I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
-Psalm 119:11 (NIV)
I recently added it up, and I think I own about 15 copies of the Bible. Whether it be a thinline ESV, a parallel NIV/MSG, a pocket-size HCSB, or a NLT study Bible… No matter what size or version, I’ve got it covered.
But recently I was studying this verse from Psalms and it made me wonder: What if I didn’t have all those copies of the Bible? What if the printing press hadn’t been invented yet? What if the internet didn’t exist? Or worse, what if owning a Bible was illegal? What would I do then?
The Psalmist here tells us exactly what we should do. In his day, everyone didn’t have a personal copy of the Bible. So they memorized it. All of it — Genesis through Malachi. I don’t think that’s the point nowadays, but we too should hide God’s teachings in our hearts. But why hide them? Because that’s what you do with treasure… Things that are valuable… Things that you don’t ever want taken away from you.
There will be times in our lives when we are tempted, when we are depressed, and when we do not know where to turn. Our pastor will not be around, and our Bible may be at home. Or, even if we have our Bible with us, we won’t be able to recall whether that verse we need is in 2 Chronicles or 2 Corinthians. And that makes us vulnerable.
But that doesn’t matter if the words of our Creator are stored for safekeeping in our hearts, does it? Avoiding sin, things that go against God, will be much clearer because we will always have his instructions close by when we need them.
And no one will ever be able to take it away from you.
