An Introduction to the Psalms

[Music] you are [Music] because [Music] [Music] [Music] clap your hands all ye people shout to god [Music] for he is a great king for all the earth he sits on his holy the princes throne the people gathered together [Music] [Music] for he is [Music] i got brains over the nations [Music] he [Music] sing praises to our god sing praises to our king sing praises to the law of all the earth [Music] sing praises to our god sing praises to our king sing praises to the lord all right here we go [Music] [Music] for all the earth [Music] [Music] come and save your cars come and die save your calls [Music] [Music] [Music] that jesus [Music] oh my mic is on now we are so glad to see you guys this morning thank you so much for coming yes so excited to worship with you ladies to learn more about the psalms to sing with you would you please stand with me we're going to sing a little bit psalm 7 17 says i will thank the lord for his righteousness i will sing about the name of the lord most high and so let's do that this morning let's thank him for his goodness and let's thank uh praise his wonderful name [Music] the sun comes up it's a new day donnie it's time to sing your song again whatever may pass before [Music] your name is great and your heart [Music] is 10 000 reasons for my heart [Music] oh [Music] he enjoys me and my time has come still my soul 10 000. [Music] worship his holy land [Music] i worship your heart [Music] praise to the lord the almighty the king of creation oh my soul praise him for he is your health and salvation come on now to his temple johnny [Music] join me in glad [Music] shelter [Music] send by his gracious [Music] surely his goodness and mercy shall daily know what the almighty can't do [Music] is [Music] come now with praises before him let the amen sound from his people again gladly forever him let me be seated good morning sisters it is so good to see all of you here this morning we are thankful that you have decided to spend your saturday morning with us my name is brandi beck and on behalf of the women's ministry team here at desert springs i want to welcome you to our first books of the bible class this is a new series we'll be holding at the beginning of each fall and spring and the classes are intended to give us some equipping a little bit of foundation as we approach different books of the bible we want to read them well and rightly we know that the bible is god's word to us it is how he reveals himself to us and the story of salvation it is how we learn to relate to him rightly it is where we find truth and hope and life and so it matters how we read it and these classes are meant to equip us to do that well this morning today's class is an introduction to the psalms our preaching pastor ryan kelly will be teaching us about hebrew poetry he is going to be giving us some really important lenses that we need to be using as we read and study the psalms so this morning we're going to have two sessions two teaching sessions with a break and some singing in between and then we're going to end up with a q a time so if you have a question that comes to mind during these teaching sessions to ask ryan you just need to text me so my number is going to be on the screen and we'll keep it up there you don't have to memorize it right now um you can just send your questions to me we'll have a short break at the end of the second session before the q a starts so if you can get those to me as quickly as possible before that second session ends then we'll try to answer as many of those as we can but before we start we have some books to give away to you because of kov we're going to do this a little bit differently we don't want to be passing these books through a multitude of hands so i'm going to introduce the books to you and then we'll announce the winners if you win stay in your seat um and during the first break you can go to the cookie bar and denise looker will be there with your books and you can get them from her okay so the first book is called sing a new song by lydia brownback this is a devotional that takes you through the psalms you'll read one psalm each day and she actually gives you a little bit of what you're going to learn today some historical context some literary context but there's a lot of focus on the attributes of god and she gives you some prompts for journaling it's just a really really great book we have two copies of these so the first one is going to go to the woman who was the first one to register for this class and that is linda layman you were the very first one are you here this morning linda somewhere maybe [Laughter] if you're here you can come to the cookie bar and get your book and the second copy is gonna go to the first youth girl that was registered for the class and that is isabella gonzalez are you here this morning isabella there you are welcome next we have this little tiny book on the psalms from dietrich bonhoeffer it is short very short very simple but rich in content and so this book is going to go to the first person who walked in the doors this morning and that is barbara four dice who i know for a fact is here because she walked in and we have another copy of this book that is going to go to the last woman who registered she registered this morning about an hour before we started debbie schwarm glad you're here [Applause] and then our last book we have two copies of this as well praying the bible by donald whitney this walks you through learning how to pray the scriptures and there is a heavy focus here on the psalms so we think this will be of great benefit to you that one we're going to choose the old-fashioned way i've got my lovely fancy tupperware here with the rest of your names so let's see who wins pat stevens you just locked in well you want a book you can pick it up at the cookie bar during the break okay and then let's see who else roseanne gallegos are you here [Laughter] okay roseanne and pat are our winners for that so okay before ryan comes up um will you join me in prayer please father god we praise you for your greatness and for your goodness you are a holy god and yet you have condescended to draw near to us you have revealed yourself to us through your son and through your word it is such a tremendous gift father god to have the easy access to your word that we do have here in the states lord god we thank you for the freedom to read it we thank you for multiple copies and all formats and translations lord help us not to ever take that for granted father god we thank you for those that you have equipped to teach us how to read and understand rightly we pray that you would be with ryan this morning as he comes to lead us and guide us and give us a good foundation for reading the psalms and we pray father god that you would grant the spirit's help in opening our eyes to see more clearly through the lenses ryan will teach us to use to see be with us father for your glory and for our good and in your son's name we pray amen well thanks brandi and it is so good to be with you ladies how encouraging it is for me to see a bunch of women out on a saturday morning to study god's word i'm so encouraged by our women's ministry and have been for so many years under its leadership of julie wesselmann for many years and then now brandy's leadership as well i'm so thankful that our ministry to women is primarily a ministry of the word uh primarily a ministry to make women of the word and you're a great representative of that so i'm looking forward to our time in the psalms together today the psalms i don't want you but they're precious to me they're precious to me me and the psalms we got some history you know the church i pastored before this one in denver was not as easy going as it has been here you know if you think of the ministries of joshua and moses joshua had it great the people said as for us we will serve the lord right not so moses moses had a hard ministry the people complained uh well i had a moses like ministry in denver and i have a joshua like ministry now and i'm thankful that it was in that order but in those days of um difficult ministry in a very small church i remember many sunday mornings where my main focus was not getting my sermon ready or polished or more familiar to my eyes i just needed encouragement in god's word i needed i needed god to to put a fire in my bone so that i would preach never mind what i would preach and the psalms were so good so good so let's talk about let's get into it what are the psalms everyone got a handout okay you got four pages of notes we'll try to work through that over our two sessions in this first heading we want to talk about just in general just to get our feet wet what are the psalms and why are they special to us i have four thoughts here they are prayer songs they're prayers they're songs i put prayer songs hyphenated on purpose because you don't want to think one and not the other they're both in other words they're worshipful they show us how to worship they show us how to relate to god in light of this world's problems they are personal and corporate prayer songs there are some that are very personal you think of psalm 119 it's the longest psalm and it's over and over it's a it's a guy with his bible before god and he's just praying for help he's bringing his problems to god through meditation of the word and asking for god to to show him great things in the word it's very personal and yet so many of the psalms are corporate these were israel's songs this was their hymn book you could say so you see a lot of language that's in the plural us we our some of the psalms are even antiphonal one group singing apart the other group singing another part um they actually bring us together that's why it's good for us to sing not only just other songs good theological songs on sunday mornings but we also sing psalms like we're doing this morning they are theological prayer songs theological theo god ology the study of the psalms are theological they tell us about god in his ways his attributes his promises his acts of old what he's like they are instructive about who god is what he's done what he promises and what he will do they are experiential prayer songs so this relates to them being very personal and them being prayer songs they're experiential meaning they're emotional they really have a full range of emotions within them they they come out of life and experiences and a vast array of experiences but we really can in many ways find ourselves in the psalms john calvin the reformer he said this about the psalms he says there is not any emotion that is not represented in the psalms as in a mirror the holy spirit has here drawn all the griefs sorrows fears doubts hopes cares perplexities in short all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men and women are prone to be agitated the other parts of scripture contain the commandments but here his servant writers are exhibited to us as speaking to god and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections hence they call or rather draw each of us to the examination of him or herself in order that none of many infirmities to which we are subject and of the many vices with which we abound may remain concealed in other words the psalms invite us to bring our problems to god and to bring our emotions to god to bring our hurts and sorrows and joys before the lord so that's what the psalms are that's why they're special that's why they're special to me and i'm sure they've been special to you or you wouldn't be here this morning let's talk about the types of psalms you see that in your notes i just want to quickly review the types of psalms and this really is the first step to beginning to interpret any single psalm we have to know what type of psalm it is there are different types of psalms and then you should know that the the scholars kind of debate how many types there are i mean some will propose six and some will propose 10 or 12. i'm just going to suggest eight to you it's not a magic number but these are the eight most common i think you should also keep in mind as i begin to talk about these different types some psalms are not so easy to categorize you're kind of scratching your head well whit type what type is this one and is it possibly two types and the answer to that is yeah it can be it can go from one type of psalm to another it can have an element of another type while the majority is a certain type so here are the eight types there's praise psalms that's probably what you think of most when you think of the psalms psalms like psalm 100 and 103 104 105. really so many and you'll notice in your notes that i've got a few psalms listed for each type as examples but there are many more than i have listed those are just if you want to go looking for a few here are a few that i'm suggesting praise psalms you know what those are like they praise god they're worshipful they describe what god is like and really they