Wisdom and Application
Hermeneutics Pt.11
 8-13-2009
Wisdom 
I did an in-depth study of wisdom in depth in the Proverbs series (“Making Wise Decisions”), so I won’t go into detail again on that now. I’ll just give you of some basics. The wisdom literature teaches us how to make good decisions in life. Wisdom is skill at living. Christians always want to know what God’s will is for them to do. “Should I choose option A or option B? What is God’s will?”  The answer isn’t very hard – God’s will is always the wisest of the options. So the more you gain wisdom, the more you know God’s will in every decision. If you have an opportunity to start your own business, you have to make a decision about whether or not to do that, and you have to make that decision…
•	without a definite knowledge of what will happen to the economy in the next several years…
•	without a definite knowledge of how good business will be…
•	without a definite knowledge of what setbacks will come (such as a serious illness, an accident, family troubles, unexpected expenses, etc.)…
•	without a knowledge of what will happen if you don’t start the business (might get laid off, might flourish in your present job, etc.)…
•	without a definite knowledge of anything in the future.
Why does God put us in a position of having to make decisions without any knowledge of the future? The answer is because it pleases Him when we live by wisdom, because that requires faith.
Making a decision by wisdom is essentially examining the probabilities. The wise woman or man examines the world and observes how things normally go, and projects based on that the likelihood of various possibilities. On a normal day, I have no idea if I run to the grocery story if I will get into an accident and be killed. Nor do I know for sure if that will happen if I go in an ice storm when the roads are glazed ice and visibility is low. However I know that in good conditions, the probability of a crash is so low that it’s worth the risk even if the need to go to the store isn’t all that great (I just need a gallon of milk so I can eat my Fruit Loops). On the other hand, the ice storm raises the probability of an accident so much that I won’t go to the store unless the need is something much more important.
Most of us don’t agonize too much over a trip to the store. The wisdom process in that case is pretty easy. But when it comes to starting a business, or moving out of state, or changing jobs, or going to school, or having more children, etc., the wisdom process becomes more difficult, because there are so many factors to consider. That’s why so many people just give up on wisdom and make all their major decisions based on promptings, and gut feelings and impressions that they imagine are the voice of God. That is so much easier than going through the wisdom process, because wisdom requires not only that you determine the likelihood of a host of different things, but also that you determine how important each of those things are. That’s the other side of wisdom. It’s not just likely pros and likely cons, but how important are the pros and how important are the cons? If I decide to invest myself in close friendships, from my observations of life I know that there is close to 100% probability of me getting hurt eventually. However I also know there is a high probability of me being able to bless my friends, and my being blessed by them. And since the blessings of love relationships in the Church are of far greater importance than avoiding emotional pain, the decision is very easy. So you can see that to have success in any area of life, wisdom is critical. That’s why Proverbs 4:7 says 

7 Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

God does not want us to make decisions based on promptings, or impressions or subjective feelings apart from wisdom. That kind of mysticism takes many forms. Some Christians play Bible roulette (let it flop open, or scan for a verse that pops out at them, and then claim it). Or they look for a feeling of peace in their heart over a decision. Or they put out a “fleece” or interpret circumstances as some kind of sign or message from God - all apart from the wisdom process. All that is mysticism and it’s not how God wants us to make decisions.
What God wants is for us to simply make decisions based on what wisdom calls for, and trust Him regarding all the unknowns. That’s how God leads and guides you through life. Proverbs 6:20ff, talking about the commands and teachings of wisdom:

Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck.

When you walk, they will guide you;’ when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you.

