings for obedience as promised in Deuteronomy 28 1 through 14 for Israel, they never ultimately get them because they constantly disobey. Now, the curses for disobedience is outlined in Deuteronomy 28, 15 through 68. National disaster, exile, and divine judgment. Psalm 1 reflects the covenant structure, reinforcing the idea that Israel's well-being depended on obedience to God's Torah, God's law. The Torah as Israel's life and source of blessing. Psalm 1-2 emphasizes delighting in the law of the Lord, which refers to God's instruction, particularly as given in the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 6, 6-9 commands Israel to meditate on God's law day and night, which 100% mirrors Psalm 1-2. Joshua 1-8 directly connects success and prosperity to meditating on and obeying the law. That prosperity that comes from meditating and obeying the law of God in Joshua 1.8 is about Israel going into the promised land. Even when they get the promised land, they've got to do all of this stuff in order to be prosperous and get all the blessings. Well, guess what? They get to the promised land, they're not obedient, and guess what? All the curses fall upon them over and over and over. Because anyone who places them in a system where obedience to the law is the key to blessing, they're never going to get the blessing because the law demands perfection. So if we want to start breaking this down, Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scornful. Blessed implies covenantal blessing, not individual happiness. Blessed is the man. This implies covenantal blessing. This is the blessing that comes from Deuteronomy 28. This is covenantal blessing. It's not about, hey, Church, this week we're going to talk about how to be blessed and how to be happy—all the typical trash sermons that are preached over and over and over. It completely ignores the whole context here. who walks not in the counsel of the wicked." The wicked here would be sinners, scoffers. They represent those who reject God's law, aligning with Deuteronomy's warnings against idolatry and foreign influences. In Deuteronomy, they're saying, hey, when you go here, don't listen to them. Don't do this. Don't do that. It's literally Psalm 1 is Deuteronomy 28. The progression walk, stand, and sit mirrors Israel's potential decline into covenantal unfaithfulness. The progression walk, stand, sit mirrors Israel's potential decline into covenant unfaithfulness. If you look at, I think is it, hang on, Deuteronomy, let me look here. I don't wanna give you the scripture. I gotta verify this, I gotta verify something. Yeah, Deuteronomy 8, verse 19, and it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, walk after other gods, serve them, worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish, because you would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God. get the idea of walking, serving. It's not perfect, but it's mirroring in part this, hey, don't walk, don't stand, don't sit. It's the same kind of implication. Israel, don't walk after, don't listen, don't heed, don't fall, don't take this downward because you're going to end up being destroyed, which is exactly what Psalm 1 is saying. Psalm 1 mirrors it almost perfectly, all right? Psalm 1 too, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and he meditates it day and night. The Torah was given to Israel as their guide for holiness and national stability. Meditating on the law was not merely a personal practice, but a corporate and national responsibility. Psalm 1-3, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers. Israel is often depicted as a tree or vineyard, Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 17. The tree metaphor aligns with Deuteronomy, where obedience leads to agricultural and economic prosperity. If you look at Deuteronomy, is it chapter 11? I don't want to give you specific scriptures. Yeah, Deuteronomy 11, verse 13, "...it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the reign of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou may gather in the corn, thine wine, and thine oil. I will send grass in the field for thy cattle. Thou mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived. You turn aside and serve other gods and worship them." Literally, that sounds just like Psalm 1. How do we, how do people not, not, everyone talks about cross-referencing and all of this. We go cross-reference something that in many cases does nothing to help us actually understand the passage. Psalm 1 is the book of Deuteronomy. Okay. Oh man. The tree metaphor aligns with Deuteronomy 11, 13 through 17, where obedience leads to agricultural and economic prosperity. This imagery connects to the promised blessing of staying in the land and experiencing divine favor. Psalm 1, 4-5, the covenant curses upon the wicked. The wicked are not so, they are like chaff, that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The wicked being driven away, recalls Deuteronomy 28, where disobedience leads to exile. not standing in judgment, likely refers to God's covenantal judgment where those who break the covenant face divine wrath, Assyria, and Babylonian exiles. The congregation of the righteous refers to faithful Israel, those who remain loyal to the covenant. Psalm 1.6, For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Knows, in Hebrew, is a relational meaning. Knows, like Adam knew Eve, right? God's protective care over His covenant-keeping remnant. The way of the wicked perishing reflects covenant judgment, similar to how Israel was warned about destruction if they abandoned God in Deuteronomy 30.15-20. Psalm 1 is about Israel's national destiny, not individual salvation or individuals. Rather than a universal principle for all believers, Psalm 1 is primarily about Israel's corporate life under the Mosaic Covenant. It emphasizes