ascribe to him glory and honor and praise secondly there are thanksgiving psalms these do just what it says they give thanks to god you just look for that word thanks and usually it's repeated in a psalm that is a true thanksgiving psalm thirdly there are psalms of confidence or trust like psalms 11 and 23 and 46 and often these psalms have an element of resolve in them i will i will praise him i will trust him that's confidence that's trust those are important kind of psalms fourthly there are historical psalms there aren't too many of these psalms 78 105 106 135 136 those are the big five historical psalms review god's mighty acts of old and then praise him accordingly or even apply confidence as they review god's mighty acts of old those are historical psalms fifth there are lament psalms and there's a lot of lament in the psalms i i don't have the number off the top of my head you could google it and probably find it pretty fast but lament is a big theme in the psalms in lament psalms as a type they mourn the difficult circumstances of life to god and then they often turn and they turn towards hope they turn towards resolve they turn towards praise sixth are imprecatory psalms these are psalms of judgment they're like lament psalms except they have this added feature of asking god to judge the wicked which sounds contrary to the way jesus taught us to love our enemies except well i don't want to get distracted here and talk too much about imprecatory psalms you could find a good example of a like psalm 3 would be an imprecatory psalm and you could go listen to a sermon on our website about psalm 3 and see what a imprecatory psalm is there but essentially they care more for god's honor in this world and his ways in this world than the psalmist's own personal comfort so it's not about retribution you know repaying the evil for evil or with evil instead it's asking god to intercede for the good of his glory and the good of his people seventh there are kingship or royal psalms psalms like psalm 2 and 72 and 110 this is often david praying about god's promises to the king we'll come back to that in a little bit as we talk about the organization of the whole book of psalms and then eighth there are wisdom psalms like psalm 1 psalm 19 psalm 112 these are psalms that instruct or teach god's people and they often have to do with just how we live now why is this categorization categorization of psalms helpful well it helps us interpret any one psalm we rightly categorize other things that we read and we adjust our interpretive lens accordingly right so you're not supposed to read the far side comic strips the same way you read in op-ed in the wall street journal or when a children's book begins once upon a time you're not expecting to hear something about let's say hitler right once upon a time fiction hitler real dude scary so you already know how to adjust for the literature that you're probably more familiar with in the psalms it's really important to begin with just noting what kind of psalm is this and is it does it have multiple types within it and is there a movement from one type to another it can help us narrow in on the psalms purpose and in how we're supposed to use it it's like having a map and knowing where you're going you see a certain kind of psalm generally has certain features to it like i tried to point out as i listed those eight different kinds of psalms so knowing the kind of psalm that it is and knowing the kind of features that are typically in that kind of psalm well you generally know how it's going and where it's going it's a map but it also helps you to know when the typical pattern is broken so i mentioned lament psalms a bit ago lament psalms typically have this order of things the actual lament telling god something is wrong and then there's a section on recounting so reviewing reminding himself uh what god is like and what god has said and what is true and what is eternal and what he can bank on and then it usually moves to request so god we ask that you would lord please do this do that request and then typically they end in resolve and praise so resolve would be therefore i will trust in him and i will bless his name forever and ever you see how the the psalm began in a minor key and it works its way into some happy major key even though the clouds are not fully departed well that's how typical lament psalms go and then you come to psalm 88 and it's all minor key all the way through there's no happy ending there's no hope at the end there's no praise well that stands out right so knowing how lament psalms usually go makes psalm 88 well all the more important and unusual and we'll come back to that one a little bit later on as well it can also help us to know where to go in our bibles when we need x or y or z so i'm not very thankful right now i need to stir up thankfulness lord maybe i should go to psalm 107 the psalm of thanksgiving lord i i don't feel i don't feel like i have the words right now to confess my sin to you i know psalm 38 is one of those psalm 38 i'll use those words or psalm 51 david's confession there lord i don't feel forgiven right now psalm 32 might be where you need to go you see knowing where to go the types of psalms help you with where to go for what you need right then all right let's talk about applying various lenses to the psalms and this will occupy the rest of our time this is our final heading let me explain the imagery that i have in mind of lenses how many of you are due to go to the eye doctor and get your eyes checked i am i can just see things are getting fuzzier i used to think it was so weird when old people as i thought do this and yet my arms aren't long enough even now at only 46. i need to go to the eye doctor get my eyes checked i always get a little nervous my wife gets really nervous about going to the eye doctor she thinks she's going to fail the test that's what all a's will do for you you still have test anxiety remember that experience that at least if you wear corrective glasses that that experience you had of the first time right you didn't know your eyes were getting bad you didn't know you couldn't see somehow it was shown to you no you you can't see that sign you can't make out those words you need to go to the eye doctor so you went to the eye doctor and they did that thing of checking your eyes and eventually you walk out with some glasses and you just keep doing this i can't believe it i can't believe i can see that far and you're having people test you and you're just amazed and they're not amazed but you are well how did you get there how did they get you there how did they get that prescription for you because someone else's prescription wouldn't work well the doctor has to do that that lens thing that trial and error they drop this lens down they keep saying this one or this one this one or this one they have to do the trial and error thing that's just how it works but i hope this morning that you'll trust me that i have six lenses that fit all of us six lenses that when we drop them all down we'll see the psalms more clearly so any one of these lenses bring some clarity to the psalms imagine you're at the eye doctor this lens drops down that's better i can see that e now that i couldn't see before and then another lens drops down and you can you can see the next line a g f c well i'd like us to drop down all six lenses in the course of our study of the psalms this morning and i hope that you'd continue to use these lenses as you study the psalms in days ahead so here are the lenses i won't define them for you now let me just review them just list them there's the historical lens the literary lens the christological lens the psalter lens the corporate worship lens and then the devotional slash personal lens now most of us tend to use the devotional slash personal lens by default and almost exclusively and many of us read our bibles this way as a whole not just the psalms we just read until a verse blesses us it stands out it speaks to me we say oh i needed that today that's not wrong it's not i don't want you to drop the devotional lens i want you to see that you'll see the psalms more clearly if you use more than that lens and if you don't rush your way to seeing with that lens so we'll go through six lenses number two and number four we'll take the longest at some point i'll just take a break and uh we'll we'll have a break and a song and all that and um and then we'll work on the rest of the lenses the first lens i'd like you to look through is the historical lens the historical lens means that there's sometimes a known historical context to to a certain psalm not always you gotta look at the beginning of the psalm the heading and you ask is there a stated author here 75 of the psalms are written by david that's the most significant author you want to note when it's by david we'll see why in a little bit as we drop down the psalter lens is there a stated author is there a stated setting for instance like psalm 3 it says a psalm of david when he fled from absalom his son huh oh that's in the bible you might not know it off the top of your head but that's second samuel 15 i believe i think i'm guessing second samuel 15 is the story of david in absalom and absalom well committing treason against the king and david is thrown out of the royal city you got to know what's going on behind the scenes in this historical setting that would cause david to write psalm 3. or in one of the psalms it says david wrote this after he feigned insanity before the king of gag ah okay go go look for that it's in first samuel you need to know about that or is there some other designation we should be aware of psalm 72 is either by or two it's probably two dedicated to king solomon that that's significant and we'll see that in just a bit now not all headings are as equally significant so if you get real worked up about the sons of korra you might be taking that a little too far or when it says to the choir master on stringed instruments it just was david or someone else saying this is a song and it goes well with a guitar right i mean there are musical elements in these songs because they were songs the same would go with the the salah i think we over spiritualized that that's probably we don't know for sure actually what that meant but it was probably a musical rest you may have heard that it's a stop here and think about it well you should do that at every point in the bible you don't wait for sales right so that's why if if you see us in the morning in a sunday morning we're reading through a psalm and the person reading the psalm doesn't say the salah that's why it's a it's probably a musical rest not all the designations not all the little editorial comments are as significant as others but the ones that are significant you really got to pay attention to is there a historical setting and is there a stated author especially if it's a kingly author that's significant that's the historical lens let's drop down another lens as we look at the psalms page two in your notes there's the literary lens at the top of page two the literary lens so here i wanna show you some features of hebrew poetry that you may you may be fully aware of you may be instinctively aware of but not technically aware of or you may be completely unaware of and you say oh that's what i was seeing but i wasn't even noticing it was going on so notice first letter a under literary lens repetition this is everywhere in the psalms you just got to pay attention to the repetition of words phrases and concepts in psalm 150 the last psalm here's the most obvious use of repetition it just keeps saying praise the lord praise him praise the lord let everything that has breath praise the lord what's that psalm about it's about praising god right it's not actually a confrontation about how you don't praise him enough that would be a misuse of that psalm it's an invitation to praise other psalms will help you with conviction of sin but psalm 150 isn't one of them so look for the repetition of words phrases and concepts that often will help you with the theme of the psalm notice letter b the word pictures or figures of speech and here there are four that i have in mind you want to look for the symbolism that's there symbolism is interesting and sometimes you don't notice that it's actually symbolism when it is so let me read to you you don't have to turn there psalm 3 verse 7. psalm 3 verse 7 it says for you strike all my enemies on the cheek you break the teeth of the wicked now is that the psalmist hoping that god will literally punch and smash the face and the teeth of his enemies no see the word picture here is that the enemies are like lions they they are the israelites are prey the the world the enemies of israel are on the prowl they are ready to bite and clamp down lord i pray you'd break their teeth you see how that works so all of a sudden now it's not why is god against teeth and why would someone pray that