PsalmsDay.com

When the Enemy is Me

Prepared for Psalms Group, January 24, 2021

They say confession is good for the soul, But that sure doesn’t make it easy!  In general, our culture is neither good at confessing or at hearing confessions.  Given our fierce independent natures, and our tendencies toward perfectionism, we are slow to admit our sin, and uncomfortable when we do. We would rather have superficial relationships than expose our deep seated fears and secrets…The psalms of penitence have much to teach us—about the results of sin, the attitude of God, and the hope for change.  It is when we come to God with empty hands that we understand his unfailing love. 

Wilson and Nygren, The Cries of the Faithful, Vol. 1, p. 63

Email preparing for Sunday, January 24, 2021

Dear Psalms friends,

After focusing on Psalm 32 for the first time in our group last Sunday, it seems timely to focus on Psalm 51 this coming Sunday.  These are the most well-known of the penitential psalms. In our January lectionary readings, we have also recently read Psalms 6 and 38, two other penitential psalms.  How can we actually use these penitential psalms as penitence?  And what is penitence anyway?

Psalms Group, for January 17, 2020

In Psalm 32, the psalmist happily thanks God for forgiving his sin which had led to intense physical and emotional duress. This forgiveness came in response to his confession and repentance. Psalm 32 is a penitential psalm (along with Psalms 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143), but it is not sorrowful because it is a prayer of thanks for God’s grace of forgiveness. It also contains elements of wisdom teaching, using this psalmist’s experience of confession, repentance and forgiveness to teach others. 

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?