And it’s so vitally important, because the more wisdom you have, the easier decisions are to make. Wisdom is knowing how life tends to go, and how important things are in relation to other things. Once you know that, good decisions are automatic.
If your little toddler is playing out in the middle of the interstate, you don’t have to make a long list of pros and cons and pray over your decision of whether or not to get him out of the road. Based on your knowledge of life, you know the probabilities of him being killed out there are very high. And you also know that preserving his life is much more important than whatever fun he might be having out there. And so you don’t even consciously go through the decision making process. You make the right decision easily and automatically. The more wisdom you have, the more all decisions will become like that. Decisions that are agonizing for everyone else, for you will become easy. 
So how do you get wisdom? How do you learn probabilities and the way life tends to go and which things are more important than other things? For example, suppose you have some great opportunity, but it involves dealing with someone who is very foolish. How do you know how dealing with fools tends to go? Where do you get wisdom like that?
One way is to just be an astute observer of life for six or seven decades. But the problem with that approach is that by the time you have spent that much time observing how life tends to go, you have already made most of the decisions of your life. Another way to get wisdom is to get it from people who already have it, or to get it directly from God. And the way to get it directly from God is by studying the wisdom literature in the Bible. There are books of the Bible that are devoted to teaching wisdom (how life tends to go, and which things are more important than other things). Those books are Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and much of the Psalms.
Ecclesiastes
The following is taken from an article titled “Ecclesiastes - The Bible’s Black Sheep” by Bruce Waltke. Ecclesiastes is the most misunderstood book in the entire Bible. Conservative scholars have traditionally handled Ecclesiastes in three different ways.
1.	The author is a wise, rational, thinking man who works his way to faith by eliminating other alternatives. 
2.	The author is a reasoning man who comes to despair. Since life is futile to him, he assumes there’s only one thing to do, and that’s to have faith. 
3.	Perhaps the most popular view is represented in The Scofield Reference Bible. It declares Ecclesiastes is only the conclusions and reasonings of a man—not revelatory truth. As a result the book is not normally studied.
Those interpretations not only misrepresent the book, but they also contradict its conclusion.

Ecclesiastes 12:10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.

The words of Ecclesiastes are upright and true.
The Futility of Life
Chapter after chapter he looks at life and concludes it is all utter futility. And usually that’s rejected as a sub-Christian thought, and so we have to come up with some interpretation that allows us to reject that. But Waltke insists it’s not a sub-Christian thought.

Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility

That word translated “futility” is the same word used in the Greek translation of Ecclesiastes for futility or vanity. There is a very real sense in which this earthly life appears pointless and futile.

 Eat, Drink, and Enjoy?
Therefore what? The conclusion is the other thing that people find so objectionable in this book. The dominant theme running throughout this book is the importance of enjoying life. That is his conclusion in almost every chapter.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,

Ecclesiastes 3:12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.

Ecclesiastes 3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. 

Ecclesiastes 5:18-19 Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot. 19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.

To many people it seems as though the conclusions running through every chapter contradict the end of the book.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Luther said the whole book teaches Epicureanism (eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die) and then the end of the book teaches truth. But we already saw that the whole book is truth. And the middle part of the book does not say, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die," but, "Eat, drink, and be merry because that is a gift of God." And those are two very different ways of looking at life. 
If you bring together the two difficulties of the book (life being futile and the importance of enjoyment), you can start to see the author’s point. Man has not been given the key to opening up the riddle of life. We want to see how it all fits together. We want to know why this and why that, but God has hidden the total picture from our eyes. We see the events, but can’t piece them all together. We know some general answers, but we don’t know the specific answers of why God does each individual thing. You cannot figure out why one person is born rich and another poor. One baby is born with a healthy body and another is born a cripple.
So how should we approach life as we go through this apparent futility, unable to put everything together? Just trust God.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

God knows what He is doing, but we can’t see it – we just have to trust Him. When your work seems futile and doesn’t appear to make much sense or amount to much of anything, realize that it is a gift from God who knows what He is doing.  And what He is doing is good, so just learn to enjoy it!
Enjoy your life. 
Enjoy your food. 
Enjoy your spouse. 
Enjoy your home. 
Accept God’s gifts as good gifts even when you can’t see how it all fits together.