god would bust him in the teeth well it's about lord please loosen their grip you got to see the symbolism symbolism helps us slow down by the way it's meant to be mentally stirring you see how long it took me to describe to you what's happening in psalm 3 7 about the enemy's teeth it made us sit and think a while it makes us ponder and even imagine what's going on another form of word picture is metaphor so psalm 23 verse 1 is probably the most famous the lord is my shepherd that's a metaphor the lord as our shepherd and then we're meant to think of all the ways that he is shepherd of his sheep he leads us he feeds us he protects us etc metaphor there's also simile simile is like a metaphor except you find those words like or as in it so psalm 131 says i have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother that's a simile then there are synecdoches that's a big word for this a part for the whole a part representing the whole a part that is emblematic of the whole so when it speaks of god's name in the psalms is it just an obsession with his name is it always referring to god's personal name yahweh well no really what it means is god is the whole person god is the whole being god's name is a part for the whole of all that god is right or god's right hand uh god's right hand god god doesn't have a hand does he no but god's right hand is his strong hand it's it's how he executes judgment and salvation it's his right hand all right so those are different word pictures that we might find in the psalms there are others but that's just a sampling now let me talk to you about parts of hebrew poetry letter c parts of hebrew poetry and here's where we get more technical and let me just clarify here because some of you are going to wonder this if you haven't already as we get into technical things about how hebrew poetry works you might be wondering wait was i supposed to know this do i have to memorize this is is this something that i need to know for the rest of my life if i'm going to be a good christian and i would say no for most of us what i'm going to explain in this section of the literary lens for most of us these are tools in categories that we probably won't memorize but they help us to work on psalms and develop good instincts for for interpreting the psalms the name of the game with really any bible study and maybe especially the psalms is just thorough observation in the asking of questions those two things thorough observation asking of questions and you do that long enough and eventually you're going to start leaning on aristotle and guys like him and you'll get into how rhetoric works and then you'll start using some of the technical language that i'm about to to show you and then once you get to know it a little bit you can kind of ignore it and the instincts are there and and you can get back to just good observation and good question asking or perhaps you'll memorize these things and that certainly wouldn't be wrong and some of you already have them memorized because you might teach english at a school every now and then so let's think about a line in hebrew poetry there is line strophy and stanza a line it's kind of confusing i know a line isn't a line a line is usually two lines that's just the way it works i don't know i didn't make this up a line is like psalm 92 verse 1 it is good to give thanks to the lord to sing praises to your name almost high in most bibles that's two lines it is good to give thanks to the lord to sing praises to your name almost high that's the the simplest uh part of hebrew poetry a line then there's a strophe this trophy and these are multiple lines these are getting bigger multiple lines that make up a unit of thought strophies are what paragraphs are to what is non-poetic right in non-poetic writing you have sentences and then you have paragraphs while strophies are like paragraphs to poetry look at psalm 13 here we're going to look at one and by the way if you've thought man we're a half hour into this already and we've not even really stared at a single psalm that's just the way it is this seminar is giving you tools to help you read and study specific psalms later on whether it's in this upcoming bible study through the psalms with brandy and others or on your own for the rest of your life um hopefully you can put these tools to working on specific psalms we won't do a ton of that here this morning but i want to do it with psalm 13. psalm 13 just looking down i won't read it out loud but i want you to see that your bible probably has a bit of space between the end of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. you see that raise your hand if your bible does that not all bibles do don't throw your bible out if it doesn't but you should get one that does you should that's just helpful now how many of us don't raise your hand would read a psalm like psalm 13 in not notice that space between verse 2 and verse 3. we would just keep reading right i mean that's easy to do i do it except when i'm like really trying to understand it you know if i was preaching a sermon on it then that's one of the first things i would notice that oh verses one and two apparently according to the editors of this bible the esv verses one and two they think are a strophe they see verses three and four as another what strophe and five and six are another strophe each of those trophies made up of multiple lines okay now why do they see them as different trophies well remember i said strophies make up a unit of thought so let's just say that we trust the editors of this bible my bible and these breaks in psalm thirteen why did they break at one and two three and four five and six well because they're doing different things you see it you should be looking down in your bibles verses one and two are questions right how long oh lord how long how long how long i think it's three or four times those are questions then something changes in verses three to four doesn't it consider and answer me o lord my god when we talked about lament psalms we said that's request it's a prayer request right consider and answer me oh lord my god and then verses five to six he's now out of prayer mode at least directly but i have trusted in your steadfast love my heart shall rejoice in your salvation i will sing to the lord we call that resolve you see how it's doing something different you see how these marks or or really lack of marks these spaces in our english bibles are often helpful for interpretive purposes they often show us trophies but then there's stanzas these are bigger chunks and these are almost always in longer psalms and these are multiple strophes that continue a long thought or theme so so turn to psalm 19 if you're in 13 turn to 19. now looking at psalm 19 and i notice there's a there's a strophe break from verse six to verse seven i see that there's another strophe break verses 11 to 12 okay and then another strophe break before verse 14. okay so this is a four-part psalm i might say but then i noticed there are two two big themes here what are verses 1 through 6 all about what's the general theme there you got to boil it down to one word say it out loud creation one through six okay now verses 7 to 11. what's that about one just one word the law the bible scripture right okay so these are stanzas just cut into the chase here verses one to six they're not just trophies these are stanzas these have a thematic element to them so keep those in mind now back to your notes look at letter d parallelism here's where we get even a little more technical let me tell you about four different kinds of parallelism that you might find there are more than this here are just probably the most common there's synonymous parallelism and this means that both lines well okay i'm saying line here not in the technical sense i'm saying like literally lines in our bibles okay that makes sense like psalm 6 verse 9 yes this will be one line but in our bible bibles we'll see two lines it says the lord has heard my plea the lord accepts my prayer that's synonymous parallelism it's both of those lines saying the same thing and there's repetition for the purpose of emphasis in beauty and poetry then there's antithetical parallelism you can guess what this is like it's two lines and i don't mean lines in the poetic sense i mean lines like literally in our bible two lines that are different there's a contrast there's often a but in between them right so psalm 18 verse 27 for you save a humble people but the haughty eyes you bring down now do you see how that's parallel you save that's the verb the object a humble people but and in hebrew it'd probably be like this but you bring down that's the verb the haughty eyes okay that's antithetical parallelism saying the same thing but with a contrast then there's synthetic parallelism where the second line again lie not in the poetry sense the second line completes the thought of the first so psalm 6 verse 4. listen to this turn o lord deliver my life save me for the sake of your steadfast love it completes it the overlap is deliver my life save me but the second line adds the reason for the sake of your steadfast love that synthetic parallelism there's also climactic parallelism in this kind of parallelism parallelism it begins and then it stops and it backs up and then it begins again it almost has a waltz feel to it it has a musical feel to it so listen to psalm 29 verse 1 ascribe to the lord o heavenly beings ascribe to the lord the glory and strength that's climactic parallelism it's probably the hardest of those four to identify but it is distinguishable from the others if you say that's great i'm in that category that will not be memorizing different forms of parallelism so that i can go looking for them and identifying in my bible study let me just simplify it for you then here's simplified parallelism two lines that do something different one to another they have some symmetry but something changed even even with the the first one synonymous parallelism there's often some elevation the lord has heard my plea the lord accepts my prayer saying the same thing but it almost like it's almost like it took it up a notch right so simplify parallelism by just thinking of these two lines in my bible they're related they're doing something similar there's parallelism there and there's some sort of development or movement from one to the other another thing you need to know about is inclusio inclusio psalm 122 would be an example of that just look at it 122 turn there again i won't read it i just want to show you the beginning and end of it 122 verse 1 i was glad when they said to me let us go to the house of the lord and then where do we see towards the end here look at verse 8 and 9 we'll do verse eight for my brothers in companion's sake i will say peace be within you for the sake of the house of the lord our god house of the lord beginning and end so next to inclusio if you want to just write the more simple word for this it's bookends bookends bookends tell you what the whole thing's about it began here it ends here this is what the whole thing's about it serves the same purpose as repetition does if there's enough of the repetition and then there's chiasm and you can think of chiasm as a slightly more complex version of inclusio it's called chiasm by the way because the greek letter chi is in x looks like an rx and so chiasm is following the shape of the left side of the x so you see in your notes there it's it's a b b prime a prime and a and a relate and b and b relate and some chiasms get pretty elaborate and long now this is a poetic thing some people go looking for chiasms in the gospels or chiasms in old testament narrative and i say that's like looking for a waldo in a book that's not about waldo i don't know that you're supposed to do that i don't know that it's there and if you take enough material you can eventually get the parts to match up if you just look hard enough you're going to see waldo eventually if you keep looking out into the crowd and i saw some stripes well okay but that may not be waldo just some guy with stripes so be careful of chiasm elsewhere but it is often in the bible like psalm 1 sorry in the psalms in poetry like psalm 110 which we won't turn to you can look at that on your own and try to find how the a matches up with the a and the b matches up with the b and the c matches up with the c and then let's just talk about movement this is not technical but it's probably the most important on an interpretive level it probably has the most interpretive value for us movement is there is there a change here's a list is there a change in subject like who is speaking is it the psalmist saying we and then he says you or he shifts from i to we that's significant we should note that is there a change in object who's being spoken to sometimes it's addressed to god and then all israel well you want to note that shift there's something's going on there something's going on something