Job 28 - Where is Wisdom to be found? [27/02/2012]

Job 28

28“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined. ²Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. ³Miners put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness. ⁴They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation; they are forgotten by travelers, they sway suspended, remote from people. ⁵As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire. ⁶Its stones are the place of sapphires, and its dust contains gold. ⁷“That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it. ⁸The proud wild animals have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it. ⁹“They put their hand to the flinty rock, and overturn mountains by the roots.¹⁰They cut out channels in the rocks, and their eyes see every precious thing. ¹¹The sources of the rivers they probe; hidden things they bring to light. ¹²“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? ¹³Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’¹⁵It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. ¹⁶It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. ¹⁷Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. ¹⁸No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. ¹⁹The chrysolite of Ethiopia cannot compare with it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

²⁰“Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? ²¹It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. ²²Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ ²³“God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. ²⁴For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens. ²⁵When he gave to the wind its weight, and apportioned out the waters by measure; ²⁶when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; ²⁷then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. ²⁸And he said to humankind, ‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

Where is wisdom to be found?  What is wisdom?  Arguably these are things of the chief concern to those of us studying here at university.   Surely university is all about finding and gaining wisdom through study, work, and the sweat and toil of research and tutorials. 

But to be honest in all my years on the BA I don’t think I ever learnt any real wisdom, nor did I become wise, indeed perhaps quite the opposite.  I met many wise people, men and women,  many of whom had beards - and I still hold that there may be a correlation between beard and wisdom, but unfortunately that is just not in the Bible.  If anything the overly academic approach to acquiring and exhausting knowledge does not seem to lead to wisdom.

 You could know all the theories on who wrote Genesis that you like and have one hundred scholar’s names memorised to defeat your imaginary opponents – I say imaginary as pretty much no one in the real world actually cares about how many Isaiah’s there were - and yet all this knowledge will not help one bit when you are approached by a person in tears whose life is falling apart – telling them to figure out who wrote which parts of the conversation before coming up with a grand theory is not practical wisdom.   

Instead, we should perhaps turn to common sense as the height of wisdom – personified in the person of Murphy and his Laws.  Murphy’s Law, often known as the fourth law or aerodynamics, is simply this – “if anything can go wrong, it will.”  I have only lived for 22 years but that rings true to me, if there is even a possibility that you wrote down when you were supposed to be preaching wrong then the chances are you did and church will have to be cancelled for the week (*I was supposed to have given this sermon the week before but wrote down the date  wrong so preaching class was cancelled).  And Murphy’s Law has spawned many sub-laws, many clauses.  Here are a few of my favourites:

If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid,

In war, if everything is going well, it is an ambush

Teamwork is essential, it provides more people to blame when things go wrong.

The day you get up early to be ready will be the day you lose your house keys

And finally:

The more preparation time for a meal the less likely a child is to eat it.

          

       Whilst these are undoubtedly witty, are they really wisdom?  You could easily add along these lines, the strongest person is the one in control, the best way to deal with your enemy is to dispose of them, and the God who cannot be killed is the real God.  This is all great worldly wisdom.  But in Jesus we find out that actually the strongest person in all creation was the one helplessly nailed to the cross and the one in control of the universe from start to finish is the one who was born homeless in a stable.  We find that the best way to deal with your enemy is actually to forgive them, and the way to stop being an enemy of God is not so much to stop sinning as first and foremost to apologise and repent of sinning.  And the biggest folly of all is that the one true and everlasting God is Jesus Christ the one who died on a wooden cross at Calvary as a criminal.  

This is why we find St. Paul saying in 1 Corinthians:

“The word of the Cross, is madness to people who are being destroyed.  But to you – those who are being saved – it is God’s power.  This is what the Bible says after all: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the shrewdness of the clever I will abolish.’  Where is the wise person?  Where is the educated person?  Where is the debater of this present age?  Don’t you see that God has turned the world’s wisdom into folly?  This is how it’s happened: In God’s wisdom, the world didn’t know God through [its own] wisdom, so it gave God pleasure, through the folly of our proclamation, to save those who believe.  You see, Jews look for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we announce the crucified Messiah, a scandal to Jews, and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, the Messiah – God’s power and God’s wisdom.  God’s folly is wiser than humans and God’s weakness is stronger than humans.”

