The Choice of a Path

Vitoria Camargo Monteiro

“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 that

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 way of the

wicked will perish.”

Psalms 1 (ESV translation)

Psalms is written by a lot of writers. But because David wrote 75 of them, which is 1/2 of

the book, a lot of people say that David is the writer. The book is a collection of art that it’s shown

by poetry and music and talks about lament, praising, wisdom, worship, living, also can be

prophetic and messianic.

The poetry takes place of 1/5 of the bible, and it’s more present than most of the Christians

thinks. In general the poetry in the bible is not based on rimes, but it’s based on parallelism which is

a grammatical structure that uses two or more examples that represents the same to explain better an

idea, or can also be a comparison between two opposite elements to emphasize one of them, which

is the case of psalm one that will be discussed.

The chapter one of the book of Psalms was written 444 B.C by David or Ezra and is used as

a preface to the book. Also the first chapter is a great example of that once that is comparing two

different paths, two different lifestyle. But to understand that idea better, we’ll go verse by verse

talking about the idea of the chapter, and making this comparison even more clear while the

analyzation.
 Verse 1: “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;”

The word “Blessed" in this verse, is an 'expression’ used in all the book of Psalms and all

around the bible. It means how blessed, but also, “oh, how right with God!” or “oh, how happy!”,

which is the best option, once that in Hebrew there’s a separate word for "blessed". The term man

does not refers to the gender but for everyone. The idea of this verse sometimes can be confused by

some Christians, and they can thing that they need to keep distance from weak believers and not be

friends or close to people with the fallowed weaknesses. This verse is not talking about being

around this people, but being influenced by them. Jesus was always surrounded by non Christians,

or weak believers, but He was the one influencing them, while His counsel was coming from God.

The text is talking about bing influenced by the people that turn their back to God, and don’t fallow

Him. Having people that advices you, is good and biblical, but they need to be a channel from God,

that means being connected with the true source, who is God.

Verse 2: "but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day

and night.”

In the second verse David makes a contrast between fallowing the counsel of the wicked and

allowing God to shape you through His word. In the same time that we can not let wicked people

shape us, we need to allow the word of God to shape us. The word of God is the instruction that

comes from God, today is directly the bible. I like the idea that if you don’t put any effort in this

area you’ll be shape by people, but to be shaped by God and His word, you need to talk the step of

meditating day and night in His word. Having a godly living is not about not doing anything, but

fighting against sin and specially against our sinful nature.

 Meditating in God’s word is not only about reading the bible. Is also not about seeing 15 or

30 minutes from your day to pray and read your bible! The meditation that he’s taking about here is

so much more than that! It’s about “day and night” It’s all the time. It’s about a constant prayer to

God added to your thoughts which are intentionally directed to God and his word. Reading, for

sure, is part of it, but is not all of it. Transformation is essential for this meditation, it doesn’t stops

in the paper, but it starts in the paper and finishes in the heart!

Verse 3: "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.”

This verse talks about the prosperity of those who meditates on God’s word. Prosperity is

hard topic to talk about, because there’s a lot of bad theology present in todays days. The idea IS

NOT that if you come to God all your problems will be solved and you’ll be rich, but there’s

promises for the one who fears and fallow God. This verse is a great example for that. It says that if

you meditates in God’s word you’ll give fruits. Prospering in the Old Testament was usually about

land and offspring. But in the New Testament until today most of the fruits that comes from God is

about a change in the character (Gl 5.22-23). Independent of what will come, it’s a blessing, which

means that we don’t deserve, and it can’t be urned by ourselves. It is the idea of the “streams of

water”, It’s comes only from the source: God. The fruits also will come in the right time: It’s not

something that you need to expect from the new christians around you, but something that we need

to seek, by meditating on His words.

Verse 4: "The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives

away.”
 The term “wicked" is referring to people who doesn’t have a covenant relationship with

God. It doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in God, or don’t go to church, but that they live to

satisfy themselves and not to God. The people that it’s talking about is the non Christians, but also

the type of superficial believers whom are not willing to sacrifice anything to God, and even for

others when it requires giving up of your own will. The idea of this verse is that, the wicked people,

doesn’t have a strong foundation and/or that they are not accumulating eternal treasures once that

they are seeking to their own will.

Verse 5: "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the

congregation of the righteous;”

In this life, there’s a lot of moments in cases of wicked people that prosper or are favored.

It’s a lie that being with God you’ll be rich and not being with God you’ll be poor. In this life many

time, people that are not faithful and fearful to God may look that they have a better life than the

people that truly fallows the Lord. But there’s a misunderstanding about what is to prosper, and also

that this prosperity that they are gathering will end on this life, while ours will remain forever. (A lot

of other Psalms talks about this topic, life 73). Resuming the idea is that, even if the wicked may

sound that is prospering right now, when it comes the judgement he’ll not stand, and will not be

with the righteous!

 Verse 6: "for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked

will perish.”

The standard of judgment is God’s knowledge (Matt. 7.23). “The way” that the verse is

talking about is not only about what the person does, but is about the choice of path that the person

choose: to be righteous or wicked. This choice doesn’t refers only to the attitudes, but the

motivation, the heart. God cares about the deep inside of you, and that means that He knows you

deeply ( Psalms 139).

As we saw, the Psalm is a wisdom Psalm, who shoes us about two different paths. The path

of the righteous and the wicked. This topic is going to continue to be discussed through all the book

of Psalms, chichis why they say that it is a perfect introduction of the book. The main idea of the

choice presented in this chapter is that, as we know, all the paths take you in a different place. And

in this case is not different! The path of the righteous will not only bring you to a eternal prosperity,

but will bring you a present joy, rest and all blessings more from God’s presence. While the path of

the wicked even if it seems attractive and easy for not, will bring you to death and damnation.

As I see, we are in a world where the focus of life is ourselves, and the main purpose is to

fulfill our own pleasures. Because of the slavery that sin causes to us, our limited view of life, and

our lack of wisdom, we tend to look to the present moment and seek for pleasure. What God is

expressing in the whole Bible is that, if we’re willing to sacrifice right now, in a few yeas we’ll

have pleasures forevermore. Also, that if we’re willing to sacrifice, as we’re living with Him, he

promises us to give us the pleasure of His blessings and of the fruitful life. But again, we are

blinded by our sinful flesh, and our selfishness, blocking ourselves to experience the best life from

God to us.

May God help us to sacrifice ourselves to be in His presence!

_Blue Letter Bible - 2019 - Psalms

_Dr. Thomas L. Constable, Notes on Psalms - Plano Bible Chapel. 2019 Edition