changed perhaps in his heart or thinking or purpose is there a change in just topic or theme or emphasis is there a change in voice as it moves from you know first person to second person plural or something some psalms have a change in setting psalm 122 let us go to jerusalem that's within the psalms of ascents that they're meant to be sung on the way to jerusalem for the pilgrimage for the feasts and then some of those psalms later on they arrive in jerusalem the setting has changed is there a change in tense is there a change in tone is there a change in the point of view is there a change in the mood note those changes so here's the summary lean on the poetry breaks that you can find in most good english bibles and again the most important thing is patient observation and asking of questions noticing things that are really there not things that are imagined or things that well i i don't know what i think this all means is really show me where we want to out we want to observe the text we want the text to tell us what it's about we god has put in his word grammatical clues about who he is and what he's up to and how we should feel and how we should relate to him our god is a masterful grammarian and you might say yeah that makes god too technical no he's done it i'm not i'm not telling you something that is debatable here it is he revealed himself in poetry to think that you want to know the god of the bible but you don't care about the means in which the forms in which he revealed himself in this bible that's presumptuous that's proud it's it's not what you need so lean into this try to understand it more try to grow in understanding how god has revealed himself in literature that's the literary lens let's see if we can get through the christological lens this one will be kind of short because i think we're decent at it especially if you've been at our church for a while page three let's think about the christological lens and here i'm going to offer three ways in which the new te the the psalms get us to the new testament into christ specifically that's what i mean by christological lens the study of christ or really you could rewrite over what i said they are christological you could you could call it christocentric christ centered jesus is the center of our bibles the whole story is about him from beginning to end we believe that right i mean jesus said the law and the prophets were all about me things written in the law and the prophets about messiah should suffer and die in forgiveness of sin should be preached in his name to all nations that's what he said in luke 24. he said the whole bible is about him and so we want to go looking for that we want to see how the psalms lead us to jesus or we could say where jesus is found in our psalm and he's not always found in the psalms the same way with every psalm and there are some wrong ways to try to find jesus in the psalms so we should be careful here again to use that example of where's waldo imagine if you said yeah i'm on the lookout for jesus in the psalms and so every time i see the word blood i'm going to know that's about him and the cross because of how the new testament talks about his blood well you would be mistaken about 90 or 100 of the time i don't know of a single spot in the psalms where blood means think about jesus and him shedding blood maybe psalm 22 which jesus quoted from the cross so here are some some better ways not the where's waldo way here are three ways that we can more naturally get to jesus from the psalms are there any new testament quotations or allusions to this psalm and here's where it's good to use your bible's cross references now here in my bible it's far too far away for you to be able to see it but you can probably make out that my bible has these references in the margin you see that yours may have them here and here or it may have them down here and your bible may not have them and if so don't throw away that bible but get a new one okay get one that has these references people who know the bible better than you do and better than i do have so i have seen that here in this psalm right here in this verse that's an allusion to matthew 23 47 let's say oh then you read it and you go yeah i see that's interesting matthew 23 47 for example is actually quoting my psalm that's significant that's that's a way in which this psalm gets to jesus and the bible is actually telling me how it gets to jesus i don't need to make something up i don't need to do where's waldo so here are some examples look in your notes psalm 110 is one of the most quoted psalms in the new testament and it's found very importantly in matthew 22 verse 45 as jesus interacts with his enemies and he says how is it that david could say to his lord who's david's lord that's not god who is that who's between king david and god whose lord jesus is inferring it's me stupid right or in acts 2 psalm 10 1 10 is used there psalm 2 is found in acts 2 and peter's famous pentecost speech or as i mentioned psalm 22 my god my god why have you forsaken me that's what jesus says from the cross ah so don't forget that when you're in psalm 22 right there's a natural way we get to jesus another way is through promise and fulfillment so god's promises of old get fulfilled later on in christ and we should know those promises that are sometimes temporarily or on a small level fulfilled in the old testament in other words promises of a king for god's people are partially fulfilled in king david and king solomon for a bit but then ultimately are fulfilled in jesus right that's promise fulfillment or sometimes the psalm a psalm is um asking god to do something and then we think about it oh wait he actually fully did that at the cross oh wait he'll finally do that when jesus returns again you see promise fulfillment or request and answer and you do better at that by the way the more you just get familiar with the bible there's just kind of no shortcut unless you're getting some good teaching and spending time in the bible and getting more familiar with some of its themes which relates to the third one typology typology so a type you can write this down a type is a person place or thing that develops across the storyline of the bible so i've already mentioned one under promise and fulfillment it applies here as well david and jesus jesus the son of david who fulfills the eternal promises given to david in 2nd samuel 7. david is a type of jesus but it's not just people who can be a type of jesus things can as well themes can as well so temple so you're reading in the psalms and it's talking about the temple let's not forget where that theme goes later on in god's plan eventually jesus says he's the temple his body's the temple destroy this temple and i'll raise it up on the third day eventually christians are the temple the holy spirit dwells within us first corinthians 6 we are his temple so know where those themes go their types sacrifices in the old testament are types the priesthood is a type all these things there are many more won't go into it in great detail now but those are types and we should be watching for those and how they develop from one half of our bible to the other side of it okay well let me stop and pray there just i'll say a word of blessing we'll take a a break i think janus will lead us in a song and then we'll do a break and um and then we'll keep moving through this material oh lord we thank you for your word or we we do want to know you and so we want to know the ways in which you have revealed yourself and we want to see better we want to see more we say with the psalmist of 119 open my eyes that i may see wondrous things from your law help us lord give us eyes to see give us ears to hear help us to understand your word better not so much as in a mere classroom but give us good student-like thinking before your face that we might see you meet with you and be changed by you and we pray in jesus name amen amen please stand with us let's respond to this teaching time and sing psalm 121. [Music] i lift up my eyes where does my help come i look to the mountain and hold from her to the skies my gaze only fights my keeper who made them [Music] he will guard your feet is [Music] the [Music] when you come and go [Music] forever [Music] all right at this time we're going to take a little break so if you need to use the bathroom or chat with each other it's so nice to see each other we're going to come back here in 10 minutes so mark the time and then we'll sing again and then we'll learn some more from ryan thank you so [Music] [Music] so [Music] but to you be glory for the sake of your steadfast love and for your faithfulness why should the nation say where is [Music] but to you we glowing for the sake of your steadfast love [Music] why should the nation say where is [Music] [Music] please [Music] is [Music] their idols are silver and gold made by human hands they have mouths but can't speak eyes but can't see they have ears but can't hear hands but can't feel feet but can walk throats but can't talk [Music] hands but can't feel and all those who make them [Music] please [Music] is [Music] please [Music] but to you be glory [Music] you are but we all chose [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] just [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] on earth [Music] [Music] jesus jesus jesus jesus [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] is jesus you read jesus you read jesus you reign forever jesus you read jesus you reign jesus you read forever [Music] [Laughter] heavenly [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] shall be thy guests who his feet to zion turning in thy holy heels shall rest he that without a fear when he speaks he speaks [Music] and love since [Music] he that slanders not his brother does no evil to a friend to reproaches of another he [Music] from refuses vows [Music] freely to the needy landing no access he asks again [Music] he desires not praise [Music] this [Music] [Music] please stand and sing with me we will feast in the house [Music] he is oh [Music] he has done great things and we [Music] afraid oh [Music] [Music] and we [Music] you are the faithful [Music] [Music] together [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he has done great things we will feast in the house of zion we will sing our hearts restart he has done great things we will say [Music] together we will [Music] be seated right hopefully you had a sufficient break and maybe uh some caffeine and uh let's continue to work our way through this material so we are in the middle of page three in your notes under this fourth lens the psalter lens what do i mean by the psalter sounds like a fancy word for psalms well it is except it reminds us that the psalms are one thing a psalter a whole book but they're also made up of five books so you might wanna is that in your notes five books if it's not maybe put that in parentheses next to the psalter lens there are five books that comprise our psalms these five books in the psalms have a a davidic messianic shape to them the organization of our psalms like they are comes out of the era of the babylonian captivity you know about that part in god's plan where israel was given a 70-year timeout from his presence from from the land from the temple from the sacrifices from at least the pilgrimages for the feasts in jerusalem they were in slavery in babylon with no king and for a time it seemed like god's purposes and his promises of old were at least on hold if not going backwards right now they weren't we know that god's sovereign god had redemptive purposes for the babylonian captivity but you have to realize what it would feel like for the average israelite to go through that it would be much harder than us going through covid it would be so hard i mean it would they would be detached from all these components of how israel's worship was to be done in the old covenant the temple the priesthood the sacrifices the king the land and so you can imagine why it's important that they would have some things to hold on to some things to remind themselves of and one of the ways that they sought to bolster their faith in the days of the babylonian captivity is through this subtle macro structure of the psalms they are not just randomly placed like the way you shuffle 52 cards in this case 150 cards of psalms they're not just randomly placed there's purpose there we want to see the purpose so if you look down in your notes you'll see that i've offered three to four questions under each of these five books and i want you to know that i don't plan to answer those questions directly so if you're a rigid note taker this is going to frustrate you you can use those questions later on and what i want to do is give you the tools so that later on you can go find this stuff for yourself and answer these questions so one option is just disregard the questions for now and write however notes whatever i say that you just want