Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! Psalm 33:12 Have you ever seen this picture? The first time I saw it was as a painting hanging on a wall in one of the buildings where my kids go to school. At the center of this image is an American flag, as a boat full of what we can probably safely presume to be American patriots are proudly waving their flag in the name of God. And so Psalm 33:12 is identifying America as that nation whose God is Yahweh, the nation that God uniquely established. As millions of students in classrooms throughout the United States have been taught to recite daily over the years (myself included), we are: one nation, under God . But does this application square with the context of Psalm 33 and, more widely, the rest of the Scriptural witness? My assertion is that it does not and simply cannot ultimately be about America, or any earthly nation for that matter. Let's look at the context of Psalm...
As the people of God, we must hold to apostolic tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6) but reject human tradition (Colossians 2:8). Jesus criticized the religious leaders of His day for making void the word of God for the sake of their tradition (Matthew 15:6). And He said they did this in many ways (Mark 7:13b). We are not immune to this error today. This blog exists to test (1 Thessalonians 5:21) our modern Christian traditions against Scripture to discern where we might have done the same.