“How happy is the one…”

 

Excerpts from Reformed Expository Bible Study Series Introduction [this particular one on the Epistle of James – Portrait of a Living Faith] & The Christian Standard Bible — Spurgeon Study Bible by Holman Bible Publishers, including Psalm 1:

 

 

Studying the Bible will change your life. This is the consistent witness of Scripture and the experience of people all over the world, in every period of church history.

King David said, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8). So anyone who wants to be wiser and happier, and who wants to feel more alive, with a clearer perception of spiritual reality, should study the Scriptures.

~Opening words in the Reformed Expository Bible Study Series Introduction

 

1:1 “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers!” Everyone is seeking happiness. If that is true, then everyone should read this psalm, for it directs us where happiness is to be found in its highest degree and purest form. “Happy,” says David, “is such and such a man,” and the word which he uses is, in the original, exceedingly expressive. It implies a sort of plurality of happiness, and it is scarcely known whether the word is an adjective or a noun, as if the happiness qualified the of life and was, in itself, better than even life itself. Surely this is the highest to which the human heart can aspire! This happiness is attainable by the poor, the forgotten, and the obscure as by those whose names figure in history and are trumpeted by fame. It is not to the hermit or the priest, but it comes to any man or woman who loves God and seeks to obey him. His position has nothing to do with it. His character has everything to do with it. The happy man is described as one who avoids the way of wicked persons. The tragic folly and sin of the wicked is that they have neglected the chief thing to be remembered, namely, that there is a God, that they are his creatures and, being his creatures, ought to live for him. They give God no part of their lives, and he is in none of their thoughts. The godly man, however, does not consider first how the world regards a thing but how God looks at it.

~Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s notes on Psalm 1:1 from the Christian Study Bible, Spurgeon Study Bible edition by Holman Bible Publishers.

 

Psalm 1

The Two Ways

How happy is the one who does not

walk in the advice of the wicked

or stand in the pathway with sinners

or sit in the company of mockers!

Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,

and he meditates on it day and night.

He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams

that bears its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

The wicked are not like this;

instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.