to write down right right alongside them or if you want to preserve those questions for later maybe write your handwritten notes on the last page that's blank that's an option now what we're going to see is basically these questions get covered but i don't want to answer them explicitly we want to ask of each of these books how does it begin how does it end what's unique about it and what is that book about again i want to show you that this organization of the book of psalms or the psalter is very purposeful and it has a very kingly or messianic purpose to it and it was especially useful in days of the babylonian captivity when when there was no king in israel and it seemed like god's purposes and plans were at least on hold if not worse now there are two passages that you should have in mind by way of background before we think about this organization of the psalms one is deuteronomy 17 just maybe write that reference down i won't read it but i'll summarize it in deuteronomy 17 god gives his prescription for what israel's king future king must be like he must be godly he must be humble and he must be a man of the bible and so he must write his own copy of the law and he must have it with him all the time and he must read it and study it and meditate on it daily in order to follow it god's king must be a bible man okay the other passage we should have in mind before we get to the psalms is 2nd samuel 7. that's the key passage for the davidic covenant god made a covenant with david not only that he would be king he already was king but that god would bless his kingship and his offspring so that there would be an eternal son of david on the throne forever and ever of course they kept dying and so you have this problem either there's going to be a eternal succession of human kings that keep dying and hence that's how second samuel 7 gets fulfilled or eventually one's going to come that is himself eternal and he's the last king he's the one that fulfills 2nd samuel 7. so 2nd samuel 7 is very important for the whole old testament it's very important for the purposes of the psalter all right now we're going to look in our bibles look at psalm 1 and 2. everyone agrees that psalm 1 and 2 are really a preface to the whole book of psalms what is psalm 1 about well the blessed man who is a bible man ring a bell he's a bible man he meditates on the word day and night now of course every one of god's people should be bible men and women who meditate on the word day and night and they would be like a tree etc but remember deuteronomy 17 this is especially important for israel's king he above all else must be a bible man and he will be blessed and by extension the people will be blessed we get that really in psalm 2. psalm 2 is about a king the king the lord's anointed and he will be blessed by god and he will be a blessing to all who give him homage all who bow before him and kiss the son and if you don't kiss the son if you don't give homage to this king god's son you'll be destroyed you'll be done away with so the world will oppose him but they will find their demise because of it so keep those two in mind those are really preface psalms which lead us into five books of the psalms to psalm 41 let's go there psalm 41 this is the end of book one we know that because our english bibles have book two really big in all caps right before psalm 42. now why did they put that there book two well it's not because there are old super old manuscripts that have that it's not like the original psalm authors all got together formed a committee and said where should we put book two i don't know how about between 41 and 42 and they voted on and that's where it went that's not how it went okay so there's a reason our editors have added book two here why okay the end of psalm 41 blessed be the lord the god of israel from everlasting to everlasting amen and amen now keep looking at psalm 41 verse 13 the last verse while i read to you the last verse of the next book of the psalms so this is psalm 72 verses 18 and 19. it says there blessed be the lord the god of israel verse 19 blessed be his glorious name forever sound familiar or listen to psalm 89 this is verse 52 the last verse of book three blessed be the lord forever amen and amen or how about the last verse of book four this is psalm 106 verse 48 blessed be the lord the god of israel from everlasting to everlasting these are mile markers the editors of our bibles were right to put these book markers in place because there's a poetic structural element to the macro structure of the whole book of psalms that repetition isn't exact but it's so close that you you can see it's got to be purposeful and again i'd like to show you that not only do each of these end in praise and a reference to what is eternal from everlasting to everlasting but again that there's this messianic intention and there's a kind of a chronological flow to how these books go so let me just tell you book one let's minus the preface of psalms one and two books book one is let's say psalm 3 to psalm 41. these are mostly written by david 90 are written by david that's significant they're davidic psalms and he is often opposed david is god's anointed and he is opposed these are the psalms where when we get a historical inscription at the top it's about those days where david is either before king or king but he's on the run he's in trouble it's you know when he had to feign madness it's it's when saul tried to kill him it's it's when absalom opposed him so in this first book here's what it's about god installs his king and though he is severely opposed he trusts his god book one book two psalms 42 to 72 think of these psalms as like a a passing of the royal baton let me show you why passing of the royal baton from david to his son solomon that's what i mean look at psalm 72 verse 20 the last verse the prayers of david the son of jesse are ended are ended wait a minute are you saying there are no more psalms written by david and the rest of the book of psalms no there are so that's interesting that's curious why does it say that they have ended well it's like they've ended it's it's in this chronological sequence it's like we've come to something like the end of david's life and what do we find when we look at let's see psalm 73 god is good to israel verse 1 to those who are pure in heart but as for me my feet had almost stumbled my steps had already slipped this psalm in this section psalm 73 to 89 are mostly about god's king whether that's david or solomon if book 2 showed us sort of a passing of the bataan from david to solomon now in book 3 we have god chastising his king for sin and really those chastisements have to do with both david's sin and solomon's later sin in this section book three psalms 73 and following we get the feeling that the exile is coming the babylonian captivity is coming you see look at 74 verse 3 direct your steps to the perpetual ruins the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary the temple so this is referring to the the destruction of the temple in jerusalem in those days which led into the babylonian captivity now this book book three is the darkest of them all this is where we find that psalm psalm 88 remember it's a lament psalm which doesn't what it doesn't turn it doesn't have a hopeful turn it doesn't move to resolve and praise or thanksgiving it just ends on a minor key that's fitting and then look at the last psalm of this book book three psalm 89 psalm 89 there is reminding god of his old promises to david look at verse 3 you have said i have made a covenant with my chosen one i've sworn to david my servant i will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations what is that what's it referring to the davidic covenant remember ii samuel 7 that key text god you said don't forget what about you see how you need to remind god not remind him like he's forgotten but it seems like he's forgotten you see how you need to say these kind of words when there is no king in israel when there is no throne in israel when there is no temple book three is dark then we come to book four and you can imagine this is actually representing the time of the exile okay but notice psalm 90 this begins book four psalm 90 who writes psalm 90 a prayer of moses moses what's moses doing here ryan i thought you said this was going in chronological order it kind of is and it kind of isn't you see in days of babylonian captivity you're going to need to remind yourself of the days of old you've got to get back to basics get back to the beginning let's hear from moses in days when you find yourself exiled from your promised land you need moses telling you of all people psalm 90 verse 1 lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations you see how relevant that is for a displaced israel lord you've been our dwelling place in all generations let's hear it from the guy who didn't even get there but led the people in he knew the land was important but it's not everything the lord is our dwelling place oh how they need to hear that in days of exile oh how they need the refrain that you find in the 90s do you remember we did not too long ago as a church a series through the psalms in the 90s and what's the refrain in the psalms of the 90s the lord reigns over and over it just keeps saying the lord reigns it takes them back to creation the lord reigns in creation the lord reigns over all the inhabitants of the earth the lord reigns over his enemies the lord reigns over his people you need to hear that and sing that in days of exile when it feels like the babylonian king is the most powerful thing in the land then glance at 106 psalm 106 verse 47 here we find a prayer for the exile to end save us o lord our god gather us from among the nations the foreign nations that we may give thanks to your holy name in glory in your praise and then one more verse of that classic ending of a book book four well psalm 107 sort of picks up where that prayer request left off again psalm 106 verse 47 lord please bring us back home psalm 107 oh give thanks to the lord for he is good his steadfast love endures forever let the redeemed of the lord say so he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south and the rest of the psalms about that he gathered us in the journey in was crazy and he protected us psalm 107 has been called the pilgrims psalm because it was used and quoted so much on the mayflower and uh and celebrated once the pilgrims arrived on this land it's rightly called the pilgrims psalm uh it does it's reminiscent of a lot of what they went through but obviously it wasn't written for american pilgrims no in the historical context it's a celebration of israel returning to jerusalem god answering prayer the exile coming to an end give thanks and so here we are in this this last book book five psalms 107 to 150 and now the the mood is up here here's the here's the brightest of all the books here's the happiest of all of them these psalms highlight god's answers to prayer and him hearing the cries of his people and fulfilling them in many of these psalms in book five are written by surprise surprise david wait why david ryan you said this is kind of going in some chronological order now we're back to david i thought we saw david psalms come to an end it's like the king is revived it's like the king it's not david it's like the king is back on his throne the king is now singing his praises just like it was meant to be it's in these psalms that you have psalms of a sense psalms 120 and 130 to 134 these psalms of ascents were were used when they first came home from babylon on that very long journey to jerusalem they sang those songs the songs about going up to jerusalem and celebrating what's ahead and they were used after that after the return to jerusalem they were used yearly for the the pilgrimage to the feasts in jerusalem and they celebrated going into god's presence they celebrate all that god has done these are happy days and they really these psalms in this last book they culminate the last five psalms look at these 146 to 150 here's a crescendo of praise right at the end praise the lord let everything that has breath praise the lord i will praise the lord as long as i live it is good to sing praises to our god for the lord does this and that praise the lord praise the lord from the heavens praise the lord in the heights says 148 praise him angels praise him hosts let everything that has breath praise the lord let all instruments praise the lord let all nations praise the lord this is a crescendo of praise and there's no dark shadow in it you say well then what is this is this like heaven almost but it also reflects any high point in god's story of redemption like the coming of jesus like pentecost like well in a sense for the christian every day not that we don't experience trials enemies not that we don't need to use laments we do not that we don't confess sin we do but we remind ourselves of where the story has