Psalm 15
O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
2 Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
3 who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
4 in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
5 who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
How do we know we are OK with God? The psalmist asks the same kind of question I recall from the evangelism trainings that were part and parcel of my Baptist upbringing. There, it was usually phrased “If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or hell?” followed by recitation of the Four Spiritual Laws and/or the Roman Road, regardless of how the person answered. The “witnesser” had to make certain the “witnessee” had the correct theological beliefs for the desired eternal result.
The psalmist doesn’t seem so much concerned with orthodoxy in theology as orthopraxy in how one relates to one’s fellow humans. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the same thing both the Old Testament prophets and Jesus taught.
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