Psalms

Review: Answering God

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image for "Answering God" by Eugene H. Peterson

Answering God

Answering God, Eugene H. Peterson. Harper One (ISBN: 9780060665128) 1991.

Summary: Contends that the Psalms, explored here, are necessary instruction in prayer, understood as answering the God who addresses us.

It is not uncommon, when the questioned “How do I pray?” to say something like, “Just talk to God, expressing honestly what is on your heart.” Eugene H. Peterson, while not saying this is wrong, believes there is a lot more to prayer and praying. First of all, he proposes that praying is a tool. He believes that it is at the center of our being human. More than that, he proposes that prayer is a tool by which God works his will in us and by which we collaborate with that work. For Peterson, the Psalms are our necessary toolbox to train us in how to pray. So it has been throughout church history.

Peterson makes one more startling claim. We think prayer is about talking to God. Rather, he believes the Psalms are about answering God. Instead of our seeking God, God comes to us and speaks amidst our sin, our despair, or even our gratitude. The Psalms coach us in answering God, leading us into true conversation with God.

Before taking us through several Psalms that answer God in various ways, Peterson addresses some basic realities about the Psalms. They are not only texts, they are prayers written as poetry. As such, they take us into the depths of both God and ourselves, giving voice to the inchoate. They are not primarily about understanding ourselves. Rather, they are about addressing the one God who has everything to do with our lives. Furthermore, they are embedded in a canon of sixty-six books, part of a larger story of the People of God. Finally, although we often pray on our own, these are prayers of a community. When we pray these, we are praying with others, across the world and across the centuries.

Peterson begins at the beginning, with the “pre-prayers” of Psalms 1 and 2. Psalm 1 emphasizes meditation on Torah as the roots of our life, our prayers. Psalm 2 then leads us into adoration of the Lord and his Anointed, his Messiah, contrasted with the rulers of this world. Then as he unfolds Psalm 3, Peterson focuses on language. He contends language takes three forms, I being the language of intimacy and relationship, II the language of information, and III, the language of motivation. The Psalms are about Language I. Psalm 3 illustrates this with its cry against enemies, its expression of trust, its cry for salvation. No abstractions here but rather the language of urgent and intimate relationship.

In the following chapter, Peterson reminds us of how Psalms are set in a story–the David story, the bigger story of Israel, and ultimately a story of which we are a part. Both poetry and life have rhythms. Peterson observes for us the rhythms of evening and morning in Psalms 4 and 5. Psalm 4 begins the day in the evening and our rest in God’s care, followed by Psalm 5, with our rising in the morning to God’s work for us in the day. Then Peterson jumps to Psalm 18, observing how God teaches us to pray by metaphor. God is strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn, and stronghold. Prayer is not gnostic. God is described but not idolized in material terms, not in spiritual abstractions.

As noted earlier, the Psalms imply a praying community. Peterson notes the liturgical notations in many Psalms. When we pray in community, we recognize that the one who summoned us is in charge. The Psalms are liturgy, but this hardly means bland as we speak the sharp-edged expressions of desperation, repentance, longing, and wonder. Then Peterson turns to the most sharp-edged psalm many of us would excise if we could, Psalm 137, with its dashing of little ones against rocks. The focus is on enemies, and Peterson argues we need to pray our hatred of our enemies before we get to the place of loving them. So this is a Psalm we desperately need.

The Psalms are about memory. We remember our creation, our implication in sin, the country of salvation. Hence, the Psalms give coherence to the disparate aspects of our lives. Finally, the Psalms end in an effusion of praise. We are thus reminded that the end of prayer, the end of life, and indeed, our destiny is the praise of God.

Thus, Peterson sums up the Psalms in ten words: Text, Way, Language, Story, Rhythm, Metaphor, Liturgy, Enemies, Memory, and End. I found that in the concision of these words and the chapters a clear scaffold on which to hang my praying of the Psalms. Peterson not only makes sense of the Psalms without a psalm-by-psalm commentary. He also gives us a primer on Christian prayer, both its purpose, and our primary instructional text. And in introducing the Psalms as the church’s prayer book, he invites us to rise from our merely personal and often idiosyncratic prayers, to pray with both ancient Israel and the church across the centuries.

