Teach Me
“Teach me good judgment and knowledge; for I believe in your commandments”
David longs for God to teach him. At least eleven times he refers to the Lord teaching him in this Psalm. In every reference he says “teach me.” There are twenty-two sections in Psalm 119. So at least once in every two sections, David is asking God to be his teacher. We have all had good and bad teachers. Good teachers are a blessing and hard to come by. We also may teach and communicate many things. Some of them will be good and beneficial. Others will be bad and superficial. David knows that it is good to be taught by God. Good teachers develop in us a thirsting for knowledge. Not just knowledge for the sake of knowing, but for the sake of applying. Knowledge is no good if it just rumbles around in our brains. Knowledge is meant to be applied. The application of knowledge should be with wisdom. David says in this verse that he wishes to be taught “good judgment.” This is his application of his knowledge. His knowledge is also from the Lord. Having a great teacher is indeed a blessing.
Being a good student is also a blessing. There have been many who have had good teachers and teaching but have not been good students. Not every student is a good student. As Christians we are called disciples. The idea behind being a disciple is that of being a learner. We are learners if we are disciples of Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 that we were to learn from him. Jesus is the Teacher and the disciples are the students. So if we are his disciples then we must be learning from him. The learning part can be easy at times and then at other times far more difficult. We must apply ourselves. If David would do the commandments of the Lord because he believes in them, then he must learn from God. It is interesting in this section of Psalm 119 (vv. 65-72) that David’s learning comes from his afflictions. In verse 67 he says, “before I was afflicted I went astray.” This prompted him to confess that God was good and does good; therefore, “teach me your statutes” (vs. 68). In verse 71, he makes the staggering statement that “it was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” So the learning is done in the midst of the suffering. The school of hard knocks has produced some amazing students. David was one of them.
Most of us believe that learning is better done in comfort. There is, of course, some merit to that. But I always remember the saints of the centuries before who never had electric lights or comfortable padded chairs to aid them. They did not have the remarkable ease of access to information that we have today. They did not have Google. The acquisition of knowledge was not easy. The amount of work our predecessors performed is incredible. But I think it is also very important to remember that they did what they did in the light of mortality. Disease was easily acquired. Poor health as a result of poor food! Bad medical practices in abundance! Yet they have consistently out-performed us.
Now I grant that this applies to those who had some education, for the vast majority were poorly educated. But what did they do? They worked hard and long hours with very little reward. They struggled to survive. They worked to death. We have much to be thankful for. Now you would think that since we have an abundance of information at our fingertips that we would be better educated. I have no doubt that some are Google-instructed or Pinterest-instructed. Masters of Facebook and Instagram! Cruising along the information highway and social media! But this has produced and is producing poor social skills, poor speaking habits, poor writing skills and just plain bad manners. This applies right across the spectrum from children to adults. Even little ones know to swipe their fingers across the screen of a cellphone. We are masters of the new language of BTW or LOL. In reality, what are we learning in the modern world? Certainly some dangerous things! More importantly, what are we doing with what we are learning? For most children, information passes in and passes out in a very short span of time. There is no digestion of facts or information.
We are learning how not to think. It is obvious that David is a thinker. Knowledge is to be chewed over like a good steak. Good judgment takes time to develop. There is no easy or fast path to wisdom. Wisdom does not come just because we are getting older. There are foolish adults out there. Our society is bent on displaying adults as children and children as adults. Children are no adults and adults should never be children. It doesn’t make sense. Judgment is one thing, but good judgment is something else. David is seeking after good judgment. If he’s going to be a good king, he’s going to need good judgment. He’s also going to need to couple that with knowledge.
Now David knows that what he needs is something beyond his power. This is why he asks the Lord to teach him. He asks the Lord to teach him these things because he believes in God’s commandments. He says at the end of verse 66 “for I believe in your commandments.”
Spurgeon said that it was a very precious thing to see the Word of God fulfilled in a happy experience; it endears Scripture to us and makes us love the Lord of Scripture (see Treasury of David, Ps. 119:65). The providence of God always matches up with the promises of God. The benefit of verse 66 is three-fold. First, it has connection to the Lord. He teaches us and we learn. God can use any kind of circumstance to teach us, but we should make every effort to set aside some time to pursue God and his Word. The fruit of such a pursuit will be knowledge and good judgment, or to put it another way, godly living.
Second, others are blessed by what we learn. Surely if we sit at the feet of Jesus, then like Mary we have chosen the better part (Luke 10:42), and others will know it and be the recipients of our better judgment or wise discernment.
Third, we shall find ourselves in fellowship with our Lord. We shall be as Jonathan Edwards said in his Resolutions: “Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, so constantly, and frequently that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of them.” (Resolutions, 28).
In order to learn, we must confess that we are ignorant. Spurgeon said that a sight of our errors and a sense of our ignorance should make us teachable (Treasury, Ps. 119:66). The Apostle Paul was very focused in his knowledge of Jesus. He said in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Paul “counted everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). Notice the value that Paul puts on knowing Jesus as his Lord. It is surpassing worth. David puts it this way in verse 72 that the law of God’s mouth was “better to him than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” That’s how much he treasured God’s law.
The place to start is always the Word of God. David calls it “your commandments.” Time and patience are required to learn of Jesus. A soft, teachable heart and mind are necessary. The Holy Spirit is our teacher also. He instructs us in Christ (John 14:26). There is a price to pay in order to learn from Jesus, but when the difficult times come we shall reap the reward of such learning and others shall benefit also. So let us ask the Lord to teach us about himself and his ways, and let us follow him as eager students.