The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
– Psalm 119:72
That’s a good verse and a convicting verse. Think about it. I have used this illustration before and actually used it in my most recent book, Don’t Hold Back.
Psalm 119:72 Shows Us the True Value of the Word
When it comes to memorization of the Bible, well, I would just ask you, are you memorizing scripture? Do you have a regular pattern of memorization of the Bible? In that book specifically, I encourage people to memorize chapters, even books of the Bible, which may seem like a major leap, like impossible for you. Many people say, “I’m just not very good at memorization.” But is that true? And the illustration I use is, what if I told you that over the next 24 hours, I would give you a thousand dollars for every verse you could memorize? I’m guessing you could learn pretty quick to memorize at least some, like, “Jesus wept,” John 11:35. There you go. There’s a thousand dollars.
And then to continue on, I think if that was true, if I really was going to give you a thousand dollars for every verse you could memorize, I think most every one of us, unless we have a particular challenge that’s unusual when it comes to memorization, I think we would do it. So that’s the question then. What’s more important to us? Money or God’s word? And Psalm 119:72 just said, “The law of your mouth, the law from God is better than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”
Psalm 119:72 Encourages Us to Prioritize the Word
So the question is not can we memorize, the question is, how much value do we see in the word of God? Which do we value more? God’s word or money? And I want to encourage you based on the value of God’s word, clearly expressed in Psalm 119:72, to memorize it, to hide it in your heart like Psalm 119 says earlier, knowing that it’s better than gold, it’s better than money.
God help us, we pray, to value, treasure your word for what it is. God, help us to see that it’s better than money, gold, and silver in this world. It’s better than food we eat today. We don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth.
So God, we pray, may the value of your word be clear in the way we meditate on it, the way we memorize it, and hide it in our hearts and study it and live according to it. By your grace, by the power of Your spirit in us, God, we pray that you would help us to live out Psalm 119:72, that it would be evident in the way we live our lives, and specifically the way we meditate on and memorize your word, that it’s better to us than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
Praying for the Spread of the Word of God
And God, as we’ve been praying for people groups that don’t even have your word, all the more so, God, help us to steward this treasure we have, even as we pray for the spread of your word to all the peoples of the world. God, we pray for every single working in Bible translation for success, for the establishment of the work of their hands. We pray for illumiNations as we think about how all kinds of Bible translation, organizations, ministries, are working together to get your word to all the languages of the world. God, we pray for success of that effort so that the world might have this treasure. Every single people group in it might have that which is better than thousands of gold and silver pieces. We pray all this according to your word in Psalm 119:72. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