Review: The Message of the Psalms

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Message of the Psalms" by Walter Brueggemann

The Message of the Psalms

The Message of the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann. Augsburg Fortress. (ISBN: 9780806621203) 1985.

Summary: Provides a framework of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation as a rubric for reading the Psalms.

A number of studies of the Psalms focus on particular genres to classify the Psalms. For example, they identify psalms of praise, of lament, or kingship psalms and others. They identify the format of each of these psalms. Walter Brueggemann does something very different in this work. He identifies three broad categories with five or six subtypes each. The categories are psalms of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. They trace a movement from a sense of well-being rooted in creation and reflected in a stable sense of God’s provision, to seasons of anguish, suffering, loss and God’s “distance,” and finally in the emergence from despair into a transformed experience of God’s light on the other side of darkness.

For each of these categories, Brueggemann begins with a brief section explicating the category. Then, under each of the subcategories, Brueggemann walks us through representative Psalms. This is best read with the Psalms at hand, allowing you to follow Brueggemann’s explanations. This also helps you see the distinctive forms of each kind of psalm.

Psalms of Orientation include songs of creation, songs of Torah, wisdom psalms, songs or retribution, and occasions of well being. Then Psalms of Disorientation include personal laments, communal laments, two problem psalms (88, 109), two psalms where God is the speaker (50, 81), and a group of “seven psalms” (he focuses on 32, 51, 143, 130). He concludes Psalms of Disorientation with a “After the Deluge–Thou” on Psalms 49, 90, and 73. Finally, Psalms of New Orientation include personal and community thanksgiving, the once and future king, thanksgiving generalized to confidence, and hymns of praise.

Several emphases stood out to me. Firstly, he highlights lament at a time when this is absent in much of worship. Secondly, in the psalms where God speaks, he drives home the idea that when we fail to honor God (the first tablet of the commandments) we will also neglect the second tablet of our neighbor relations. Brueggemann roots his vision of justice in the proper fear of the Lord. Finally, he concludes his book by arguing that theodicy underlies this schema that shapes both our worship of God and our ordering of society (i.e. we cannot worship a God we claim is good and just and tolerate unjust evil in our society).

But the greatest strength of this work is that it traces an arc, or perhaps a spiral of spiritual life captured in the Psalms. Spiritual life is not static. We move from confident faith to anguished questions and doubts and hopefully emerge to a greater depth of love and trust. And we do this over and over again through our lives. Orientation, disorientation, and new orientation gives us a not only a rubric for the Psalms. It connects to and gives meaning to our experience of life.

Review: Answering the Psalmist’s Perplexity

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Answering the Psalmist's Perplexity" by James Hely Hutchinson

Answering the Psalmist’s Perplexity (New Studies in Biblical Theology Number 62), James Hely Hutchinson. IVP Academic/Apollos (ISBN: 9781514008867) 2024 (Apollos-IVP UK website).

Summary: How would God fulfill the promise of an everlasting Davidic throne when the kingship had ended in exile?

Psalm 89 poses an agonizing question. God had promised (Psalm 89:3-4):

You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
    I have sworn to David my servant,
‘I will establish your line forever
    and make your throne firm through all generations.

Yet with the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, the line of kings had ended and the throne had fallen (Psalm 89:38-39):

But you have rejected, you have spurned,
    you have been very angry with your anointed one.
You have renounced the covenant with your servant
    and have defiled his crown in the dust.

And so the psalmist asks (v. 46):

How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?
    How long will your wrath burn like fire?

This is the psalmist’s perplexity alluded to in the title of this work. How would God keep his covenant, when by exile it appeared null and void? The question is one set against the backdrop of prior covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and at Sinai. And there is the question of whether and how these covenants find fulfillment in the new covenant.