The book of Job tells us that we can search all we want and we will never find wisdom in this created world with our own created and creaturely eyes and hands.  We can dig down into the mountains using the most advanced of tools and create pathways in the earth that no animal or bird could or has ever trod.  We can mine metal and smelt it and create strong and enduring and beautiful things, and we can cover ourselves in all the jewels of this world.  And yet, for all our human effort, for all our time, our painstaking work, our longing and desperation to reach perfection and find wisdom and knowledge and salvation, we will always, always, fail.

  You cannot dig to wisdom, you cannot mine your way into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Arguably the only person who found wisdom underground was a shepherd boy who fell through the rocks into a cave in the Holy Land and found there in jars the written words of God in the form of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

         Wisdom comes from God, indeed as the Bible progresses we see more and more that Wisdom somehow IS God Himself.  He alone is wise, He alone knows all, and it is through and in Him alone that you can find wisdom and salvation.  In the Bible there seems to almost be two kinds of wisdom, general earthly so called ‘wisdom’ much along the lines of Murphy’s Laws or indeed good advice – something akin to what Solomon was given in greater amounts than anyone but Jesus Himself.  And then there is something, or someone, higher than this, the source of all wisdom, the logic of all creation, the orderer of the cosmos, the one who sees and knows everything from the hairs on your head to the deepest and darkest corners of our depraved hearts which we have been denying exist for so long that we no longer even recognise they are there within us.

Written much later than Job (probably)  we find the book of Proverbs, and in this Scripture we find once again Wisdom as not a source of knowledge so much as a person who gives to those who follow Her life itself.  Let us have a look at Proverbs 8.22-36:

22 “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, 

   before his deeds of old; 

23 I was formed long ages ago, 

   at the very beginning, when the world came to be. 

24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, 

   when there were no springs overflowing with water; 

25 before the mountains were settled in place, 

   before the hills, I was given birth, 

26 before he made the world or its fields 

   or any of the dust of the earth. 

27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, 

   when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, 

28 when he established the clouds above 

   and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, 

29 when he gave the sea its boundary 

   so the waters would not overstep his command, 

and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. 

 30 Then I was constantly at his side. 

I was filled with delight day after day, 

   rejoicing always in his presence, 

31 rejoicing in his whole world 

   and delighting in mankind.

 32 “Now then, my children, listen to me; 

   blessed are those who keep my ways. 

33 Listen to my instruction and be wise; 

   do not disregard it. 

34 Blessed are those who listen to me, 

   watching daily at my doors, 

   waiting at my doorway. 

35 For those who find me find life 

   and receive favor from the LORD. 

36 But those who fail to find me harm themselves; 

   all who hate me love death.”

Now this text about Lady Wisdom has been interpreted by the Church from the earliest of the church fathers right through to the modern day as proclaiming that Jesus, the Word of God in who is found the only source of true life, is this character Lady Wisdom.  Indeed, and I can say this among such knowledgeable people as yourselves – this is one of the central texts used by Athanasius to prove that the Arian Heresy – that Jesus was a created being who is not fully God – was wrong and dangerous and unbiblical.  

As we see in Genesis, Jesus was there at creation, He was there when there were no watery depths and before mountains and the world and even the heavens.  From before the ages Jesus was 'constantly at His side,' that is the Father’s side, and was filled with delight day after day in His presence, and Jesus took joy - just as the Father did - when the world was made by the Word and declared ‘good.’  

The reason you won’t find Wisdom in the bottoms of the mountains or the ends of the earth or as something to be seen from the air is that true Wisdom is not ‘in’ the world, it is what ordered and created and sustains the world. 

Even in the text we began with in Job we see this personification in its earliest stages.  In verse 24 the Hebrew is not the usual, simple, word for earthly wisdom – hokma, but it is hahokma, that is ‘the wisdom’ a definite person or tangible thing.  

There is no argument among scholars that Wisdom was increasingly personified throughout Scripture.  But by bringing the full revelation of God to bear on the matter, and by that I mean Jesus Christ who is the perfect image of the Father and who at the Cross gives us the highest revelation of who God truly is, we can see that the reason Wisdom was personified is because God was saying ‘Wisdom is in me, Wisdom IS me.’  Paul tells us that Jesus the Messiah IS the Wisdom of God and that at the Cross as Jesus hung there beaten, bleeding, and dying, is true Wisdom that brings life.  

Proverbs 8.35-36 declares that those who find Lady Wisdom find life itself.  We know that in Jesus alone is life – "I AM the Way the Truth, and the Life."  Proverbs continues that all those who don’t find Lady Wisdom harm themselves and all those who hate Her in doing so must love death.  John 3.16 tells us that Jesus came that those who believe might have life, but this also means that those who don’t have death.  

