I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

A year ago, I led a Bible Study on the parables, which was probably the easiest one for me to develop and the one I enjoyed facilitating the most. I used this picture as the cover of that study:

I added a balloon with Christ speaking Psalm 78:2, which states "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old," but I decided I didn't want to muddy the waters by placing Old Testament sayings in Christ's mouth, although he himself did it quite frequently.

What I enjoyed most about the parables (and I'll likely expand on this when we get to them in the New Testament) is that there was rarely anything buried or hidden that wasn't clearly explainable. Christ used imagery that his listeners could easily relate to, and in many ways, Christ's parables were metaphors that explained Christianity, very important for a people who were being asked to completely upend their way of life and way of worship.

David's use of parables is slightly different, since he uses the term as a way to relate the history of Israel. Consider the timing and the events that have occurred immediately prior to this psalm--there had been a mini schism in the kingdom, with David ruling Judah and the sons of Saul ruling the rest. A better way to explain this would be as a civil war. 2 Samuel 5:5 tells us that David ruled Judah for seven years, the time of the internal strife, and all of Israel for 33 years, when the kingdom was re-unified.

As such, David uses Psalm 78 to relate the history of Israel and his rightful place as the chosen of God to lead them. At this point, we're about 450 years removed from the Exodus, and in an age where written materials were not freely available, a constant telling and re-telling of the history of God's people is vitally necessary, since a people that forgets their history is a people poised to become a footnote in history. The most important thing that David relates in this psalm is how important the Lord was in Israel's existence, and to remind the people to never forget it.

Events may seem to be repetitive at this point in the Bible, but while we can gloss over the details, the simple message still holds true today and must not be forgotten. When the people obeyed the Lord, things went well, and when they didn't, things went poorly. It's no different today, and despite our doubts and misgivings and despair over the state of the world, when we remember the Lord, things will go well for us. We may not necessarily have everything we want, but we'll have the Lord, and what more do we need than that?

Scott