Words to Live By

These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates....to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut.7:6-9; 8:3).

A few days ago, I wrote about Scripture as 'our daily bread,' something we could break off in small bites and chew on a little at a time.  Today, I saw an article online called "Engaging Students with Social and Emotional Learning."  In the section of the article called "Creating Meaning, Building Character, and Inspiring Potential," Rutgers University Professor Maurice Elias writes this:

Sir John Templeton believed that maxims contained the power to motivate and inspire people, including young people.  He created his essay concept based on this belief and it has grown to be a world-wide phenomenon of inspiration (and used to turn around disengaged urban learners).

Educators all over the world are now using the idea of having young people collect quotes that they find personally meaningful and developing the ideas in essay form centered around desirable character traits such as respect, honesty, confidence, and responsibility.  They have found that when students create their own meaning, they are more engaged in the learning process.

This "new" method introduced by Sir John Templeton is very old indeed; indeed, it is about 4000+ years old.  From the beginning, God always wanted His words written in our hearts, on our doorposts, and on our gates.  In the books of Joel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, among other places in Scripture, He promises that "on that day," He will give us a "new commandment," not written on tablets of stone, but on our hearts. 

In the wilderness, Jesus was able to turn away Satan with the Scripture written in His heart.  The words have to come to us when most needed, and the only way that can happen is if we, like Mary, have stored up "all these things" in our hearts.  Psalm 1 presents the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  The Hebrew word translated in English as "meditates" actually means "mutters."  The one who "mutters" the law day and night is storing up the Word of God in his heart, where it can spring to the occasion when needed.  That man, according to Psalm 1, is like a tree planted near streams of water, which yields its fruit in due season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers. 

With that man, the Psalm contrasts the "wicked," who are like chaff that the wind blows away.

I once read about a prisoner of war in a concentration camp.  Although he had not been very religious in his life, he had attended Sunday school as a child, where he learned Scripture verses and little songs like Jesus Loves Me, This I know.  Day after day, as he sat alone in his cold, dark, damp cell, he began to recite what he could remember from Scripture and to sing "Jesus Loves Me."  Those words sustained him in hope which grew stronger and more meaningful each day until his release.

In the midst of Corrie Ten Boom's experience in the concentration camp at Dachau, she conducted Bible studies with small portions of the John's Gospel which had been smuggled into the camp, despite the threat of severe punishment for doing so.  Those verses sustained the women in her bunker throughout their ordeal. 

Today, in China, I have heard that anyone found possessing a Bible will be executed, and any neighbors who know someone possesses a Bible and does not report it will also be executed.  What is it about the Bible that so enrages dictatorships?  I think Jesus' words are more true than we can imagine.  I think it is that those who have stored up Scripture in their hearts do "live," not by bread alone, but by the words of God, and they cannot be defeated.  It is difficult to subdue those who have the words of Psalm 18:2 written in their hearts:

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

my God, my strength, in whom I will trust;

my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.