Job 28 ends with a verse that seems to jar with all of the above, and by that I mean the rest of the chapter not just what I have said.  “And He said to humanity, ‘behold, the fear of the Lord, that is Wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.”   What do you think of when you hear the word fear?  Perhaps you recall a memory when you were terrified.  I had a history teacher who had a fear of cows after having nearly been killed by a stampede of them.  I remember one Halloween walking through the village graveyard at night with my parents and brother, and my Dad was in front of us with the only torch, and he secretly put on a mask, and suddenly stopped and then screamed and spun around putting the torch to His face.  I think it is safe to say both my brother and I tasted fear that day given how we ran away as fast as we could into the darkness tripping over ourselves as we went.

The Bible repeatedly calls on us to fear God.  But is this really what it means?  That we should be absolutely terrified of God?  Do we have reason to be so terrified?  Perhaps if we don’t know that God loved us so much that He came down to earth and died for us to take away our terror at the prospect of His wrath.   But we do know that He did, we have been saved, redeemed, set free from fear – for true love casts our fear.  Yet still this verse rings true – to fear the Lord is wisdom.  

Fear in the Biblical sense is not abject terror, it is much deeper, it is reverence, respect, like a Son for his Father, it is loving submission, it is being right with God.  And all of this is only possible if you actually know God.  And we can only know God through Jesus, He is the only way to the Father, without Him we might as well be talking to a wall or trying to get to the moon by jumping on a trampoline. 

Again, fear of the Lord, right relationship with God through Jesus, is what brings us life, is what  wisdom is about.  And if we follow the Lord and fear Him and long for Him, He will give us new hearts and new thoughts and new strength and a new and Holy Spirit that we might turn away from evil.  But we will still fail, we will still turn from God and turn to evil and the Devil and death.  But the folly of this world is the wisdom of God, the glorious madness of the Gospel is that the truth is that God loves us so much He died for us so that no matter what we have done or will do, we can always return to Jesus, be forgiven, be washed, be given life by following and trusting in Him, and know God’s Way and God’s Wisdom. 

So here is what I think we should take from this passage.  Firstly the Gospel: true Wisdom is found in Jesus, and we can only get life and wisdom through the gift of His grace.  Secondly, when we go into ministry it would be my prayer, especially for my self, that we do not rely on our academic knowledge to sustain our faith, to disciple our congregation, but rely on God's grace working through us, rely on His Holy Spirit to inspire us with the right words to say to the right people at the right times.  We are weak, God is strong, He is the one who brings people's hearts to repentance, He is the one who makes us whole.  He might use us, but let us trust in Jesus, the true Wisdom, not our own - and let us cover all we do for Him in humble prayer.

Amen.

Psalm 107.1-22 [27/02/2012]

Psalm 107.1-22

1 O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever. 2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those He redeemed from trouble 3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

4 Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town; 5 hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. 6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; 7 He led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town. 8 Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wonderful works to humankind. 9 For He satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry He fills with good things.

10 Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons, 11 for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. 12 Their hearts were bowed down with hard labour; they fell down, with no one to help. 13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress; 14 He brought them out of darkness and gloom, and broke their bonds asunder. 15 Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wonderful works to humankind. 16 For He shatters the doors of bronze, and cuts in two the bars of iron.

17 Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction; 18 they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. 19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress; 20 He sent out His word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction. 21 Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wonderful works to humankind. 22 And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of His deeds with songs of joy.

"Let the Redeemed of the LORD tell their story."  I don't know about you, but I am a huge fan of testimony.  If any of you were at the OICCU (Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) mission when Keller was speaking you would each night have heard a testimony from someone who either never knew Jesus or who were brought up with a knowledge of Him but held no deep and life changing love for Him. 

      Often we find that many elements of such testimonies are the same.  A person lost in their life, wandering mindlessly and endlessly, unable to settle anywhere or be content, they are hungry and thirsty for something more, something to fill that chasm in their heart, they feel their very sense of purpose in life and their very being ebbing away - and then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble and Jesus delivered them from their distress and put them on the straight path towards the New Jerusalem.

      Or in another example, they were imprisoned to addictions such as drugs, alcohol, pornography, and self-harm.   Lost in a darkness they cannot escape from, held down by self doubt and self loathing, chained and shackled by a constant failure to appear good to others because inside they feel rotten - and then they cried to the LORD in their trouble and Jesus brought them out of that utter darkness and broke their chains. 

