What the Psalms Say About…: An Introduction

In the fall, I will be teaching a series on how the psalms address certain issues we face in today’s world. As of right now, I decided to call the series “What the psalms say about…” I would like to say a thing or two about the topics I would like to cover and the method I think I will be using to address the topics.

Some topics will address questions we face in our day-to-day life. How do the psalms address religious pluralism, and how should that inform our mindset when addressing those questions in our culture? What do the psalms  say about evil in the world? How does the psalmist bring his complaint to God? What do the psalms say about social justice? Why do the psalms seem to speak so little about that topic when it is so important to love your neighbor as yourself?

Some topics will address faith issues. What does the psalmist say about God in particular situations (e.g. praise, thankfulness, suffering, etc.). What do the psalms say about faith, and why is it important to place that faith in Yahweh? As an aside, the faith issue is actually an important hermeneutical key for understanding the psalms. What do the psalms say about prayer? Do the psalms inform us how to pray? Can we pray the imprecatory psalms?

These are broad topics that will be tough to handle without a serious study of one of the larger bodies of literature in the Bible. The psalms were written from a variety of perspectives and situations. For the most part, the perspectives and situations encapsulated by the psalms are not the same types that we face today – no psalm was written with the modern day issue of the problem of evil in mind. Some topics require many psalms while others may require one. Thirteen weeks is an impossible period to go into a lot of depth, so we will have strategic in what psalms we choose to teach which topic.

The main issue with reading the psalms is understanding how the psalms speak to us today. How different are we from what the psalmists? How we deal with the historical background, literary devices, subtitles, and canonical layout can all inform how we read the psalms. On top of that, the psalms require a specific kind of reader – a reader who places faith in the sovereign God. Our perspective and questions are not their perspective or questions exactly, yet the psalms were written for our benefit. We must continue to read the psalms. By reading the psalms we encounter the sovereign, covenant-keeping Creator who is also our friend. Through the psalms God transforms us. They transform the way we think about God and his world. They sanctify our minds and our actions. Through the Holy Spirit, they make us faithful members of God’s community.