How do we feed ourselves from the Psalms?
They’re the Bible’s songbook. They’re also, as Bono says, the Bible’s blues. But there are 150 of them, and that’s a lot to handle! What do we do?
The Psalms are about real life. They give us words of direct prayer for every mood in our own relations with God – joy (Psalm 96), fear (13), repentance (51), despair (44), deep depression(88), feeling attacked although visualizing how deliverance might come (56), horror (79), outrage at injustice (58 – imagine a place with no police or legal system), unbearable pain (137), doubt (73), hope (146), thanksgiving (148), celebration (150). Psalms is the old testament book most quoted in the new, and with good reason! `If you bury yourself in the Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life` (Dallas Willard).
But there are 150 of them, and that’s a really long haul if we set out to read them from start to finish. So what do we do? Two suggestions: First, read a seventh of the Psalms at a time. (Why a seventh? See the post in `Other Useful Stuff` about Enhancing Your Bible Feeding.)
Or alternatively – as the Bible has 66 books – every time you finish a Bible book, read two or three psalms next. And each time, ask Jesus: What have You given me here that I can respond to, first in worship, then in prayer, right now?
So then: how does God feed us from the first two brief psalms? Because they go together; both tell us how to be blessed (we want that, right?).
In Psalm 1, being blessed is built on a deliberate choice. There are two alternatives, and Psalms starts by telling us that the person who’s blessed is deliberately distinctive, they don’t `walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take`; not conformed to the world, as Romans 12 says. (Lord, please help me to be up for that…) But this holiness is not just negative; the person who’s blessed prioritizes time to `delight` in God’s Word, and `meditates on it day and night` (v2). (Like in Joshua 1:8 – this is for people of action too.) So what? So a key goal of our church’s life must be creating a culture where each person is taking in the maximum of the Word: motivated and equipped for personal time with God, also being truly fed with the Word both in small groups, and also when we gather together… In Acts the way God describes the Church growing is often by phrases like `The Word of God increased` (6:7, 12:24, 19:20): increase of the Word means growth of the Church! `Delighting` in the Word, says this introductory Psalm, means we’ve got roots digging down into `streams of water`; and from those streams, `in season`, comes fruitfulness, and the most profound kind of prosperity (v3). What we choose to have shape our thinking will in God’s good time bear fruit in our lives.
But there’s another contrast. Jesus says it’s people who hear and practise His words whose house doesn’t fall when the storms come, because it’s built on solid rock (Matt 7:25). It’s the Word that gives rootedness, depth, solidity, endurance, to a personality; or to a fellowship. (Lord, please make me like that!) In contrast Psalm 1:4 presents the alternative, like Jesus’ picture of people who built their house on sand: people who don’t `delight` in His Word are `like chaff that the wind blows away`; superficial, ultimately trivial (I think of all those party conversations that go absolutely nowhere), and ultimately rootless. And in the end, says v5, they `will not stand in the judgment`. Says Kidner: `So the two ways –and there is no third – part for ever.`
I’m glad that we who are meditating on the chewier parts of the old testament are together `delighting` in God’s Word: building on the rock! But Psalm 2 (which Hebrews 1, Hebrews 5, Acts 4 and Acts 13 show us is ultimately about the Messiah, Jesus) has a vital reminder for us: meditating on the Bible without turning to Jesus would totally, and fatally, miss the point. (Just as trying to feed on Jesus without feeding on his Word would be daft.) Psalm 2 sets out, both for our worship and our encouragement, just Who is in charge: Who it is that reigns over the rampant forces we face day by day; and Who one day will receive the ends of the earth, openly, as His possession (Rev 19:15, quoting this psalm). (And Lord, please make it soon!) And it ends practically by reminding us right now what we must do if we really want to be blessed: `Kiss the Son!`
But what does this mean? He’s presented here as the One who will rule the nations with an `iron sceptre` – we’re hardly being pointed towards a soppy snog! Rather, perhaps, to the `first, greatest commandment` – set out daily to `Love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your strength` … but doing something that embodies that! Because, `Blessed [visualize it, believe it as a certainty today!] are all who take refuge in Him!`