      Or yet others do not so much feel imprisoned by their addictions but instead foolishly dedicate their lives to them and try to build their identity in having the hottest girlfriend, or drinking more than anyone else, or being 'that guy' who smokes the weed and does the crazy things.  But following this foolish path they make themselves ill, all seems to be going well and then everything in their world crashes; a break up, a bad trip, a crime committed, a friend lost... and they lose their identity, they recognise what a fool they have been and they lose their desire for food and they become sick because they no longer see the point in living when they have nothing to live for - and then they cried to the LORD in their trouble and Jesus, the WORD of God, heals them and rescues them from the grave.

      There are two things in common with all these stories - desperation on the one hand and Jesus Christ on the other.  In Psalm 107 we see a picture of the human condition, we see a glimpse at reality as it stands - we are in desperate need of a Redeemer to save us from our mess, to show us the way, to break our chains, to heal our sickness.  And this is not just the case for the Jews in exile as many have supposed this psalm to be written about - but of all people including us here in this room, we need to repent and cry to Jesus just as much as every other person on the planet.

       The language of wilderness wandering in verses 4-9 has made some think this is about the Exodus from Egypt as God brings His people to His chosen city where His name is to dwell.   Yet others say it is written on the way back from exile in Babylon, again wandering in the wilderness but this time also the language of chains and in particular bronze gates with iron bars which are also mentioned in Isaiah 45. 

      But these scenarios say nothing about what the psalmist continues to speak of - people on the high seas.  Nor does it pass the test of the first three verses!  Who are the 'redeemed' that this psalm speaks of?  "Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story - those He redeemed from the hand of the foe, those He gathered from the lands, from East and West and from North and South."  Was the Exodus a redemption of people from all four corners of the globe?  No.  Was the return from Exile a redemption of people from all four corner of the globe?  No.

       So of what does this global redemption speak?  In Isaiah 43 we find it written "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name, you are mine...  Do not be afraid for I am with you; I will bring your children from the East and gather your children from the West.  I will say to the North 'give them up!' and to the South 'Do not hold them back.'"

      And who is it that brings this redemption to the people of God, that is those who cling to Him and love Him in faith?  Is it not the Suffering Servant as Isaiah goes on to explain?  And when Jesus begins His ministry what is His mission statement?  Taken from the Book of Isaiah?  "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim the Good News to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour"

 It is Jesus who gives the Good News of a straight path to the perfect city to those who are poor and hungry and thirsty wandering in the wilderness - Jesus is the Water of Life to the thirsty and the Bread of Heaven to the hungry and the Way the Truth and the Life to the lost.

      It is Jesus who proclaims freedom to the prisoners who are oppressed and blinded in their darkness, it is Jesus who sets them free and takes their chains upon Himself before nailing them to the rugged Cross as the Light of the World. 

      It is Jesus who is the Great Physician who throughout His glorious ministry speaks the words 'Your sins are forgiven' and immediately people who are near death both physically and spiritually are healed. 

      If we were to continue in the Psalm we would also see that Jesus is the one who calms the storm and saves those tossed around by life and incapable of saving themselves just as He did the Disciples on the Sea of Galilee.

      Truly verse 20 is the Gospel of hope and joy - "He (the Father) sent out His Word (Jesus) and healed them, He rescued them from the grave." That all sounds very familiar:  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life."

      I love testimony, and we all have a great testimony to share because we are all sinners saved and redeemed at the same Cross by the same Saviour's Blood.  Every day we sin again and again, and if we think we don't then we deceive ourselves and claim God is a liar.  And each time we sin we deserve Hell, but by the Blood of the Lamb we are given instead a powerful testimony of God's mercy to us. 

     The psalm, at the end of each section where Jesus brings redemption, calls on the redeemed to give thanks to the LORD - verse 22 reads "Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of His works with songs of Joy" Is that not the call of us all, to offer our thanks to Him who saved us who could not save ourselves?  And then to tell others of His mighty work and to praise Him with songs of Joy? 

      Indeed Hebrews 13.14-15 reads "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.  And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." 

      When we leave here and go about our day, our week, let us remind ourselves of the Good News of Jesus coming and dying for us, and let that be the words on our lips, let us be empowered in knowing that we have been redeemed at the Cross, let us share our glorious faith with those who are still in darkness, still hungry for that 'thing' to fill the void in their lives, let us tell them the Gospel that they too might have a testimony. 

      God did great things in the OICCU mission and is continuing to do great things in the follow up course - but let us now, individually, dedicate ourselves to the Word of God Jesus the Messiah who whilst we were still sinners died to heal us, and let everyday be a mission for Him, and let us dedicate ourselves to having each and every day bring a new testimony for us to tell of what God has done in our lives

Amen

Mark 4.1-20 THE WORD [02/20/2012]

THE WORD: The Man - The Book - The Message we share.

