Author: Toni

Email to the Psalms Group preparing for Sunday, January 17, 2021

Dear Psalms friends,

The “way” we have been traveling the past 2 weeks—with Psalms 1 and 2 and then Psalms 15 and 24, plus hearing Fr. Paul’s sermon last Sunday calling us to repentance from contempt—makes a focus on Psalm 32 seem timely.  Of course, it’s a well-known psalm of thanksgiving and wisdom instruction that poetically contemplates the joy of forgiveness.  It teaches us about our sin’s destructiveness and how God awakens us to repentance and to confession of sin.

Prepared for Psalms Group, January 10, 2021

Psalms 15 and 24 are liturgical psalms “of David” from Book 1 of the Psalms that were probably used as “entrance liturgies” to Israel’s worship of YHWH.   Perhaps they were used by priests to teach ancient Israelites about preparation for authentic worship of YHWH, probably first in the earlier “tent” setting after David moved the Ark of the Covenant onto Mount Zion, the hill in Jerusalem, and then later in the Temple built in that same place after David’s death. (Ross, Psalms, Volume I, pp. 385-395 and pp. 573-589) 

Prepared for Psalms Group meeting on January 3, 2021

Unlike the culture’s predominant view of the calendar year of 2020, our just-concluded journey through the Psalter ended this week with rounds of increasing praise—singing, instruments, dancing and lots of bragging and boasting about YHWH’s ultimate power over creation and nations, and His love for His people…His pleasure in us (147:11, 149:4).   (See Psalms 146-150.) 

Prepared for Psalms Group, December 20, 2020

The psalmist asks God to “remember David and all his troubles.”  That’s what pilgrim people needed to be reflecting on as they neared Jerusalem, some for the first time in their lives, and glimpsed the temple, according to Psalm 132.  Included In the Psalter as one of the Songs of Ascent, Psalm 132 reminds those journeying people (and us as journeying people) about David’s promises to God and God’s biggest promise to David.  (See Mark 13:1b for a first century person’s descriptors of the temple.)  

Prepared for Psalms Group, December 13, 2020

From beginning to end the subject matter of the psalms is the Lord of Israel.  In various ways the many lament psalms or prayers for help that are so pervasive in the Psalter speak to and about God; in so doing they inform the one reading them of what this God is like and why one turns in that direction in times of trouble… What happens is what aways happens in prayer:  a theological understanding of the One to whom the prayer is lifted is both implicit and explicit in the prayer.  We learn about God as we pray.  We say what we know and believe about God as we cry out.  That is certainly the case with the psalmist.

Patrick Miller, The Lord of the Psalms, from the Introduction

How often do you experience doubts about God’s existence or God’s character?  What seems to trigger those doubts?  How do you express those doubts?  

Prepared for Psalms Group, December 6, 2020

Prepared for Psalms Group, November 22, 2020

A new favorite, fun fact!  It’s obvious that “clapping the hands” in Psalm 47:1 is an act of joyous response, but the circumstance is more complex because the idiom employed normally means to “strike the hands” with another person as confirmation of a contract or agreement—like shaking hands or, better yet, like a “High Five.” (Gerald Wilson, the NIV Application Commentary: Psalms, Vol. 1, p. 726, but the “high five” is my idea.)