Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-202 (Bible Reading Notes)

CONFRONTING THE VANITIES PSALM 31 (From ‘Encounter with God’ – Sunday 08 Oct 2000)

The Christian’s journey proceeds through dangerous terrain: ‘But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, You are my God’ (v 14). In David’s struggle we can see the contours, the co-ordinates and the contradictions of our own experience. We, too, are a focus of spiritual violence in the ancient conflicts between the ‘God of truth’ (v 5) and ‘worthless idols’ (v 6) which are literally ‘vanities of nothingness’. Satan is still the master-illusionist able to hold compliant minds in a kind of hypnotic trance in which light is dark, yes is no, and the Father of all appears a grim cosmic spoil-sport. (See Gen 3:1-5) It is an astonishing enchantment. Christ breaks the spell to bring out all who are willing into the light of God’s glorious reality. As Christians, we are called to share in his work by testimony and prayer, and with our Lord to make a bonfire of the vanities. (See Eph 5:13,14)

But expect bother for your pains. You will be resisted (v 4). The spellbound will not always thank you for your intrusion into their earth-dream. (See 2 Cor 10:3-6) David suffered from those terrible ‘tongues’ (vs 13,18,20) by which he was slandered, excluded, shunned and shelved (vs 11-13) into nervous exhaustion (vs 9,10) and spiritual despair (v 22). Yet ‘I will be glad and rejoice in your love’ (v 7). When we allow the Scriptures to exert their unique power in our minds we experience them as ‘a violence from within that protects us from the violence from without’ (See Eph 3:16-19 – Wallace Stevens). Now revisit the verses in which David expresses his sense of crisis (eg vs 2-4,9-12) and consider the metaphors and promises of hope and deliverance in each case. Receive them deep into your imagination, know them and feel them as you turn them over and over in your mind. They fuel the ‘violence from within’ which pushes back against the dark ‘violence from without’. ‘Violence from within’ suggests God’s Word powerfully possessing our minds and imaginations and going on the offensive against the ‘vanities of nothingness’. For this, meditation and reflection on Scripture are essential.

Copyright Scripture Union, 2000 To order your quarterly edition of ‘Encounter with God’ or to enquire about other SU publications, contact the office nearest your region: Australia – East Asia – Pacific – USA – or http://www.scriptureunion.org Canada – UK & International Office –