Job
One of the most prolific principles in the wisdom literature is the retribution principle (God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous). Job teaches that the retribution principle can be applied only in one direction – you can apply it looking forward but not backward. What I mean is this: before you do good or evil, you should apply the retribution principle. You should think, “If I do good, the Lord will bless me, and if I do evil He will punish me.” The error of Job’s friends was they tried to apply it looking back from the other direction.
“Job appears to be being punished; therefore he must have done evil.”  
That’s an incorrect application of the retribution principle. It’s also incorrect to say, “That guy is being blessed, therefore he is righteous.”  Job also teaches the proper response to suffering, and the supremacy of God. Job is the ultimate book for reminding us about the bigger picture. What you see when you look around is not the whole picture.

Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon)
There is a great amount of confusion over how to interpret this book.
The allegorical approach 
This is the approach that makes the whole book an allegory of Christ and the Church. The man is Christ, the woman is the Church, and all the erotic, sexually explicit language somehow describes the relationship between God and His people. Not only is there no legitimate hermeneutical basis for making it into an allegory, but to ascribe the erotic imagery of the Song to God, in my estimation, is irreverent. It is true that Scripture describes us as the Bride of Christ, but never is this relationship described in sexual terms. The figure of the Bride and the Bridegroom is used to help us understand a number of things about our relationship to Christ (our anxious anticipation of His coming, the celebration when He does arrive, the commitment to one another and the seriousness of apostasy, etc.), however nowhere is sexual imagery used. To take a description of a man talking about a woman's private parts while ogling her as she dances naked, and apply it to God is at best questionable, and certainly not precedented by the Bridegroom imagery used for Christ.
Whenever you try to make some passage in the Bible into an allegory, your interpretation will be hopelessly given to subjectivity. There is no way to identify the one correct (intended) meaning. One interpreter says the woman’s breasts represent the two Testaments. But how would we know that? Why not the two Witnesses in Revelation 11, or the two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie in Hebrews 6:18, or the two great lights of the creation, or even the two other members of the Trinity?
With the allegorical approach Scripture teaches nothing and the "interpreter" supplies everything. There is no need to think of anything as allegorical unless it is stated as such in Scripture.
An Exemplary Relationship 
The interpretation that seems to be most often preached in evangelical circles is the view that the Song of Songs is a drama designed to teach us about a godly marital relationship. However, an honest look at the text produces no coherent order of events. The following is a summarization of the events of the book:
•	She wants kisses from the king - to go into his chambers.
•	She wants to find out where he grazes his sheep.
•	He says follow the sheep tracks, and then compliments her face.
•	She says her perfume spread at the king's table, and her lover is like the sachet of myrrh resting between her breasts.
•	He compliments her eyes.
•	She compliments him and says their bed is green.
•	She calls herself a lily of the valleys.
•	He calls her a lily among thorns.
•	She calls him an apple tree.
•	THE CHARGE She remarks about his embrace and that she is sick with love.
•	He says let me see your face.
•	She says she looked for him in her bed and didn't find him - she looked around town and finally found him.
•	THE CHARGE Look at Solomon in all his glory with the crown he got when he got married.
•	He describes her entire body, calls her his bride.
•	She asks the wind to help her get her lover to come in to her garden.
•	He says he has come into her garden.
•	She says he came when she was in bed, she didn't want to get up, and he left before she changed her mind - she went to find him.
•	Tells daughters to tell him she is faint with love.
•	Daughters ask what is so special about him.
•	She describes his body.
•	Daughters ask where he went.
•	She says he went to his garden.
•	He describes her.
•	We want to gaze on the Shulamite.
•	He describes the Shulamite's entire body and says he will pick her fruit.
•	She talks about having sex with him.
•	THE CHARGE. She says she roused him under the apple tree, then LOVE IS POWERFUL.
•	We will keep our young sister a virgin.
•	She says she is a virgin with tower-like breasts, and therefore pleased her lover.
•	She says her vineyard is for Solomon.
Virtually any story could be imposed onto this book, but no story emerges from the text itself. So I don’t see it as a story of a particular man and woman. However I do believe it is given to teach us some things about how God designed marital love to be. I believe the book to be a collection of love poems arranged in such a way as to make a point. This would explain the lack of a coherent unfolding of a drama, but the very structured and seemingly intentional grand chiasmus. The center of the chiasmus (as well as the center of the book) is 4:16 and 5:1 where she says, "Let my lover come into his garden" and he says, "I have come into my garden."  The actual consummation is not described, but apparently takes place in the "space" between these two middle verses - the very center of the chiasmus. Clearly this passage is the climactic point in the book.
As one reads through the Song, there are four things that stand out:
1.	the explicit language and descriptions of sexual activity,
2.	the chiasmus, 
3.	the charge (because it uses somewhat urgent language and is repeated three times)
4.	the great statement of the power and intensity of love in 8:6,7 (regardless of the hermeneutical approach, virtually every interpreter seems to focus in on this passage with special interest).
These four things combine to make a single point: Romantic love is extreme. It captivates all of a person's thinking and drives him to concentrate all of his energy, attention, strength, thought, words and deeds into a relationship with one person - around whom the universe revolves. It even finds its way into your dreams and makes you forget everything else in your life. Entering into it is a serious thing - as severe as death. It makes you "sick with love" and refuses to release its hold on you until it finds its complete fulfillment. It is never satisfied until it reaches that space between 4:16 and 5:1. (That’s why dating, when you aren’t ready for marriage, is such a terrible idea.) Romantic love begins with simple desire, takes you through all kinds of other things (such as embracing, kissing, undressing, etc. - all the things described in the book) and culminates with intercourse. For that reason, one ought not to begin the process until the appropriate time. A person who is not prepared to enter into this whirlwind should not be making attempts to arouse or awaken the process, because to begin it is a serious thing. The explicit language gains the reader's attention and points out the kind of extreme things to which romantic love drives a person.
•	The chiasmus serves to point out that it is a process that works toward consummation as its fulfillment as well as to provide a beautiful, poetic backdrop to properly frame the main point.
•	The charge states the conclusion.
•	The statement concerning the power of romantic love in 8:6-7 reinforces the point made by the explicit language - that love is extreme and unyielding.
•	Within marriage it lifts you to the heights of ecstasy.
•	But delve into it apart from marriage and it’s extremely dangerous. 
To make these points with such a grand mosaic of these four things makes the point much more effectively than a strict, didactic outline.

