Psalms: The Missing Jewel in the Modern Church

^{Psalm 1:1} Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

While certain types of prayer and praise rate high with some, I believe that God is happy just to have us commune with him. That includes expressing our angst, our frustrations, our deep longings.

Today’s post includes some excerpts from an article by worship songwriter Graham Kendrick. For a better experience of these thoughts, you are encouraged to click the title below. The site is also a wealth of songs Graham has written.

Psalms – The missing Jewel of the Worshipping Church?

It was several decades ago that A. W. Tozer described worship as the ‘missing jewel of the evangelical church’. It was one of the messages that helped to fuel an embryonic worship movement that has since transformed the way millions worship across the world. I hope the late great man will forgive me for adapting his words for today to read: Psalms – the missing jewel of the worshipping church.

I have read them regularly, composed songs from them, and spontaneously sung them straight from the page for many years, but even so I think I am only just beginning to wake up to their immense power and significance. I love to open up a good commentary and learn about them from a scholar, but something remarkable starts to happen when I open up my mouth and wrap my lips, tongue and heart around the words and pray them aloud…

…One of the strongest arguments for using the Psalms is both simple and profound – it was what Jesus did. The Psalms were Jesus’ prayer book, songbook and meditation manual, and if he needed them how much more do we? …

Kendrick then explains the absence of The Psalms as owing to the current state of worship:

The vital place of the psalms to our spiritual ancestors is beyond question, so why are they sidelined today? There are many historical reasons I am sure, but one very contemporary one is that our media-intensive culture moulds us as spectators rather than participants, looking to screens, stages and platforms to be ‘done to’ and spoon-fed experience rather than learning how to nourish our own spiritual lives. In this atmosphere many Christians have become ‘event-dependant’ and have little idea how to sustain themselves between ‘fixes’. Those who have the job of providing the ‘spectacle’ week by week become exhausted under the demands.

There are many songs today that give us an excellent language for expressing our personal love and thanks to God but the Psalms also give us a language for anger, for frustration that the world is not as it should be, for protesting against injustice and for lamenting the tragedies that we see around us, and a language of hope for the future. We need to rediscover some of this language in our worship today – that allows the Christian community to grieve, protest, lament, and anticipate God’s final victory…

But then he suggests one practical way we can experience the Psalms. In this section he quotes Eugene Peterson who references Isaiah 31; the word usage in the first section is important here:

⁴ This is what the Lord says to me:

“As a lion growls,
    a great lion over its prey—
and though a whole band of shepherds
    is called together against it,
it is not frightened by their shouts
    or disturbed by their clamor—
so the Lord Almighty will come down
    to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.

Kendrick writes:

How do we pray the psalms? One of the best ways is simply to read them out loud, but not in a detached, cerebral way. The book of Psalms begins with a promise that the person who meditates in the law of the Lord is like ‘a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.’ That is quite a promise. Meditation sounds like a purely mental activity, but according to Eugene Peterson:

“Meditate [hagah] is a bodily action; it involves murmuring and mumbling words, taking a kind of physical pleasure in making the sounds of the words, getting the feel of the meaning as the syllables are shaped by larynx and tongue and lips. Isaiah uses this word ‘meditate‘ for the sounds that a lion makes over its prey [Isaiah 31:4].” [Eugene Peterson, Answering God]

The Psalms spring to life when we engage with them physically – try it!

Again this is about half of the article; click the title to see it all.

Something more to think about:

Graham Kendrick concludes the full article with this observation:

Jonah’s Psalm-like prayer in the belly of the whale [Jonah 2:2-9] was not original, its component parts can be traced back to at least 10 sources in the Psalms. He had been to ‘Psalm-school’, worked out at ‘Psalm-gym’ and so in a moment of desperation, he had a vocabulary of prayer to draw upon.

 

Bible is Open for Enspection

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
 ~Joshua 1:8 NIV

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.
 ~Psalm 1:2 NASB

Often we tend to rush through the Bible like we’re in one of those free shopping sprees at the supermarket; trying to cover as much ground as possible in a short time; trying to stuff as many things as we can in our ‘cart.’ In the West, we place a huge value on information, accessing it, and then either digesting it, or in a manner that well describes our educational system, spitting it out in order to complete a Bible study objective or complete a reference form for Christian service with an organization.

But that’s not how the First Century Christians understood the scripture. Most of them probably didn’t have a copy of a scripture scroll at home, either; yet they understood the ways of God, the narratives, the truths, etc., in ways I think would amaze us who are so dependent on the Bible access we have through multiple copies at home, online services, and our smart phones.

The verse numbers probably don’t serve us well, either. We have relegated God’s Word to information bits.  As I wrote a few days ago at Thinking Out Loud, the number system can easily shift the emphasis or separate certain words from their context.