[This short sermon was given at St. Aldates Student Night to prompt discussion for pastorate groups.  The following week was the beginning of the OICCU (Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christ Union) mission involving talks by Tim Keller of NY Redeemer Presbyterian Church - a church which by God's good grace has spread the Gospel of King Jesus to literally thousands of people.  Two weeks after this mission was the Oxford Brookes Mission.  This talk was to encourage and exhort people to look at their own lives, ask what they and the Bible are really about and promote courage and discussion when it comes to spreading the message recorded in the book about the God-Man Jesus the King who is the Word of God.]

                As you have probably already heard the OICCU mission is next week and the Brookes mission begins on the 18th.  So now is a great time to go back to basics, to the very core of what Christians believe.  Whether you have been a Christian so long that your first memory is being read Bible stories on your auntie's knee or you don't really know what it is all about, the simple fact is that you never graduate from the Gospel. 

                                                                             

         There are many here who probably can't wait to get their exams over next term and then graduate into new and greater, and bigger things.  But with Jesus there is no exam besides turning up in faith and there is no graduating from the Good News He came to bring us - forgiveness and eternal life.  During the mission weeks this term Christians from across this city will be taking time out to spread the 'Word' the Good News of Jesus.

       

        But what is this Good News, this 'Message' Jesus came to share? All too often Christians have a habit of using that bizzaire secret Christian jargon-babble language full of long words like 'atonement' or 'justification.'  But who knows what these even mean? Take the confusing example of 'The Word' - something Christians are often fond of speaking about.  For example after a reading in Church we often say "This is the Word of the Lord" or before preaching the minister says "Let's hear the Word Peter has to share with us." or even the good old "Oh - my - Word" 

      For Christians the Word is at the very heart of everything we believe and do.  And 'The Word' does not just mean the Bible - we don't read in John Chapter one "In the Beginning was the Bible, and the Bible was with God and the Bible was God!" Rather the Bible is about the Word of God - Jesus the King.  In Genesis the Word - Jesus - speaks the universe into existing, and in Revelation it is the Word of God - Jesus - who rides the white warhorse and judges the world. Jesus is the Word of God, Jesus is God come to earth to reveal God to us.  For that is what words do - they describe and change and build and show and reveal.  Jesus reveals to us God Almighty.  God comes to earth and saves us by becoming one of us and dying for us in our place.

        And we know about Jesus, about God, and about the things He has done throughout all time for His people because it is accurately written down in 'The Book'.  In the Bible we have God's direct speech to His prophets, we have God turning up in Jesus on earth and acting to chage history, and we have the records of the things Jesus did during His life in Galilee and what the Holy Spirit did in the early church as it spread the message of Jesus.

        And it is the spreading of this message we find in the Bible, about Jesus the Word, that all Christians are called to take part in.  In this passage we just heard we see the sower sowing the seed - the Word of God, that is both Jesus and the conviction that in Him alone is truth - into the whole world, and in some it never even takes root as Satan, the Devil, steals it away, in others it grows quickly but then dies as it doesn't take root, in others it is strangeled to death by worldly fears and worries, and in others it takes deep roots and grows and bears fruit.  The message is for all people but only some choose to believe - as we saw in the life of Jesus where many followed Him before it came to crunch time and then they turned on Him and crucified Him.

       This parable holds a lesson for everyone here - it is a call to ask ourselves if we are willing to accept the Word sown in our lives, and - like a seed - grow into a mighty oak, grafted into the Kingdom of God through Jesus who gives us the water and light and strength to grow. You don't graduate from the Gospel, you don't graduate from Jesus hanging on the Cross, because once you accept it there is nothing greater.  For those who know this, the call is to bear fruit and to spread the seed around to all whom we see and know that it may, by God's will, take root and grow.

      Only by believing in Jesus as God come to earth for us and dying for us can people know the freedom God offers us and the eternal life He promises, and this is why as the mission weeks approach we should take a long hard look in the mirror at our own lives and ask just what is it that sustains us and what is it that keeps us, what is it that causes us to grow and flourish, who or what do we truly worship and spend our time and energy and money on, what effect has the Word had on us and in our lives, and what does this mean for us, and what does it mean for others and how we live our lives in relation and fellowship to them.  What is your watch-Word, what is the Word on your lips, and what is the Word you live your life by?