Originally prepared for Psalms Group, September 15, 2019
Adapted from “How to Read the Psalms” by Tremper Longman III. His chapter titles are in bold.
Category: Topics
This is topical or reference material relating to the book of Psalms as a whole, or to divisions within the Psalms.
Originally prepared for Psalms Group, May 19, 2019
Reminder: The Psalms are deeply interactive, an ongoing dialogue between God and His people Israel. Like Israel, we converse with God in response to the faithfulness and generosity of God who takes all initiatives. Yet a role reversal also happens in the laments, complaints and protests. God is willing to be a full participant in a lively dialogue—an initiator or responder—in an intimate, face-to-face relationship. He longs for, even demands, our willing participation in dialogue with him, asking us to initiate our thoughts and feelings and to respond to his call for trust and obedience.
Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from Interpreting the Psalms by Patrick D. Miller, Chapter 5: “Enthroned on the Praises of Israel: Interpreting the Biblical Hymns”
“The most exuberant, extensive, and expansive indicators of who and what God is, and what God is about, are found and elaborated in the hymns and songs of thanksgiving that the people of Israel and individuals in that community uttered again and again in the course of Israel’s history.” (p. 64)
The Book of Psalms begins (1:1) with “Blessed is the man” and ends with five hymns of praise focused on God, equivalent to “Blessed be the LORD.”
There is a step-by-step progression in this praise:
From an email sent on 5/1/2020 to prepare for Sunday’s Psalms Group
Last week we joined the pilgrims as they proceeded to Jerusalem singing their Psalms of Ascent—psalms that helped them stay in reality about the trouble in their lives, about YHWH who acts to keep his faithful, and about their ultimate security and peace in YHWH. Journeying together through the Psalms of Ascent helps us find words to express our distress, to call for God’s help, and to experience his rest and peace. I hope your reading of chapter 4 on “Poetry” in Open and Unafaid enhances your psalm reading and praying.
1. Preparation
Learning to pray a psalm in Christ involves study, meditation, and praying in the Spirit. Studying a psalm includes reading it repeatedly from several different translations, focusing attention on its actual words and images, and doing the research necessary to comprehend what the psalmist is saying. Comprehension usually requires using tools like a study Bible, Bible dictionary, and/or commentary.
If we wish to make the most of the psalms, then, we must not only understand them as prayers, we must also understand how they “do” prayer. The psalms show us the nature of faithful prayer in the following ways:
Adapted from Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today by Bernhard W. Anderson, pp.225-225.
“Echoes of Old Testament psalms are heard in more New Testament passages than those included in this list, which is confined for the most part to direct quotations or specific allusions.”
Prepared for Sunday, April 26, 2020
The fifteen Psalms of Ascent are placed in the Psalter after Psalm 119, Israel’s love letter to YHWH for his Torah, his instructions for life in YHWH’s mercy, grace, steadfast love, and faithfulness. (See Exodus: 34:6.)
It was a blessing to look at the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) in their triads as laid out in Toni’s lesson for 4/26/20. On our neighborhood walk today Toni suggested that the pattern–Facing Distress, Recalling God’s Power, Resting in God–would be a fitting way to review the events of our own lives as believers.