Proverbs
While the Song of Songs gives us wisdom in one specific area, Proverbs offers wisdom in every area. The most important thing to understand in interpreting proverbs is to understand that they are proverbial. People often misinterpret proverbs, because they are used to reading absolute truths in the Bible. A proverb is simply a general observation about the way life tends to go in most cases. Before reading Proverbs, think about some modern-day proverbs. That will remind you how a proverb is supposed to be interpreted.
no news is good news
crime doesn't pay
the early bird gets the worm
a stitch in time saves nine
it takes money to make money
a picture is worth 1000 words
home is where the heart is
better safe than sorry
a penny saved is a penny earned
fight fire with fire
good things come to those who wait
a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
too many cooks spoil the pot
You should interpret biblical proverbs just like you interpret those – not as absolute statements. In fact, sometimes the purpose of a proverb is to state the exact opposite of the truth to illustrate the foolishness of something.
all is fair in love and war
the grass is greener on the other side
How Should Proverbs be used?
Remember, the wisdom process involves making determinations about probabilities. So proverbs are very helpful in that, because they tell you the way life tends to go.
Example:

25:16 If you find honey, eat just enough-too much of it, and you will vomit.

That’s the way life tends to go. If you over-indulge in a good thing, it tends to have negative consequences. Once that little piece of wisdom is so much a part of your outlook on life that it’s second nature, you will tend to have some restraint in the enjoyment of good things. And even though you don’t know the future, when you make decisions based on things like that, your decisions will tend to be wise ones and have better results. The point isn’t for you to run to your kitchen and throw away all the honey. It’s a principle that will help you navigate through life in a wise way.

