First sentence: At a recent conference, I was asked what my favorite book of the Bible is. My initial reaction was to wonder if that was a bad question. Should we not like all of the Word of God equally? Then I thought that I should cooperate, and I asked myself what book I most often turn to and enjoy. I realized that the answer was easy.
How well do you know the book of Psalms? How familiar are you with its contents?
W. Robert Godfrey has written an excellent book on the Psalms, Learning to Love the Psalms. Perhaps the title is misleading--slightly. In a way, he writes in such a way to encourage believers to love and embrace the book of Psalms. But I think he does more than that. I think he wants believers to look beyond surface emotions and better understand and appreciate not just individual psalms, not just individual verses, but the book as a whole.
Psalms is a book to be studied as any other book. It is a book with theology waiting to be unpacked. In the first chapter he writes, "the Psalms are like a mine with ever new depths to reach and ever more gold to find. They reward abundantly whatever effort we make to know them better." One of the reasons we should KNOW the psalms and be digging ever deeper is the fact that "the Psalms are full of Christ. They not only explicitly prophesy the coming of Christ (e.g., Pss. 2; 22; 110), but the message of the Psalms always pulls the soul to Christ and His great saving work." He continues, "Christ not only prays the prayers of the Psalter, but He also answers them. He sends His Holy Spirit to minister forgiveness, to teach the truth, to sanctify and protect His people. Christ identified with the Psalter’s Messiah and faithful King, Savior of sinners, and God who answers prayer."
Psalms 19–26 bear a remarkable relationship to redemptive history and the life of Jesus Christ. That is no doubt most clear in Psalm 22 with its amazing prophecies of the death of Jesus. But as we think of these other psalms, we see their strong connections to other aspects of that history. Psalm 19 is primarily a song of creation, but it also recognizes the problem of sin in the world. Psalm 20 is appropriate to mark the desire for the coming of the Messiah. Psalm 21 is a psalm of a victorious king, very appropriate for Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Psalm 22 is the great crucifixion psalm from which Jesus quoted as He hung on the cross. Psalm 24 is a great song to accompany the ascension of Jesus into His heavenly Jerusalem. Psalm 25 is appropriate to Pentecost as an appeal for God’s leading of His people. Psalm 26 appeals for the final judgment of God. Psalm 23 may not be quite so obviously a resurrection psalm between the crucifixion and ascension psalms, but I think it does fit the pattern. It is a psalm that emphasizes that God is always with us, that we are never forsaken, and that God will take us through the valley of the shadow of death. It is indeed a psalm of life and resurrection.In the third chapter, he asks--and then answers--a crucial question:
If the Psalms are so rich, why is it that many of us today do not treasure and appreciate them as the church did in the past?Take a minute and think about how you'd answer that question too. Godfrey gives us five reasons:
- The first is the diminished use of the King James Version of the Bible. The movement away from the King James Version has meant that the familiar poetic expressions of that version which had been passed down through many generations have largely been forgotten. With no one Bible translation replacing the King James Version, that poetry has not been effectively replaced for many contemporary Christians.
- The second is the failure of many Christians in our time to study and use the Psalms. Few Christians sing the Psalms anymore. Our minds and hearts are not saturated with the Psalms as the hearts and minds of earlier generations of Christians were.
- The third is the complexity of the Psalms. They are complicated and sometimes seem obscure in their literary form. An individual psalm may seem difficult to understand, especially in terms of the way in which it develops its thought. A psalm often changes its theme and its mood as it progresses.
- The fourth is the character of much of the scholarly work on the Psalms. That scholarly work contains much that is profound, but often it is rather inaccessible and not very helpful to the beginner.
- The fifth is the apparently random arrangement of the Psalter. The Psalter as a whole seems to us to have no structure. At first glance, it seems as if someone took 150 poems and simply shuffled them, putting them together in no particular order. As a result, it is difficult to see any movement or development in the book as a whole. It is also difficult to remember where a particular psalm is in the book in relation to other psalms. It is very hard to know where to turn in the Psalter for any particular type of psalm. The result is that while Christians may come to appreciate a particular verse or a particular psalm, the book as a whole remains more a mystery or puzzle than a coherent expression of the feelings of God’s people.
Godfrey argues that the book--as a whole--has a unifying theme. "The great theme of the Psalter is God’s goodness and unfailing love for the righteous. God is always good in ways completely compatible with His holiness. And in His goodness, He never fails in His love and care for those who belong to Him."
Godfrey also argues that the book has a definite structure, a certain movement or development. He makes four points:
- The first point that we should remember about the structure of the whole book of Psalms is that there is a clear structure given to us in the book itself. This structure is often overlooked because it has not seemed to most students of the Psalms to aid our understanding very much. Still, that structure at the very least reminds us that whoever put the final touches on the book of Psalms believed that there was an order and structure to the Psalter. That clear structure is the division of the whole Psalter into five books.
- Second, we can see that each of these books of the Psalter is concerned with both the individual follower of God and with the whole people of God. The religion of the Psalter is neither the religion of distinct individuals alone nor of a community alone. It is both.
- Third, we remember that in Hebrew the name of the Psalter is the Book of Praises. Each book of the Psalter ends with praise: Book One: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen.” (Ps. 41:13) Book Two: “Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!” (Ps. 72:19) Book Three: “Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.” (Ps. 89:52) Book Four: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ Praise the LORD!” (Ps. 106:48) Book Five: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” (Ps. 150:6)
- Our fourth point is the most important. The development of the Psalter is not simply a growing emphasis on psalms of praise. Many types of psalms appear in each of the books. Still, in broad terms, we can see a movement in the Psalter. Book One has many psalms that speak of distress on the part of the king and his people yet manifest confidence and praise even in the face of distress. Book Two links that confidence particularly to God’s king, who upholds God’s ways and God’s people in God’s city. Book Three, however, is dominated by a crisis in the kingship of Israel, a kingship that seems to have failed. Book Four presents comfort for king and people in the God who created the world and who made a covenant with Israel at Sinai. Book Five then lifts the praise of king and people to new heights.
The book is divided into seven sections (and an afterword). The first section is a seven chapter introduction to the book. It's titled simply, "Learning to Love the Psalms." The second section focuses on book one of Psalms (Psalms 1-41), "The King's Confidence in God's Care." The third section focuses on book two of Psalms (Psalms 42-72), "The King's Commitment to God's Kingdom." The fourth section focuses on book three of Psalms (Psalms 73-89), "The King's Crisis Over God's Promises." The fifth section focuses on book four of Psalms (Psalm 90-106), "The King's Comfort in God's Faithfulness." The sixth section focuses on book five of Psalms (Psalm 107-150), "The King's Celebration of God's Salvation." The seventh section also focuses on book five of Psalms (Psalms 146-150). Within each section, Godfrey chooses select psalms to focus on.
He concludes, "We as the people of God today need to learn for ourselves what it means to live in the Psalms. In a real sense, they give us words to express what it means to live as a Christian. We should live in and out of the Psalms." In addition, "We must never rush through the Psalms but learn to pause, ponder, and meditate on them so that their poetic beauty and profound truths will penetrate deeply into our hearts."
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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