gone so here's how this relates to new testament christians today god fulfills and he did in the past he will in the future he fulfills all of his promises even when it seems like he won't even when it seems like he might not we trust him he did it he will do it so for the christian we can say the same way the book of psalms tells a story of god putting his anointed on his throne to rule forever and ever though opposed he will trust his god and he will remain on the throne that's book one god will see to it that this throne will last forever and ever that's book two book three god he chastises his king especially david not not the second david jesus who needed no chastisement but god will preserve the throne even if he must chastise a david a solomon whomever god's people are awaiting people sometimes they themselves are under discipline like in the days of exile that's book four but god is still king we can say lord still bring it to pass we know you're not done you did it in old days you'll do it again today and then we come to book five and we say hallelujah he answers prayer he hears us he has brought to pass that which his people have forever been waiting he will fulfill his promises he will bless his people so look at psalm 144 we're here now at the end of the psalter the theme of blessed returns 144 verse 15 blessed are the people to whom such blessed the blessings fall blessed are the people and then in 146 verse 5 blessed is he whose help is the god of jacob blessed blessed is the man who follows the bible blessed is the man who honors the true king god's son blessed are the people who are under him blessed are those who have this god who fulfills his promises he's faithful to do it so there is a davidic messianic shape to the book of psalms as a whole we should know when we're in any one psalm we should know what book it's in we should know what that book is primarily about and how it relates to the books that may have come before or those who come after does that make sense now remember the devotional lens that we were familiar with we'll get to that it's very easy to just think this psalm is for me this psalm is about me this psalm speaks to my needs now it does but hold on be patient drop the historical lens and the literary lens in the christological lens and then do this work honestly this is hard going isn't it this is thick stuff drop the psalter lens at first your eyes will need to adjust you'll need to remember wait what's that thing that ryan told us about or maybe you've read in a book someplace else and heard it better told there but yeah the books there are books of the psalms and that matters and where am i and and should i be looking for oh wait this is the end of a book but the next book the tone changes something's different okay this is one way in which we read the psalms it's one of our lenses but there's more there's the fifth lens the corporate worship lens i won't take too long on this we actually have other saturday seminars that we've done on these kinds of things we have saturday seminars that we've done in the psalms before that you could look if you want to dig deeper than what i've covered today or at least to hear some a lot of overlap but we also have done some saturday seminars on corporate worship specifically what's happening on a sunday morning what are we as god's people to do what does the bible tell us to do in our corporate worship but i just want to point this out briefly that we should read the psalms with a corporate worship lens because we have the tendency to personalize the psalms and directly apply them to me and my problems right now when reading them alone we can tend to miss that they're corporate they're so often corporate the language so often isn't me me me me me and just you you you you it's us these are corporate worship songs and so these psalms should you see in your notes should be guiding our corporate worship today we should go to the psalms for our confessions they should not only guide our corporate worship but they should fill our corporate worship it's not that we can't write good fresh new songs today no we do that in our church there's a there's a whole club of songwriting that goes on and i love it but we also sing psalms these old historic well inspired songs of old they're special they guide our corporate worship they fill our corporate worship they show us principles like revelation and response where god reveals and then we respond he speaks and then we speak to him it's not always in that same order in every psalm sometimes the psalmist speaks about his problem but then ties it to what god has revealed in his word elsewhere and then speaks more but there's a general principle of just god reveals that's the basis for which we can respond to him and really we're not coming to him with our great ideas about how he should be worshipped and what he's like he's revealed that to us and in light of that we go to him revelation in response is something we should look for in the psalms and should be reflected in our corporate worship on sundays we should also notice the diversity of emotions that are in the psalms and that should be reflected in our corporate worship on sundays carl truman he's a professor and author and you can google something and find it on the web it's an essay he wrote years ago and it's just called what can miserable christians sing what can miserable christians sing now you go to some churches and that's a hard question to ask of what goes on in their service what can miserable christians sing do you have anything here for miserable christians you know some some churches it seems like the ethos is such that if you don't show up on cloud nine you've missed it and you're not you're you're not a christian or something and well that's just not life and it would be great if we could all get there by the end of the service but we don't need to necessarily always come in like that at the beginning of the service that's what we see in the psalms right we see heaviness you see psalms that begin with problems lament so there's a diversity of emotion in the psalms and you might say yeah i've got no problem with the lament part i i'm i'm the minor key kind of person i i wear a lot of black i do poetry uh i like that i get that that's why i'm at this church because every now and then you guys you know it begins heavy it's dark you're not afraid of minor keys here yeah don't forget the psalms have a diversity of emotions and sometimes they they just peg it really high it gets really lofty it gets really passionate and here's where the psalms can direct our corporate worship they direct us to have hearts that overflow with thankfulness to god with hands that are raised not because that's what worship looks like that's what we're supposed to do but because our hearts are full our minds are full and then our hearts are full and then our bodies somehow actually get full of this truth and passion and it's almost like it needs to escape it needs to get out it needs to be reflected outwardly because of what's happening inwardly that's what we find in the psalms and that's what should be reflected at times in our corporate worship well i could say so much more about the corporate worship lens but but do use it don't forget about it don't merely personalize the psalms do personalize them but hold off especially when it is a corporate psalm note the corporate nature of it and think of the corporate implications that that psalm has for us for our church for our corporate worship and then now we come to that most familiar of these lenses let's drop down now the devotional or personal lens the one we're more familiar with where this is how it goes i said at the beginning we kind of read until something blesses us well now that we've dropped down these five previous lenses we're not doing that kind of reading anymore are we we're not sort of tuning out until we can't not tune out and something blesses our socks off and we have to really tune in but we've been tuning in and tuning in we've been watching the contours of words and phrases and how poetry works and how this fits in god's redemptive plan and how this leads us to christ and how it shows us again the gospel and now i'm ready to take little bits at a time not out of context in context but to take little bits and chew on them meditate on them marvel at them we're looking for god to speak yes we're also looking for our words to say back to him which the psalms are so helpful in we're looking for words to say so we pray the psalms at times as a whole what we're doing in this whole process even though it took head work student work noticing drawing making connections underlining maybe color coding so we do this work we're also wanting to hear from god we're wanting to commune with god we want it to be what the reformers called corumdeo before the face of god so we want to not lay our brains aside but we also don't want to merely think it's an intellectual exercise and it stops there it's an intellectual exercise that leads us to the face of god this is done before the face of god quorum deo so let me put these together now this isn't in your notes i want to show you how you lose use rather all these lenses you identify the type you ask what type of psalm is this does it utilize multiple types okay that's important and how does this type usually go and then we use these lenses and here i'm going to suggest certain questions that we would ask of any one psalm that's put before us these questions again aren't in your notes and i think you're going to be tempted to write them down because this is sort of putting everything we've done this morning to work you're going to say that's it that's what i came for that's the that's the real useful stuff so you're going to be tempted to write these down but don't so what i ask brandy to do is to email you these questions later so you'll get them don't worry and you don't have to write them down now just listen so we come to the psalms apply the historical lens and ask is the author identified here is that significant is there a historical context to keep in mind we get some clarity if we ask those kind of questions and then we apply the literary lens and we ask is there a repetition of words and phrases and concepts if so we should note where they fall are there word pictures here do i know what these word pictures mean if i spotted them all okay hebrew poetry with this literary lens i'm asking okay what are the parts what are the parts what kind of parallelism is being used in these lines in these trophies in these stanzas is there something like inclusion or a chiastic micro or macro structure to this psalm that will help me identify what it's about and what it emphasizes does the mood of this psalm shift if so how what's it mean and then i'm going to apply the christological lens to this psalm i'm going to ask myself how does this psalm relate to the new testament how does this psalm get to christ where is jesus in this psalm does the new testament quote or allude to this psalm let me start by checking the margins of my bible for cross-references are there promises referred to in this psalm or requests that are made by the psalmist that get fulfilled later on and especially in the new testament with jesus i should note that are there people places or things in this psalm that the new testament picks up on and develops and fulfills like the way a shadow previews the substance of a thing are there shadows of christ in this psalm and then i drop down the the psalter lens again this is one of the more complicated i know that but okay gird up my loins i'm going to do it in which book of the five is this psalm found that's easy i can look in my bible it might take me a few pages to find the next book i found what book this is what is the overall tone and purpose of this book of the psalter that maybe i haven't even memorized yet but i'll go back in my notes and look and then does that have any interpretive significance for my specific psalm knowing what book it's in and what book what this book is about and then i drop down the corporate worship lens and i ask myself how does this psalm inform our church's corporate worship in what principles of worship does it exhibit and how does this psalm teach me personally to worship god with my brothers and sisters on sunday morning better and more thoughtfully and more carefully than i do and then and then i'm i'm in a much safer ground now to drop down this devotional lens and say what does this mean for me what does this mean for today what does this mean for tomorrow and so i asked these questions what does this psalm show me about my god what does this psalm show me about myself what sin does this psalm confront what example do i find that i need to follow how does god's grace and goodness comfort me specifically from this psalm in light of god's grace what do i need to do what do i need to change what do i need to pray for what do i need