the conditional blessing tied to obedience, the consequences of rejecting the law, and the contrast between the faithful remnant and those who fall into idolatry. There. I want to call it a new interpretation. It shouldn't even be new. But we, you know why? You go to church and when you walk into church, you know what? You know what? This should be the sign in most churches. Enter in. to worship self, enter in to focus on self, enter in to magnify self, enter in to glorify self. I know Christians will be like, no, we enter in to worship God. No, it's all about us. And then we go to text, after text, after text, make it about us, make it about us, make it about us, make it about us. If you want to understand Psalm 1, understand Deuteronomy 28. You say, well, how is it applicable to us? Just as Israel could not survive, could never get the blessings under that covenant, they failed constantly, we fail under the law. The law does the same thing for Israel. The law does the same thing for us as it did for Israel. What is that? Gives you a standard which you cannot keep, which will then reveal your inability to keep it, condemn you, lead you to the pit of despair, and right when you feel like there is no hope, all hope is lost, that you're just gonna slide into the abyss of hell and never return from it, then you hear the wonderful words of the gospel, Christ obeyed it all for you. He did it all for you, and our faith in him that obedience is imputed to our account. If you wanna make it about us, but it's about Israel first and foremost. There, Psalm 1. Now I went through that quick. I didn't even go through half of my notes there. I was skipping around in my notes like crazy. I was skipping all over the place. Now, you may disagree with it. I understand that. You're going to want to make it about us, make it about us. You probably want it to be in a more lordship way, right? You want it in a more, you know, prescriptive. This prescribes what you're to do. You want to be happy. You do this. And you, because you approach it from the idea that you can. Well, if you think you can pull it off, then great. I just think, I think, I think there's, I think reality constantly shows we don't pull it off. We don't. And I'm just so tired of the church taking every text and making it about us. Maybe we start the hermeneutical approach this way. It's not about you. It's not about me. In almost every situation, it's about them. It's about they. Not I. Not you. Not me. Not we. Them. They. All right. That was fun, wasn't it? Well, I mean, I hope you find that somewhat interesting. I'm being a little sarcastic there. I think, I mean, I'm hoping someone's like, whoa, wow, oh, yeah, wow. Never saw that before. That's awesome. I'm hoping someone thinks it's awesome. Most people are going to be like, whatever. He's an idiot. I don't care. You know, and just go around constantly handling someone the way they do. And I guess you can, but. If you don't see Deuteronomy 28-30, in fact, if you don't see the entire book of Deuteronomy and Psalm 1, I don't know what to tell you. I give up. I don't... I mean, it literally is Deuteronomy. It's what it is. Go to any church. I tell everyone to do this on Sunday. Walk around, just walk around church. Hey guys, Psalm 1. Do you think it's about us? And do you think the things it tells us not to do and the things to do, that we can avoid doing those things and doing the right things? Do you think we can do it? Do you think we can obey it? I almost emphatically, I bet you I almost without fail, they're going to say, yeah, it's about us. And yes, we can do it. And then you should just get in your car and drive away. Go to the local liquor store and then just, I don't know, have a good Sunday. But it's sad, that's exactly what's going to happen. Hopefully my church it wouldn't happen, I'm hoping. I'm probably going to ask on Sunday. And then you're just, if you, you're going to hear the message, it's going to be, you're going to hear me ask the question. Then all of a sudden, you're just going to hear silence. You're going to hear the door close, are open, then close. And then you're going to hear the car start. And then you're going to hear me drive off. And you're like, well, he went to the liquor store. And then you're going to hear everybody sitting there going, where did he go? What happened? What did we say wrong? All right, okay, maybe it's a little hyperbole. All right, y'all have a great day. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend to everyone. It is Friday, so have a great weekend if you can. If you got good things going on in your life, make the best of it, be happy for it, celebrate that. And for those whose situations may not be as great, well, I wish things would be different, but the one thing is I can't promise you that if you start being a good person and you obey really good, you're gonna be like a tree planted by water and everything's gonna be great and everything's going to prosper. Even if you try to make that spiritual and not in a material way, I can't promise you anything. I know this, that in Christ though, you have all spiritual blessings, all spiritual blessings in Christ. So then if you have all spiritual blessings in Christ, to make Psalm 1 a way to get spiritual blessings by your obedience makes no sense since I already have all spiritual blessings in Christ. Meaning I don't have to do anything to get the spiritual blessings in Psalm 1 since I already have all spiritual blessings. So then you would have to make Psalm 1 material physical blessing. then what happens when you're obedient and you don't get all—then, yeah, everything falls apart. I mean, again, sometimes when you just ask basic logical questions, a lot of Christian thought, it really shows how broken it is. All right, thanks for listening, everyone. Have a great day. God bless.