The psalmist begins, “In my distress I cry out to the Lord that he may answer me.” At least we have the sense to cry out to the Lord when we are in distress, don’t we? At least we have the hope that he will answer us, don’t we? And what is the psalmist’s distress? – “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”
Deliver me from whose lips, from whose deceitful tongue?
Is it my own lips or someone else’s lips? My own deceitful tongue or someone else’s? Lips has to be plural because we each have two lips, but tongue is in the singular. Deliver us from our own lips, our own deceitful tongue? Most of the time when we interpret Scripture as only applying to the other guy we are wrong, aren’t we?
Or is the psalmist asking deliverance from both his own lying lips and others’ lying lips, from both his own deceitful tongue and the deceitful tongues of others, as he seems to imply later? At any rate, slippery tongues and lying lips of our own, as well as others, need to be cleansed.
Even if we live in a place where we are aliens and everybody uses their tongues to contradict us at every turn, when we speak for peace and others use deceitful tongues to disagree with us, we can still cry out to the Lord in our distress because the Lord himself reminds us that we were once all aliens and in distress in a foreign land. Even though we live amidst those who hate peace among all peoples, we need to remember that we are a people of the Prince of Peace. Peace does not come from building walls that keep the alien out, from making laws that throw the alien out of our country. Peace comes from welcoming the stranger and protecting the alien, as it tells us in the Good Book.
- Robert Ketcham
Deliver me from whose lips, from whose deceitful tongue?
Is it my own lips or someone else’s lips? My own deceitful tongue or someone else’s? Lips has to be plural because we each have two lips, but tongue is in the singular. Deliver us from our own lips, our own deceitful tongue? Most of the time when we interpret Scripture as only applying to the other guy we are wrong, aren’t we?
Or is the psalmist asking deliverance from both his own lying lips and others’ lying lips, from both his own deceitful tongue and the deceitful tongues of others, as he seems to imply later? At any rate, slippery tongues and lying lips of our own, as well as others, need to be cleansed.
Even if we live in a place where we are aliens and everybody uses their tongues to contradict us at every turn, when we speak for peace and others use deceitful tongues to disagree with us, we can still cry out to the Lord in our distress because the Lord himself reminds us that we were once all aliens and in distress in a foreign land. Even though we live amidst those who hate peace among all peoples, we need to remember that we are a people of the Prince of Peace. Peace does not come from building walls that keep the alien out, from making laws that throw the alien out of our country. Peace comes from welcoming the stranger and protecting the alien, as it tells us in the Good Book.
- Robert Ketcham
Today pray for:
Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispaña, Manchester and their pastor Rafael Bonilla
First Baptist Church, Manchester Center, VT and their interim pastor Steven Jewett
The Annual Gathering Committee and their work in planning the Annual Gathering
Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispaña, Manchester and their pastor Rafael Bonilla
First Baptist Church, Manchester Center, VT and their interim pastor Steven Jewett
The Annual Gathering Committee and their work in planning the Annual Gathering