to seek and what can i pray back to god borrowing the words of the inspired authors that we find here in this majestic book of prayer songs right in the middle of our bibles well that's what i want to ask myself i want to do that more of in the psalms myself as much as the lord would give us life before he comes back let's pray oh lord we thank you for this grand book this anatomy of the soul we thank you for these songs and for the diversity of them and for your grand purposes reflected in these psalms and uh lord i ask for your help for us all especially for these ladies here i ask for your help for them to go to your word with great faith and joy in eagerness and expectation in humility but also desire to see desire to know to know the god within these pages we thank you again for your word and for each other and for jesus our savior we pray in his name amen amen please stand with us we're going to sing one more time this morning we have a new song for you this morning from psalm 42 so we'd ask you to please meditate on these truths with us whenever you feel comfortable please join us in singing [Music] as the deer pants for the flowing streams my soul thirsts for you god yet my food has been unceasing tears my foes ask where you are still oppressed [Music] near to you oh my soul [Music] his grace i remember days filled with your praise how you brought me in great joy now i need your truth to lie [Music] god of light please hear my prayer [Music] oh [Music] again when my soul is troubled what can i say father not my will but have your way foreign [Music] when your ways come crashing over me though i face loss and grief i will cling to christ who brought my peace [Music] keep me [Music] oh [Music] his praise [Music] i make us [Music] you can be seated forgot to take that off um you have 10 minutes to take a quick break run to the restroom you have about five minutes left to send your questions in you can text the number that will pop up on the screen there you go um send them in and then we'll come back in and ask our questions for ryan and i just want to thank natalie and jana so much for leaving us in worship [Applause] may the god of jacob protect you and remember salvation is from we trust we trust in the name we trust in the name of the lord we trust god [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm meditation day [Music] he is [Music] by the streams of living waters [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] is of [Music] um oh there is no salvation in your god oh lord i cried out to you and you answered me from your holy there is salvation in your god salvation belongs to you [Music] salvation to you i lay down and slept and i rose again for you kept me i will not be afraid of thousands who have said against i will not be afraid of thousands who have said against me for there is salvation for there is salvation in our god foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] huge i couldn't use those yeah okay ladies we are going to come back together really quickly we got some good questions from all of you so thank you for sending those in give you a second to gather in and get yourselves organized so okay let's get started so these first few are more on the psalms as a whole the book of psalms um do we know where some of these psalms um or were some of them written during the exile or just compiled and arranged during that time frame yeah probably uh they're older than that as far as the authorship we just don't know we don't know without you know having david's name at the top we know where that came from what era at least but we just don't know but what we want to emphasize is the the construction of the assembly of those psalms is tied specifically to the babylonian captivity okay yeah um do we know who might have compiled those psalms in that order no yeah unknown lots of unknowns those are great questions i wish we had the answers to those yeah the lord yeah exactly um i thought this was an interesting question i've never heard anything about this but we know there are sometimes gospels that are brought to bear or to um you know gospel of thomas or whatever false false ones that are tried to add to the canon are there any songs that people have tried to say are canonical that are not i don't think that's really debated i do think you could probably find some ancient hebrew songs that feel very psalm-like but the manuscripts are pretty good on what we should have in our old testament especially since the discovery of the manuscripts and the qumran caves back in 1950s or so ever since then we've got a really good grasp on what the old testament can and should should be apart from the debated books that like roman catholics would believe in what we call the apocrypha okay those old additional old testament books that we don't have in ours but apart from that no so i don't know of any psalms that people are trying to put into our bibles like some would think that the gospel of thomas is a good source and an accurate account of jesus yeah okay um so when you're reading the psalms especially if you i think maybe unfamiliar but even if you've read them multiple times is it better to start in psalm 1 and read all the way through kind of keeping in mind those lenses that you mentioned or is it okay to skip around some i think there wouldn't be any harm necessarily in skipping around the benefit of reading in order that they're in our bibles is that we'll notice like a psalm one two one and two connection um if you're in psalm one and then in 36 and then a 58 and then sometime later you're back to psalm 2 you may might by then forget that psalm 1 and 2 go together and that's pretty important for reading the whole book of psalms so there's that and then just like we've noted that there are um you start to feel a certain mood about a certain book of the psalms um and that's okay it's good to note that it's good to note that book two and well book one and two are heavy with lament and there's a reason for it in the construction of the whole psalter it's telling a story of david and his people opposed but trusting god and waiting more so i think nothing wrong with it you know if you do uh psalm of the day that is still in order that's a great way to read the psalms the psalm of the day so i'd encourage i think reading in order if at all possible okay um so there are a lot of lenses there are six lenses that you gave us i did have others that i didn't suggest right yeah thank you for that um is it ever okay to only look at a psalm through one or two lenses yeah it is in let's be honest um if you're you've got 10 minutes before the kids get out of school and you're in the the line to pick them up you've got 10 minutes that's what you got so this isn't bible study meditation make sure i go through all my lenses etc there's nothing wrong with pulling out psalm 15 and reading it and being blessed by it there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with that i'd rather people have more bible than less so no there's nothing wrong with uh even one lens if that's all you have time for and that's all you ever do though i think many of us do that many of us we we only read devotionally and only read looking for blessing verses or something something that stands out to me something that i think i need or maybe even worse is i've got a dilemma i have to make a decision i'm going to read the bible until i feel like god tells me what to do the bible wasn't that's that's like the magic eight ball the bible wasn't made to do that um so use the bible the way it's given to us and where you have the time to look at the bible through these various lenses you will get more clarity and i think um the devotional payoff is greater right so that's why we stacked them like we did and that's why devotion personal uh lens why that was last because it's where we tend to go first and not that we shouldn't get there but boy it's just the bible is all the more bright and clear when we've noticed these little details so yes use one lens or use no lenses and just read psalm 5. we used to read um psalm 3 and psalm 4 or psalm 4 and some five one is uh four and five so psalm four is a morning psalm psalm five is a evening psalm one of them is i will lay down and sleep and we sl we read that every night before the kids went to bed the bible tells you i will lay down and sleep good night so um yeah so go to one psalm read it benefit from it um but where you can use multiple lenses i think you'll see more clarity and i think it'll have in the long run a better effect yeah that's helpful that goes along with another question that was asked so when you're using these lenses particularly in the beginning when you're looking at symbolism and parallelism and those sorts of things and we can tend to be very much in our head and and there's a lot of thinking and head knowledge going on and how do we um keep ourselves moving towards the heart without only addressing the heart and you've already started touching on that but you have any other thoughts yeah i think psalm 119 is a great model for us so praying before we start lord open my eyes that i may see wondrous things from your law praying while we study as we're asking questions of the text asking god to show us is a good thing that that makes the whole process a process of of communion it's an exercise of communion before the lord um so i i tend to avoid thinking in terms of i'm going to do the head work and that's compartmentalized over here and my heart shall not be affected that's for later hold on heart don't be affected yet that's silly right so it's it's this it's this play it's this dance with the scriptures it's dance between head and heart i'm i'm looking i'm asking questions i'm searching and then bringing it before the lord then standing in awe then wanting to see more so rather than think of it in terms of this mechanical thing do the head work then the heart work will happen or something just think in terms of mingling mingling you're just you're bouncing to and fro but as far as what the psalm is about i think we're safer to see what it actually is about if we suspend judgment so i talk about a patient reading of scripture i think to do what we're talking about it means you know being still and knowing he's god it means you take more than just five minutes at the line to pick up the kids to read your bible for the day it means you you have some time to soak in it a bit and uh and give attention to it to notice things that that are they that are there so it's a patient reading of god's word it means maybe suspending judgment about what i think it's about until i can see a little more clearly what i know it's about um should we think of worship whenever we're reading the psalm should that be our main thought so um that that corporate worship idea was one of our lenses but i think the question is whenever you're reading a psalm are you always thinking worship first that it's about worship that i should be your main theme if i'm reading this well yeah there are a number of ways maybe to read that or to understand what that person's asking and and um so again we can think of the worshipful exercise that's taking place as i commune with the lord in his word psalm 119 is a great example of that again we can also think of what's the outcome so you know afterwards will there be change we we tend to think of worship as just like awe of god or praise to him or perhaps even song worship is also consecration and giving myself over the lord and desiring to walk in his ways more faithfully we think of the new testament paul says uh you know our bodies are living sacrifices so now worship is everything worship is everything we do it's it's life so one way of answering that question is yes we're reading the bible in order to worship the lord in the variety of ways that god's word calls us to worship him whether that's in song and prayer in devotion in consecration or even repentance or gospel dependence i think all that's worship so okay i can ramble on that for a while but i'll no that's that's great thanks um okay psalm 119 which you just brought up a few minutes ago um does the structure have any significance besides the fact we know it's an acrostic poem is there anything else to that that would be helpful for us to know yeah so i preached through psalm 119 not that long ago we did 11 messages on the 22 sections so if you know how psalm 119 is structured it has eight verses per section and the heading is the letter of the hebrew alphabet sort of like the abcs of uh bible and prayer um before god so 22 sections i preached 11 messages because i became convinced i read this great article i forgot the author's name now um i became convinced that they go in pairs so olip and bait go together the first 16 verses actually are a section and they have they don't always work the same way so if you didn't if you weren't around for that series where we went through psalm 119 you'd have to listen to 11 