Proverbs 19:15 Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry.

Laziness makes life harder. It has a paralyzing effect. Once you have been lazy for a while, the decision to work hard is ten times harder. As you go through life, if you have an acute awareness of the fact that laziness is dangerous, because it begins a downward spiral by sapping your energy, that will become a major factor in your decision-making. (I had better not choose that option, because to do so would likely involve laziness, and then my whole life will become harder.) God has given us a treasure chest of wisdom. Proverbs are so valuable. Think of how much wisdom we have in this book – ever tried to write a proverb? It took me a long time just to think of that list of about a dozen. Solomon wrote 3000 (we have about a quarter of those in Scripture).

Application
The next step is to respond to the message (application). I believe more errors occur in application than in interpretation. It’s not uncommon for someone to do a flawless job interpreting a passage, but then apply it in an inappropriate way.
The passage doesn’t mean anything different for us than it meant for them, but the very fact that those things were said to them has implications for us. And most error takes place at this stage. It’s not uncommon for someone to do a flawless job interpreting a passage, but then apply it in an inappropriate way. So many errors come on the other side of the “therefore.” Consider these three applications of the story of the man Jesus healed and then commanded not to tell anyone:
1.	“Jesus commanded the man He had just healed not to tell anyone. Therefore if God heals us we should never tell a soul.”
2.	“Jesus commanded the man He had just healed not to tell anyone. Therefore nothing. That has no implication for us, because it was a unique situation.”
3.	“Jesus commanded the man He had just healed not to tell anyone. Therefore we should avoid trying to attract thrill-seekers, and, like Jesus, focus only on those who have an interest in spiritual things.”
All three interpretations are identical, but there are radically different applications. When Peter and John confronted the lame man in Acts 3:6-8 he said,

6 Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.

Two preachers might interpret that passage exactly the same, and one might have this application: 
When the man was healed he walked, jumped and praised God. Therefore we should walk, jump and praise God.
And the other might give this application: 
When the man was healed he walked, jumped and praised God. That proves it was a miracle. Therefore we should have full confidence in the Apostles’ doctrine, because they proved themselves to be from God.
The interpretations are the same, but the applications are different.
All study of Scripture should address the will. All doctrine given in Scripture was meant by God to be applied to life. There is no message given by God that does not call for or imply the responsibility of the recipient to respond in some way. Keep that in mind if you are the type who is tempted to study just for the sake of increasing your knowledge. Keep that in mind also if you are a teacher. All teaching should address the will – don’t just dump information on people. Your goal is to address the will.
Scripture holds each person is responsible to be righteous in seven areas:
1.	Actions, which are to conform to what pleases God (Dt.6:18)
2.	Words, which are also to conform to what pleases God (Eph.4:29, Mt.12:36)
3.	Thoughts, which must be true (Mt.9:4) and virtuous (Lk.1:51) 
4.	Will, which must be comprised of decisions that arise out of desire to conform to God’s will (Jn.8:29)
5.	Motives, which must be such that the reason we do the things we do is to glorify God (Mt.5:16
6.	Affections, which must love God above all (Mt.22:35-40) and must love, hate, fear, rejoice in, be angered by, take seriously, take lightly, etc. the same things God loves, hates, etc.
7.	Attitudes, which must be disposed or inclined toward the things of God (Mt.16:23).
Every passage in Scripture, either explicitly or implicitly calls for some response by the reader in at least one of these areas. 

