What's A Precept Anyway?

Psalm 119:97-104

First, a little background. Psalm 119 is one of many Psalms written in an acrostic style. Its 176 verses are evenly divided into 22 stanzas of 8. Each line within each stanza begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet and each stanza goes through the entire Hebrew alphabet in order. Also included in each stanza is at least one reference to the law, or torah, with synonyms such as commandment, statute, and testimony.

This Psalm is well thought out, well written, and meant to be a praise to the Mosaic laws which the Hebrew people lived by. With that new understanding I re-read the portion of the Psalm assigned to this week's lectionary. These particular stanzas represent the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and uses as its main synonym the word precept.

So, I began to think, what's a precept?

Dictionary.com defines a precept as a "commandment or direction given as a rule of action or conduct." It also lists as its second-most related meaning as "an injunction as to moral conduct." The definition does go on to say that in the eyes of the law a precept is a "written order."

Because I was curios about the written law I read the entire psalm, and nowhere in the Psalm is there a reference to a written law. All of the synonyms used are in reference to a spoken law, or the passing of the understanding of the law throughout the generations. This began me down the path of wondering if this Psalm is meant to praise God's presence with us through the existence and adherence of the laws, and not the laws themselves.

Because I enjoy slippery paths sometimes, I began wondering how the law would be understood today had we not put so much emphasis on a written word of God. How would the law have been interpreted in the 700's, or the 1400's, or the 1900's? What if we had to listen to the laws of God as it was passed to us from generations which came before us without the benefit (or non-benefit) of a written source? What would be our understanding of the laws of God today had we not put all the emphasis on the written source of the law?

I read somewhere that if we believe the words of God to be the "Living Word" we have to also believe they are alive. When something is alive it is understood that it changes and grows. The same author also stated that if we take a good look at the bible in reference to the laws, or "Words of God", we will see that whenever changes were made to the laws they were made to be more inclusive and accepting of current society. The laws which were changed were done so in order that justice and equality for all people were achieved.

My question for today, then, is how much are we willing to stick to the absolute, unchanging laws as written versus how much are we willing to allow God's instructions about how to best be in relationship with one another and with God grow and be alive?