The First 2 Chapters

I have heard it said that the Bible was only supposed to be the first 2 chapters. It is in Chapter 3 of Genesis that everything "goes to hell in a hand-basket." Chapters one and two set things up as they were intended and then the rest of scripture is the story of repairing the damage done in chapter three.

Today I began my summer study. When school is out, I take a sort of sabbatical from that job and get to spend more time in my Worship Pastor role. This summer, I am studying Psalms, specifically how God's constancy and faithfulness is born out psalm by psalm. The psalmist frequently asks for protection and in the end of the same psalm, iterates how God has been, is or will be our refuge and salvation. That is the main focus, but today I noticed something else about Psalms 1 and 2; They set up the whole story. It is the story of God and His work. Here it is all laid out quite simply:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on His law he meditates day and night

If you read the rest of Psalm 1, you see that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish. If you try to place that in the here and now, it doesn't seem to be the case but, as the psalmists know, in the end, God will be true to His word. In Psalm 2, the psalmist lays out the next part of the story, one we experience all too frequently in the day to day lives of nations:

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand

and the rulers gather together against the Lord

and against His anointed one.

As we continue reading, we find one of my favorite lines in Psalms:

The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them

God laughs because He knows the vanity and insanity of their efforts. "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill." God's already got it done, and the efforts of the feeble rulers of earth are of only passing interest. Once again, in the first two chapters of a book, God has set forth how it is going to be, no matter the efforts of the wicked to stop it. Picture the angry rantings of a four year old saying to his parents "I'm not going!" No matter how many stampings of his feet, no matter how many tantrums he throws, he is going. In my house growing up, I learned quickly that at best, these outburst only became a frustration for me, at worst, they ended in punishment, and I went anyway. So it is with God. His way is the way, and in the end, we will all go before Him.

So again God gives us a choice: We can be like a tree planted by streams of living water, thriving and plentiful, or we can choose to plot against the provider and attempt to have our own way, for a time, but we will all end up in the same place, before the One enthroned in heaven. At that point, I'd rather hear what is described in Psalm 2 verse 7:

He said to me "You are my son, today I have become your Father."