Come in with praise; go out with hope
Dr. Chris Wright Sunday Message from Wycliffe Global Alliance on Vimeo.
Sunday, 6 May 2012: The first of three presentations by Dr. Christopher J.H. Wright to look!2012.
View the second and third presentations: Holistic Mission (Monday, 7 May 2012); The Church and Global Mission (Tuesday, 8 May 2012).
Psalm 33: The certainty of hope
Dr. Christopher Wright
In our times some might ask, “Do we only have a ‘relativity of truth’? Is truth relative to culture only?” And many might say today, “There is a worldwide web, but there is no worldwide truth.”
With resounding opposition to such often-prevailing views, Christopher Wright responded: “No! There is such a thing as truth—truth for the whole world.”
As he began his exposition of Psalm 33, Wright highlighted the fact that God’s truth—revealed to us in God’s word—is universal truth, not merely something from a local deity worshiped by an ancient collection of tribes called ‘Hebrews’—applicable only to those people at that time and place. Affirming the criticality of God’s revealed word as something inherent to God’s plan (how God intends to become known by people of all nations), Wright noted as an example how Scripture was read and made clear to its hearers in the time of Nehemiah, soon after Israel’s return from exile:
“The Levites…instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being said” (Neh 8:7-8 NIV).
A song of hope
Psalm 33 is a song of hope. It is a song about hope in a God who transforms, who creates, who rules all, who sees and cares for all. What makes it a song of hope indeed is its universal scope. This theme of universality is repeated several times through the psalm: “…the earth is full of his unfailing love” (v. 5); “…let all the people of the world revere him” (v. 8); “…from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth—he who forms the hearts of all…” (vs. 14-15).
Hope from the power of God’s word
God’s world-transforming word: Ps 33:4-5. God is in the business of putting the world to rights, reversing the power and effects of sin. The fourth and fifth verses remind us that God is a God of integrity, committed to justice, pouring out his love on all the earth. God is both just and loving and, as Wright put it, “on that foundation rests any concept we have of holistic mission, because if we are engaged in his wider purpose of participating with God…it is because God himself is committed to these things.”
God’s world-creating word: Ps 33:6-9. God spoke the world into existence. He spoke…and it happened. God is the God of the whole earth because he created the whole earth. Throughout human history people have believed that the heavens (v. 6), the seas (v. 7) and the earth (v. 8) all have spiritual powers of their own. But the truth is that they all owe their existence to the Lord. The heavens are merely air, vacuum and created bodies, not guiding astrological forces; the seas are merely large containers of water, not the locus of evil and chaos; the earth is merely rock and soil, not the embodiment of a fertility goddess.
God’s world-governing word: Ps 33:10-11. God rules the world according to plan. Since God is the God of creation, he is also the God of history. The plans of the Lord are revealed through his prophets. All of creation and history are from Christ (God’s creating Word) and for Christ (God’s redeeming Word).
God’s world-watching word: Ps 33:13-15. God is calling the world to account. God is the God who sees, who watches and considers “all who live on the earth.” How is this known? It is revealed through the power of Israel’s stories, especially where those stories reveal God’s care for individuals in need. The slave woman, Hagar, treated unjustly by her master and mistress, said of God, “He is El Roi, the God who sees me.” Hannah, a woman who suffered from barrenness, cried out, “You, the Lord, are a God who knows.”
Response
Given these truths about the power of God’s word to transform, create, govern and see—how are we to live in light of it? The psalmist weaves appropriate responses throughout the fabric of this song of hope:
- we are called to rejoice (v. 12);
- we are called to remember where our salvation does and does not come from (vs. 16-17);
- we are called to trust and hope – with patience, joy and confidence (vs. 20-22).
“May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” Ps 33:22
Summary by Craig Combs
Wycliffe Global Alliance Communications
Dr. Christopher J.H. Wright (Ph.D., Cambridge) is director of Langham Partnership International (John Stott Ministries). An ordained Anglican minister, he is also the author of many books, including "The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative."
