Dave’s Monday Blast – March 8, 2020

During the course of our discussion last week we commented that in order for us to have a heart that is pliable and responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we must trust in the One who gave us a heart capable of such a divine connection. Trust comes from knowing. Psalm 34:8 tells us how we can best know God: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” What does this simple phrase mean?

To taste involves testing or sampling; to see involves understanding or perceiving. The phrase taste and see, then, means “try and experience.” David urges God’s people to discover the goodness of the Lord by personal trial and to experience it for themselves. He doesn’t want readers to merely take his word for it that the Lord is good; he wants them to experience and know for themselves the fact that God is good. (My mind likens it to test driving the car before you buy it).

Got Questions Ministries comments: “Humans associate taste with pleasure and satisfaction. Bible commentator, Matthew Henry elaborates on this idea: ‘Let God’s goodness be rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel.’ When David says, ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good,’ he is calling us to figuratively take a bite…to try for ourselves by our own experience…and find out exactly how satisfyingly good God is. The apostle Peter applies the same language in 1 Peter 2:3 when he says, ‘”You have tasted that the Lord is good.'” (You drove the car and loved it)!

Tasting must happen before seeing; that is, our spiritual experiences bring us to spiritual enlightenment and understanding. David desires others to “taste and see.” He wants them to experience what he has experienced so that they can know what he has come to know, the soul-sustaining goodness of the Lord.

Next week we will spend a bit more time unpacking Psalm 34 as it goes on to provide examples of God’s incredible goodness to those who take refuge in Him.