James Hely Hutchinson believes the Psalms have much to contribute to our understanding of a question that spans the whole of scripture. After laying out his approach, Hutchinson reviews the spectrum of covenant-relationships. This spans a continuum of seven positions from Westminster covenantalism to classic dispensationalism.

Then over three chapters, he elaborates how the Psalms reflect the covenant relationships. Chapter three covers Psalms 1-89, setting the stage for the perplexing conclusion of book three of the psalms in Psalm 89. He begins with Psalm 2, key, he believes, in setting a new covenant agenda. Chapter 4 then shows how Book four of the Psalms (90-106) provides building blocks to answer that complexity, particularly in envisioning the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant closely tied to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Chapter five shows how Book five (Psalms 107-150) reflects the outworking of the answer in the convergence of all the covenants and their fulfillment in the new covenant.

Hutchinson proceeds to consider the import of the law for the new-covenant believer. He argues for continuity without seeing the new covenant as a renewal of the Sinaitic legislation. From here he proceeds to summarize his argument and how the covenant relationships answer the Psalmist’s perplexity. He summarizes his argument in twenty-eight statements and evaluates the seven models from Chapter 2, concluding that progressive covenantalism most closely corresponds to his study of the Psalms. Five appendices expand on particular details in his study.

There were several aspects of the work I especially appreciated. One was looking at the Psalms through the ‘hinge point” of the question in Psalm 89. His discussion suggestion a structure to the psalter I had not previously seen. And his discussions of the transitions between books three, four, and five were especially interesting.

At the same time, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. spoke of “the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” In this case, I felt Hutchinson never got to a “simplicity on the other side of perplexity.” His discussion proceeds from one intertextual discussion to the next. The fact that he needed to summarize his argument in 28 statements that he distills into two abstractions (eschatological satisfaction and transcendent inauguration) suggests to me that he never quite got there. I suspect that all but the most acute readers will find the argument in this book difficult to track.

That’s unfortunate, because the big idea of new covenant fulfillment of the prior covenants offers so much in helping the reader of scripture grasp the big story. In this case, I felt we spent so much time looking at all the trees that it was difficult to glimpse the overstory of the whole forest. I hope this author will keep working on unpacking that story.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Treasuring the Psalms

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Treasuring the Psalms, Ian J. Vaillancourt. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: An orientation to both lay readers and churches to how to read and appropriate the Psalms, approaching them canonically, Christologically, and personally.

I will say flat out at the beginning of this review that this is one of the most helpful books for reading the Psalms that I have read. Ian Vaillancourt helps us to both understand the forest, making sense of the canonical form in which the Psalms come to us, and to appreciate the trees, the individual Psalms and how they bear on our lives and how they may be used in Christian worship as prayers of the church.

Vaillancourt begins by orienting us to two key words and three helpful insights. The first of the words is YHWH, translated as “The LORD.” Rather than the impersonal title, he commends using the untranslated name. The second word is hesed, used 130 times in the Psalms, often translated as “steadfast love” which emphasizes both the covenant and relational significance of the word. The three insights are that the Psalms are a book of praises–it’s Hebrew title, Tehillim, literally meaning “praises; that in the words of Luther, the Psalms are a “little Bible” encapsulating the whole of the teaching of scripture; and the Psalms, in the words of Calvin, are an “anatomy of the soul,” capturing the range of human emotion and the human condition.

The three sections of the book approach the Psalms canonically, Christologically, and personally. Canonically, the writer assumes there is intent in how the Psalms are organized as a whole. He urges that we pay attention to adjacent Psalms to see how they may relate thematically. Vaillancourt believes it important to read the superscriptions giving us hints about authors, genre, and context. He explores how Psalm 1 and 2 are “gateway” psalms, leading us into the whole book as the two lenses we use in reading the whole–the torah of YHWH and the anointed king of YHWH. He identifies themes for the five books: books one and two on the weeping king David, book three on exile, book four on YHWH’s rule even when the throne of David does not and book five of a new and better David.

