To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?
- Psalm 18:25-31 NIV

How does God reveal Himself to us? As this passage starts, we think of course God is faithful; of course He's blameless. But shrewd... how does God appear to be shrewd? Why would He want to be shrewd "to the crooked"? And why would this be a "good" thing?

That's where I'm going to be studying/pondering this week. Any thoughts? I think I'll start with a word search of SHREWD - offhand, we know that we're to be innocent as doves and shrewd as snakes, right (Mt 10:16)? In the NIV, the word also shows up in Exodus 1:10; 2 Samuel 13:3, 22:27; Psalm 18:26 (our passage above); and Luke 16.

There's not much traffic on the 1J13 Email list lately, so I thought this kind of weekly Bible study might be good to at least keep it moving over there. And I'll crosspost here, giving another venue for me to spout and others to comment. Does this feel like an okay plan, a word/topic/passage study each week maybe, digging together (as much as anyone wants to discuss) into what God is revealing as He continues to call us to Himself and to kingdom-life? As we kick off this new direction, I ask for your prayers and thoughtful participation :).

Feel free to jump in anytime this week as we look at how God is SHREWD, and how we might be able to follow His example.
- posted by Rick @ 10:36