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05/2025 Global
05/2025 Global
‘We’ve come very far, very fast’
A tech observer outlines what AI will mean soon for workplaces and ministry
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Global
Tech pioneer: Christians ‘have to show up’ for AI
Silicon Valley pioneer Pat Gelsinger was CEO of Intel Corporation until December 2024. Quickly realising his career in technology was not finished, he joined the faith/tech platform Gloo in early 2025 as the executive chair and head of technology. He is also a general partner at the venture capital firm Playground Global. Gelsinger was instrumental in the development of cloud computing, Wi-Fi, USB and many other everyday technologies. He estimates his work has touched 60 to 70 percent of humanity. Here are highlights of his keynote talk at the 2025 Missional AI Summit. You can watch his entire talk here. Pat Gelsinger (left) is interviewed onstage by Steele Billings. Both are with Gloo. Watch the full interview here. Is technology good or bad? Technology is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral. It can be used for good. It can be used for bad. … If you think back to the Roman roads, why did Christ come when he came? I’ll argue the Pax Romana and the Roman roads. … The greatest technology of the day was the Roman road system. It was used so the Word could go out. Historical example I will argue Martin Luther was the most significant figure of the last thousand years. And what did he do? He used the greatest piece of technology available at the day, the Gutenberg printing press. He created Bibles. … He broke, essentially, the monopoly on the Bible translations …. He ushered in education. He created the systems that led to the Renaissance. That’s a little punk monk who only wanted to get an audience with the pope because he thought he had a few theological errors. I’ll argue (Luther was) the most significant figure of the last thousand years, using technology to improve the lives of every human that he touched at the time. How today compares to the dawn of the internet AI is more important. AI will be more significant. AI will be more dramatic. … This is now incredibly useful, and we’re going to see AI become just like the internet, where every single interaction will be infused with AI capabilities. In the 75-year-or-so history of computing, we humans have been adapting to the computer. … With AI, computers adapt to us. We talk to them. They hear us. They see us for the first time. And now they are becoming a user interface that fits with humanity. And for this and so many other reasons that every technology has been building on the prior technology, AI will unquestionably be the biggest of these waves, more impactful even than the internet was. On the need for AI development to be open-source It is so critical because we’re embedding knowledge, embedding values, embedding understanding into those underlying models, large language models and every aspect that happens. It must be open, and this is part of what I think is critical about us being together here today. We need to be creating trusted, open, useful AI that we can build humanity on. On the need for Christians to help build AI systems We have to show up as the faith community to be influencing those outcomes, because remember what happened in the social media. We didn’t show up, and look at what we got. So are we going to miss this opportunity for something that’s far more important than social networking with AI? Where it truly in the models embeds every aspect of human history and values into it? We have to show up, team. What we do with large language models is far more important because truly we are choosing how we embody knowledge of all time into those underlying models. They need to be open. They need to be trusted. What Christians must bring to the process If we’re going to show up to influence AI broadly, we have to show up with good engineering, good data, good understanding, good frameworks. How do you measure things like ‘Is that leading to better character? Is that leading to better relationships? Is that creating better vocational outcomes? Is that a valid view of a spiritual perspective?’ We need good underlying data associated with each one of these. And for that we’re actively involved. We’re driving to create that underlying data set. Because we need to show up with good data if we’re going to influence how AI is created. How should this work? For the AI systems we need to create good benchmarks. If I ask about God, does it give me a good answer or not? If I ask about relationships with my children, does it give me good answers? We need to create the corpus of data to give good answers to those questions. And, armed with that good data, we need to show up to influence the total landscape of AI. We want to benchmark OpenAI. We’re going to benchmark Gemini. We’re going to benchmark Claude. We’re going to benchmark Copilot. This is what we’re going to do at Gloo, but we want to be part of a broader community in that discussion so that we’re influential in creating flourishing AI. Technology is a force for good. AI that truly embeds the values that we care about, that we want to honour, that we want to be representing into the future and benchmarking across all of them. Oh his role with Gloo We are going to change the landscape of the faith community and its role in shaping this most critical technology, AI, for faith and flourishing. That’s what we’re going to do at Gloo and we need all of your help and partnership to do so because if we don’t hang together, we’re not going to influence the outcome, right? ‘Here am I, Lord’ I don’t think I’m done. … You and I both need to come to the same position like Isaiah did. Here am I, Lord. Send me. Send me. Send us. That we can be shaping technology as a force for good. That we could grab this moment in time. This is the greatest time to live in human history. We’re going to solve diseases. We’re going to improve lives. We’re going to educate every person in poverty. We are going to solve climate issues. We are going to be using these technologies to improve the lives of every human on the planet. We are going to shape technology as a force for good. Here am I, Lord. Send me. ••• Story: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance Translated with ChatGPT. How was the translation accuracy? Let us know at info@wycliffe.net. Alliance organisations are welcome to download and use images from this series.
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