Texas Pastor B. J. Routledge is no stranger to us here at Christianity 201. Each week he blogs his key sermon texts to his church several days ahead, and then directs them to use the acronym ENSPEC to inspect the text!

E – Is there an EXAMPLE for me to follow?

N – Is there a NEW THOUGHT for me to consider about God?

S – Is there a SIN for me to confess and turn from?

P – Is there a PROMISE for me to claim?

E – Is there an ERROR for me to avoid?

C – Is there a COMMAND for me to obey?

His version of choice is the NASB, but he writes,

…I got so accustomed to reading the NASB, that years later I found myself skimming the Scripture at times because I’d read it so many times in that translation. Skimming the Scripture is never a wise choice.

I still default to the NASB, but I made a choice years ago to read the Scripture in a different translation every few years in my time alone with God.  This one choice has given new energy to my time in God’s Word because I have to SLOW DOWN as I read and really contemplate the passage again.  So, if you find yourself skimming the Scripture, intentionally slow down which may mean considering the idea of reading a different translation occasionally.

I am told that in ancient times, the Jews regarded Torah in the same way one would study a fine jewel. Imagine holding a valuable diamond in your hand — picture one perhaps slightly larger than usual — and turning it this way and that so that it reflects and refracts the light differently each time. Each slight turn brings new aspects and presents something not visible before.

In the past few years, we’ve seen people suggest different ways of slowing down for that study. Inductive Bible Study (see also below) is a method whereby you take time to use a series of markings to force yourself into a deep consideration of each word and phrase in a passage and how they relate to other words used in the translation of the same text.  Lectio Divina is a contemplative reading method that involves repetition of certain textual elements. Another is Gospel Contemplation or Ignatian (after Ignatius) Contemplation (see below for excerpt). Unfortunately, if people are not familiar with these methods, they are often viewed with suspicion.

At this point, it’s possible I’ve gone a bit further than Pastor Rutledge may have imagined, but I hope that this at least opens up your mind to other possibilities in your study of scripture.

I wanted to wrap up with one more Bible verse on the subject of needing to slow down, so I asked my wife for a suggestion. She responded, “I don’t know that hurry was a First Century sin; it’s one we’ve invented since.”

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(from the last link above)

In order to grow in this faith knowledge, Ignatius invited the retreatant to engage in a prayer method called contemplation. This is not some kind of mystical prayer but a prayer form in which one uses his or her senses in an imaginative way to reflect on a Gospel passage. One uses the senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling to make the Gospel scene real and alive.

Here is a way of engaging in this prayer form which is relaxing and rather easy.

1. Select a passage from one of the Gospels in which Jesus is interacting with others.
2. Recall what one is doing in engaging with the Word of God and what one desires from this encounter. God is present and because God is present one relies on God.
3. Read the Gospel passage twice so that the story and the details of the story become familiar.
4. Close one’s eyes and reconstruct the scene in one’s imagination. See what is going on and watch the men and women in the scene. What does Jesus look like? How do the others react to him? What are the people saying to one another? What emotions fill their words? Is Jesus touching someone? As one enters into the scene, sometimes there is the desire to be there. So a person can place oneself in the scene, perhaps as an observer, as one lining up for healing, or as one helping others to Jesus.
5. Some people’s imaginations are very active so they construct a movie-like scenario with a Gospel passage. Others will enter the scene with verbal imagination, reflecting on the scene and mulling over the actions. Vividness is not a criteria for the effectiveness of this kind of prayer. Engagement is and the result is a more interior knowledge of Jesus.
6. As one finishes this time of prayer, one should take a moment to speak person to person with Christ saying what comes from the heart.

From Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book © 2009 Marquette University Press. Used with permission.

 

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• For further reading, click here for other C201 posts by B. J. Rutledge

 

 

 

Five Reasons to Read the Bible

1. For the truth about God. The world gives us a multiplicity of meanings as to who God is and what He is all about.   The Bible gives us a proper standard for truth by which to test everything else we hear or read.  For the LORD gives wisdom;  from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path.  (Proverbs 2: 6, 9 NIV 2011)
2. To keep our thoughts focused. Living in the world, we think worldly things.   That can cut off our focus on God and our communication with him.   It’s a tug of war.   God’s word will draw us to Him even as the world tries to draw us away.   Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2 NLT)
3. Because we need direction. Just as our thoughts can be drawn away from God so our will and decision making can be drawn away from His best.   Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.  (II Tim 3: 16, 17 The Message)
4. As an act of obedience. If we love God, we will want to do the things that please Him.   He should keep it with him all the time and read from it every day of his life. Then he will learn to respect the Lord his God, and he will obey all the teachings and commands.  (Deut 17: 19 NCV)
5. As a weapon of our spiritual warfare. The Bible is described as the “sword of the Spirit.”   It can be used against the ideas that Satan confronts us with through others, or simply puts into our minds.   Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'”  (Matt 4:10 ESV)