So how do you know how to apply a principle?
Two steps:
1) Discover the Principle
Everything in the Bible is included in the Bible for a reason. Every passage teaches a principle. Events are not reported just because they happened. The things that are written, and the way they are written is all to teach a principle. And until you discover the principle, you can’t apply the passage.
2) Determine the Implications 
I think people would do a much better job at application if they used the word “implication” instead. The way to correctly apply a passage is to find the principle, and then ask, “What are the implications for me?”  
Two crucial ingredients for a good application
1) Accuracy 
If an application is not actually implied by the text, then it is an improper application. So here’s the accuracy test: “True or false: The writer could not have written this if this application were not valid.” Unless you can say that, the application is suspect.
For example, suppose someone were teaching Matthew 18:20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them, and drew this application: “God is present any time two or three are gathered, and so there really isn’t any value in having gatherings larger than three.” That conclusion would be easy to disprove using other passages of Scripture, but could it be shown to be an incorrect application just from this passage alone? 
Let’s apply our test: 
True or False – Jesus could not have made that comment in Mathew 18:20 if this application were not true? 
False. Jesus could have said that whether that application is true or not. The meaning of what Jesus was saying is simply that when the church discipline process is followed and verified on the testimony of the two or three witnesses, then the authority of Christ is behind the action of excommunication. That does not imply anything about the value or non-value of larger church meetings. (In fact, if anything it implies that there must be larger church meetings, otherwise who would the two or three give their testimony to? Clearly the church is seen here as a larger group than the two or three.)
What is a valid application? How about this – When you go to confront someone in the church discipline process, and you find yourself about to chicken-out, thinking, “Who am I to confront this person? I’m a sinner too!” – don’t chicken-out because you have the authority of Christ Himself behind you. If we apply our test to that we find that it is a valid application, because if it were not true then Jesus could not have said what He said.

2) Relevance  

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for … training in righteousness. 

If your passage is useful for training in righteousness but it isn’t immediately obvious how it’s useful, you have more work to do. 
Examples of proper and improper applications
Example #1
When Paul called upon Timothy to drink wine in 1 Timothy 5:23 the meaning of the passage is that Timothy was to use wine in a medicinal way. Let’s apply the test to the following applications:
1.	The use of medicine is appropriate and wise for the Christian – it is not a lack of faith.
2.	A good strategy for evangelism is to go into bars, establish friendships, and share the gospel – even if that means spending time drinking with the person in order to establish the friendship.  
3.	It is appropriate for a Christian to seek relief from suffering.
4.	It is appropriate for a Christian to seek healing through natural means.
5.	It is not wrong for a Christian to go to a party and drink, as long as he doesn’t get drunk. 
6.	Believers should take reasonable care of their bodies when possible. 
7.	God allows godly men to have frequent illnesses.
Two and five are invalid, because they did not pass the test (Paul could have said what he said to Timothy even if these were not true). The rest are valid, because Paul could not have said what he said if they were not true.

Example #2:

Exodus 23:19 Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. 

Cooking a goat in its mother’s milk was a pagan, superstitious practice. The meaning of the passage is that God did not want His people indulging in superstition or paganism. Some implications of that are as follows:
Superstitious rituals are not harmless; they are wrong.
God wants clear distinctions between His people and the world.
The general application, then, is that the reader should avoid superstition and separate himself from the world (in the world but not of the world). A more specific application might be this: We should not be involved in ecumenical prayer events. And example of an invalid application would be: “It is sin to ever set foot in a place where occultic practices are held.”

Example #3:

Psalm 33:4 the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.

The correct meaning, or interpretation of this passage is that God’s Word leaves nothing out that should be included, includes nothing that should be left out, He never misleads by saying too much or too little. And His actions are always faithful as well. Nothing He does ever contradicts anything He has done before. His actions are always in perfect harmony with His words. 
Some implications of this are as follows:
•	We can trust His Word completely! We never have to use discernment or make any kind of judgment about whether what He has said is accurate or useful or anything other than perfect. 
•	Since our senses can deceive and His Word can’t, God’s Word is more trustworthy even than our own senses.  What God says is more true and more real than what we feel with our hands or see with our eyes or hear with our ears. 
The proper response to these truths is exuberant, energetic, music praise (from the context of the Psalm). The reader should respond, then, by finding a way to develop a manner of thinking that focuses on these truths about God such that they generate faith and exuberant joy.