Whiter than snow

Yesterday I started reading Whiter than Snow - Meditations on Sin and Mercy, by Paul Tripp (another birthday present), which is another of his books based on a Psalm, this one on Psalm 51. He makes it clear that these books aren’t supposed to be works of exegesis, or even devotional material, per se, but are rather meditations, which he suggests you read once a week. I like them.

He gives some background on the story of David and Bathsheba, then writes this in the introduction:

You’ll never get David’s story or the expansive helpfulness of Psalm 51 if you stand apart from the story and say to yourself, “I am so glad that I am not like David!”. To say that completely misses the point. This story is in the Bible precisely because David’s story is your story. No, I don’t mean that you are an adulterer and a murderer. What I mean is that, like David, you are a sinner. There are times when you let yourself be ruled by your self-focused desires rather than by God’s clear commands. There are times when you love something in the creation more than you love the Creator. There are times when you willingly step over God’s boundaries in pursuit of what you want. There are times when your little kingdom of one means more to you than his transcendent kingdom of glory. There are times when you work hard to deny what you have done or to cover your tracks in fear of being caught.

David’s story is our story, so Psalm 51 is our psalm as well. This Psalm of moral failure, personal awareness, grief, confession, repentance, commitment, and hope wraps its arms around the experience of each one of us. These themes are in each of our lives. But the dominant theme of Psalm 51 is not sin. The dominant theme of Psalm 51 is grace. There would be no Psalm 51 if a God of boundless love hadn’t sent Nathan to David as an instrument of rescuing mercy and restoring grace.

I am looking forward to the rest of the book.