The Bible Study Podcast, episode 380. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Psalms with Psalm 39.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Psalm 39 is yet again another Psalm of David, and yet again

is another Psalm that makes me wonder whether David had some depression issues. David's going

through a rough time here. There's two particular themes that I want to pick up in Psalm 39. One is

the use of the tongue, and the other is how short our lives are.

And Psalm 39 goes like this.

I said I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin.

I will put a muzzle on my mouth while in the presence of the wicked.

So I remained utterly silent, not even saying

anything good, but my anguish increased. My heart grew hot within me while I meditated. The fire

burned. Then I spoke with my tongue. And we'll go on to see what David said. But I thought

this was interesting. David is watching his tongue, and he is watching his tongue as part of watching his ways, which is a pretty good practice.

And there are certainly other places in the Bible, like in the New Testament in the book of James, where we are told to bridle the tongue and that it is a difficult thing to do.

And so David, as he was watching his ways, he's saying that one of the

ways that he needs to watch his ways is to keep his tongue from sin. And I think that's a useful

thing for us to think about because we've talked about gossip, for instance, being a form of

sin. False witness is definitely a form of sin as well, and gossip can easily lead to the other,

since you don't know the facts, half the tongue. And when we say the tongue, I want to extend that

to everything you type, everything you say, everything you post online, that all of those things,

the way we communicate with the world, are things we need to keep

an eye on, as David is doing here. He's putting a muzzle on his tongue so he doesn't say the

wrong thing. Even he says when he was in the presence of the wicked, even when he was someplace

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