Psalm 1 - The Blessed Life
- Chad Werkhoven
- 34 minutes ago
- 4 min read
The Psalms teach you how to attain a blessed life.
CONTEXT for our new readers: every Friday this year, we'll be reading a Psalm. We'll get back to Genesis on Monday.
Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That man is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever He does prospers.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
ARTICLE 29
As for those who can belong to the church,
we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians:
namely by faith,
and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness,
once they have received the one and only Savior,
Jesus Christ.
They love the true God and their neighbors,
without turning to the right or left,
and they crucify the flesh and its works.
Though great weakness remains in them,
they fight against it
by the Spirit
all the days of their lives,
appealing constantly
to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus,
in whom they have forgiveness of their sins,
through faith in him.
Summary
The first Psalm in the Psalter didn't end up in that spot randomly. This opening Psalm sets the tone and context for the 149 psalms that follow it. It's sort of like a prologue to the poetry that come after it. So the first word of this first psalm plays a big role: the word blessed introduces the primary purpose of the Book of Psalms: to show how you can experience a life of profound happiness. Jesus began His public ministry with the exact same word, sharing the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
One commentary describes "those who are blessed as being in a state of total well-being: They lack nothing, are delivered from trouble, and are wealthy and have successful children. No wonder they are so happy! The Psalms are about how to experience this profound happiness." Certainly the world offers many facsimiles of this blessedness, but this first psalm offers the only route to genuine, lasting blessedness.
Notice the progression described in the opening verse - maybe it's better described as degression! The blessed man does not slowly slide into sin. Sin often strikes slowly - it begins when you simply walk in step with the wicked. In other words, you just go with the flow, even when it's flowing away from what you know to be right. Next, you find yourself standing firmly in the way sinners take. Before you know it, you're sitting in the company of mockers. You're fully immersed in their world. It's eerie how well this describes what happened to the man & woman when the shrewd serpent slithered into their lives!
But the blessed man looks far different. He delights in the law of the LORD! That is, he makes God's Word the center of his life - it's the primary purpose and priority of his day. Your work, family and hobbies are certainly important, but a truly blessed life only comes to those who meditate on law (Word) of the LORD day and night. Consume scripture voraciously, and then chew on it all day long as you do your other activities, just as God commanded His people long ago.
Dig Deeper
Read in isolation, Psalm 1 makes the blessed life seem hopelessly unattainable. As will quickly becomes clear as we read through the subsequent psalms, not even the various psalmists could even come close to the ideal that this opening psalm sets forth. You and I don't stand a chance, then!
That's why it's important that we translate scripture as closely as possible to the exact words the original language used. In recent years, using a gendered word like man to represent all people has fallen out of fashion, and modern Bible translations often follow the trend to use more inclusive pronouns.
It's not really a big deal to append the word sisters to the brothers that are often addressed in New Testament letters; it's likely what the author intended to convey anyways. But it doesn't work as well to render the first psalm as blessed is the one rather than blessed is the man.
Whether you're male or female, Psalm 1 definitely prescribes a pattern you must endeavor to follow, and the more you do so, the more blessedness you'll likely experience (although it will probably look much different than the fake blessedness the world promotes).
But Psalm 1 is pointing you away from yourself, and towards the one and only Man that accomplished what this Psalm describes. It's only in Christ that you too will attain the true blessedness you were created for.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who created us to live blessed lives and made it possible for us to have this in Christ;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you'll be able to resist sin's slow tug and that you'll make the Word of the LORD your top priority and delight;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