weeks worth to get how those work all the way through because they don't work the same way every pair has different ways in which they're related but there's enough similarity in relationship between these two in these two and these two in these two all the way through that you begin to go oh okay that's that's structurally there so i think there is in emphasis or emphasis in each of these 11 sections our bible shows 22. but the literary way it works is i think they go in in pairs so but it's also it's also okay to notice the dizzying repetition of psalm 119 if you read through all 176 verses you just feel like it's all the same he's just saying the same stuff lord show me things in your word because life's hard show me things in your work like that's that's one way to summarize all of it and just keeps repeating and repeating yup you're not the first person to notice the repetition it is repetitive but that's part of the message as well like this is just life this is what you just keep doing you just keep bringing your problems before the lord and looking in the bible and asking god to show you wonderful things keep doing it so there's there's purpose in the repetition and if you need something to listen to now you know 11 weeks worth of psalm 119 um let's see can you um clarify a little bit more on climactic parallelism oh no i don't remember see i don't have those memorized uh isn't climactic parallelism where um the first line starts at the second line finishes the thought right it gives a reason psalm 29 ascribe to the lord ascribe to the lord for he is done wonderfully it's not that but it's something like that is that right yeah you guys took notes so you might know better than i did help us out okay so i was confusing the one before what is the one before synthetic so synthetic and climactic are pretty similar just know that i get them confused yeah remember simplify parallelism that's the best one somebody would like to know what is your favorite psalm and why uh i don't know i mean i've probably spent the most time in psalm 119 because i often go there before i read elsewhere it's often my kindling to get the fire started i need reminding of what i'm doing uh as i read god's word i need reminding that i need to pray before i read god's word and reminding that i need to bring my reading before the face of god not just just read and then at the end say what do i want to take away from this or what do i need to pray at the end so i need psalm 119 um often if not daily and i'm probably there the most okay um so you mentioned a little bit about imprecatory psalms but a question came in and i don't know what what the name would be for this type of psalm but when we hear the psalmist claiming innocence claiming blamelessness you have seen my righteousness i am pure how how are we meant to understand that it's tough um so we we should realize that the psalmist doesn't think himself to be a perfect person we know that there's almost no psalm that would hint at because i'm perfect bless me so this is relative righteousness and it's also in view of usually of enemies in their wicked opposition so imagine relative righteousness compared with the wickedness of the world as it opposes god and his people i think any and any of us in this room can pray like that we can say lord defend me not because i'm perfectly righteous but because i'm yours right i mean that's maybe one way we would paraphrase or modernize what those kind of psalms are actually saying lord i'm on your side they're not protect me hold them back i'm on your side lord so i think we we tend to over read into when it says you know i'm innocent or um without guilt or something like that or i'm the righteous you know we new testament especially reformation like people we know none is righteous no not one right we emphasize that pretty well but those psalms are talking about relative righteousness in light of wicked opposition to god and his people we can pray claiming simply lord i'm on your side help okay um let's see so this is a general question we had several come in about symbolism and you had mentioned for instance we wouldn't want to take blood and any time we see blood in the psalms all of a sudden take it to christ so what are maybe some ways that we can approach finding symbolism or types in the psalms and be a little bit more careful to kind of know what maybe is pointing to christ what isn't so the new testament would help us with what is a type and what isn't um that's those are the big ones those are capital t types of christ when when it actually says you know hebrews would be a great place to find where old testament themes get fulfilled in jesus so the tabernacle the priesthood melchizedek all those kind of things the writer of hebrews our covenant old covenant now new covenant the writer of hebrews is telling us how to read the old testament jesus is doing that as well in the gospels jesus is saying this is about me um so we we read the bible the way jesus taught us to read the bible but i don't think jesus gave us the assignment of being reckless in pretending he's like this shadowy character hidden in the old testament pages in some sort of secretive way like a code or something so we're looking for the big stuff to start with and then we're just asking okay you know remember those three things under that heading of a christological lens is it quoted or hinted at in the new testament the margins usually will tell you not always but usually that's a good start they probably have more insight than any of us in this room would have uh on our own thinking on our toes so use that and then then be looking for the the big things of types and how these themes from old testament to new testament play out and really if you want to grow in that and grow in it carefully so not just the where's waldo game and i see him everywhere but growing how the bible actually works like this from old testament to new testament as these themes develop well there's a whole section in our book note called biblical theology that's what that is biblical theology is doing theology according to the history of the bible and the development of these themes along big word longitudinal longitudinal lines as they're called just the the history of the bible and the way it develops so so if that's all new to you well again there's a saturday seminar for that as well it's called biblical theology i think we did six hours it's two saturdays on it and it was a long time ago that i did that but we also have books the book nook and those would help you think through okay how does that theme work from this side of the bible to that side of the bible with christ um the psalms mentioned zion a lot what or where both is zion good question zion is um the place and the people of god okay so sometimes zion is all the people sometimes zion is israel the nation sometimes zion is jerusalem sometimes zion is jerusalem the holy hill sometimes zion is the the the temple that kind of thing so just think the people in place of god in the old testament especially and then in the new testament talk about the way things develop you come to hebrews 12 and now you've come to the new zion right there the writer of hebrews contrasts how mount sinai shook but mount zion now in christ a spiritual mountain uh made up of god's people all over the world that doesn't shake it's unshaken you've come to a kingdom that cannot be shaken so that's zion yeah that's great okay last question there are a few others but most of them kind of played with things we've already talked about but this is this one is a little different um should or does the covenant of christ that we have on the other side of the cross affect our interpretation of psalms written in the period of the davidic covenant yeah it's great so we actually have more information now right jesus has come and we know what that looked like and what he said and how he led his apostles to teach the church about the significance of this new covenant so we have that information to pretend like we don't would to to be to read the bible in a way that jesus told us not to read it he told us to read it with him in mind so we know where it's going we have the new testament we use the new testament as a guide to interpret the old now sometimes the new testament writers will quote the old and point out that david knew this was the case david knew that he was saying more than people thought he was saying so that's there how what did they know back then what did the old testament authors know well we know from first peter 1 that they they wrote down about when messiah would come and what it would be like that the times etc of messiah but they didn't know the details they didn't know the times and seasons of when and how it would come to be they longed to look into these things and angels apparently were joining them and longing to look into these things wondering when messiah would come so that tells us that from first peter one we know the old testament authors knew something was coming so they're consciously writing about a messiah and an age to come but they don't know the details that you now know peter says right things that you have been told they longed to look into them things that they wrote down so to both end they knew some stuff uh even from their vantage point or you just if you go to the front end of the the new testament simeon and anna had been waiting at the temple waiting for the day when the messiah would come and they got to see him one day well that's a great example of kind of old testament saints who were looking for waiting for longing for messiah to come and then he did come so old testament saints they knew some stuff don't forget that however we know more now and it's okay to acknowledge that in fact you must so use the new testament to interpret the old testament and it's okay to say yeah i can actually see some things that that david couldn't see yet he didn't know how it was going to happen read the book of job again with this in mind the book of job is probably the earliest recorded book we have in our bibles the oldest book job knows a lot i mean he's hoping for the day when he stands with his redeemer for with eternity in view what what is that he's longing to have a mediator between god and man i mean it's got messiah written all over it and yet there's some things he just doesn't know about god's ways and we can actually say we know more now we can actually do more than job did at the end of job where he just put his hand over his face and said i'm done talking you're god and i'm not that was a great conclusion for him to make in those days more has happened since then so god's people can say yes your god i'm not and jesus came and died on the cross and was raised on high and now rules on high forevermore and romans 8 28 we know that all things work together for good for those who love him so yeah don't don't be shy about the fact that as we read old testament stories we read them with the more of the bible the rest of the bible that came after that brings great clarity to what came before that's great thanks okay so finally not a question but a request would you pray for our ladies as we close that they leave ready to read and study your words whether they join us in bible study or study on their own would you pray over them yeah glad to let's pray our father we thank you for the church that jesus shed his blood for we thank you for this specific church and for the bind the fellowship the the sweetness that exists between us even among those who haven't yet got to know each other too well lord we pray that you would make our fellowship a bible knit fellowship as you knit us together we pray we would be a people who love your word and seek it together and talk about it and apply it and help each other live it out i pray for these ladies lord whether they are in this next round of bible study in the psalms or just perhaps enjoying psalms on their own in days ahead lord we pray you'd give us clarity we pray you'd grow us in understanding your word we pray lord that we would commune with you we pray that these ladies would long for the milk of your word that they might be fed by it we pray lord that you would show these ladies in our whole church lord more glorious things from your word in this next year we trust you for that we thank you for your great promises thank you for the end that is sure and we pray to give us faith and endurance in the meantime for jesus sake amen amen well thank you ladies for coming we appreciate your time we hope that it was a blessing to you we'll continue to pray for you and as ryan said i will indeed email you that list of questions um i won't forget i promise um so again thank you and enjoy the rest of your day god bless [Music]

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Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: i_6nqnoBtSw

Length: 183min 5sec (10985 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021