Family matters. Not because we’re all really cool, but because we are chosen and set apart and loved by the God who made all things and whose Son has purchased us with his own blood. That’s a good place to start.

Part 1: The Call 

In the second stanza of Psalm 16, David expresses his commitment to God’s cause. He speaks of loyalty to God’s people, and then of his attitude toward those who worship other gods:

As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.

David uses the common Hebrew word for “saints,” which literally means “holy ones.” We often think of “holiness” as simply piety or goodness—the holy person doesn’t do bad stuff—but that’s not usually what it means; rather, it speaks of being set apart, or special. “Saints,” then, are simply people who belong to God, who are his treasured possession—what both Paul and Peter call his “peculiar people” (Ti 2.14; 1P 2.9 KJV). (They got this language directly from the Mosaic Law [Ex 19.5; Dt 14.2; 26.18 KJV].)

So David says here that he views the people who belong to YHWH, the true God, as “majestic ones,” like kings or nobles or chieftains; the word is also used of the ocean (Ex 15.10), a ship (Is 33.21), and a tree (Ezk 17.23).

God’s people, he says, are the people I respect.

That’s a good reminder for us.

We tend to be tougher on people we’re more familiar with, because we know their foibles and weaknesses; familiarity does indeed breed contempt.

And I’m not denying their foiblitude. (Don’t look it up; it’s not in the dictionary.)

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