This piece was written for the May issue of the Lee Creek Baptist Church newsletter, Grace & Peace.
For the past few springs, Jared and I have taken a few frames of our honeybees to a local elementary school for a presentation before summer break begins. A hundred kids will line up to squint into the observation hive, and their eyes will grow big and they’ll shout things like, Wooowww! I always like to hear the questions they ask, like How many bees can fit in one hive? and How do the mom bees feed their baby bees?
They remind me of how I felt when I first married a beekeeper—and how I still feel out among the hives on a cloudless day in spring.
I remember the first time I held a frame close to my face and caught a hint of clover, or when I stood in the middle of a swarm, or the first time I bit into a comb dripping with honey, and I understood why the Psalmist compared God’s Word to this piece of creation:
“More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey
and drippings from the honeycomb.”
~ Psalm 19:10
In Psalm 19, David intertwines both God’s Word and His world to give us a richer taste of His glory. A theologian would put these in terms of special and general revelation, where God reveals Himself both in Scripture and in the creation out our back door. As a beekeeper’s wife, I love Psalm 19, because it is written by someone who stepped outside and drank deeply of creatures and constellations, sky and sunlight:
“In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy”
(Ps. 19:4-5).
In the same breath, David goes on to describe God’s Word as perfect, sure, true, and strong:
“The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple”
(Ps. 19:7).
What is he saying?
The way God reveals Himself in creation does not replace the revelation in His Word. It enhances it. David uses elements of the natural world to help us understand the superseding goodness of God’s Word—like gold from the deepest mines and honeycomb that fills your mouth.
Do you see this world? David seems to be asking. God’s Word is far, far more beautiful.
In Scripture, we find the gold of the gospel—the revelation of God Himself in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6). We crack open God’s Word like a hive full of bees and find sustenance to carry us through the wilderness of life.
But the truth of Who God is does not end there. It pours off the pages of His Word into this world He fashioned—a world of mountains, thunderstorms, rivers, and bees—where we can only stare with wide eyes like those elementary school kids, and say, O LORD my God, you are very great (Ps. 104:1).
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