The second part of the book considers what it means to read the psalms Christologically–how they point to Christ and gospel application. He teaches us to place the Psalms on a redemptive history timeline. We’re encouraged to look for promises fulfilled in Christ, typologies, direct prophecy (only Psalm 110) and typological prophecy. New Testament citations or allusions are an important clue and using a Bible that cross references to these is helpful. Before applying the Psalms directly and personally, Vaillancourt argues we need to apply them Christologically.

The third part, then considers how we apply the psalms directly in both personal and corporate settings. He believes imprecatory psalms may only be prayed against Satan and his forces, and that we don’t apply prophetic or typological material about Christ to ourselves. He offers detailed guidance on applying lament psalms of desperation, thanksgiving psalms of deliverance, and psalms of praise.

Vaillancourt illustrates his principles by detailed studies of representative psalms. While offering substantive material based on current biblical scholarship, he avoids deep dives into that scholarship. At places, he will offer brief excurses pointing to more extensive appendices that may be downloaded for free at the InterVarsity Press website for the book.

The author states in the conclusion that he has “written with the goal of equipping them [readers] to dig deeply in the bottomless gold (or treasure!) mine of the Psalms on their own. I believe he has succeeded in provided all the needed equipment and instructions for how to use it. Now, it is our turn to dig!

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Endless Grace

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Endless Grace: Prayers Inspired By The Psalms, Ryan Whitaker Smith & Dan Wilt. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2023.

Summary: Prayers in free verse inspired, psalm by psalm, from Psalm 76 to Psalm 150, responding with ideas from the whole of scripture as well as literature.

Endless Grace, covering Psalm 76 to Psalm 150 is the companion volume to Sheltering Mercy, prayerful responses to Psalm 1 to Psalm 75. This is a gem of devotional literature! What the writers have done is to render prayers of response for each of the psalms. These are not paraphrases. Rather, what the writers have done in free verse is to write prayers drawing upon the whole of scripture as well as references from literature and The Book of Common Prayer that connect to the themes of the psalm. Where they do so, they provide footnotes citing the relevant biblical or other text.

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 127. Here is Psalm 127 in The New International Version:

Psalm 127

A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain.
2 In vain you rise early
    and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
    for he grants sleep to[a] those he loves.

3 Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
    when they contend with their opponents in court.

Here is the rendering of Psalm 127 by the authors:

PSALM 127

LORD OF THIS HOUSE

------------
Who is our head and host?

Christ,
Lord of the Feast.

Who watches over us?

Christ,
our stronghold and refuge.

Who grants us peace?

Christ,
our Eternal Sabbath.

Who is the giver of life?

Christ, 
in whom all the families of the earth are blessed.

Who is King over this house?

Christ,
who loved us
and gave Himself up for us--
who call us His own.

The center justification of the verse reflects the format used throughout these psalms and, for this reader allowed meditative reflection on each phrase.

As evident in Psalm 127, the writers draw upon the full redemptive arc of the biblical material, praying these psalms through the eyes of Christ, or a Christ-centered perspective. Custom artwork throughout complements the text and the book is hardbound, allowing for many seasons of devotional use. I found this not only a way to read the Psalms with fresh eyes but to pray with fresh words.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Review: Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends (Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics #1), Carmen Joy Imes. Wichita, KS: TUMI Press, 2021.

Summary: A collection of readings for all the Psalms drawn from the writings of Augustine and other classic spiritual writers from Origen to Calvin.

This is the first of the Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics series to be released. The Sacred Roots Project, in cooperation with The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) and inspired by the brief but effective ministry of Samuel Morris, a Taylor University student, believes “fresh readings of Christian spiritual classics can lead Christian leaders into a deeper engagement with the God revealed in Scripture and into deeper relationships with one another” (p. 331). The larger dream is to equip a million Christian workers to serve the global poor and this series is driven by the premise that “leaders are readers.”

The bulk of the book is taken up with reflections on each Psalm by Augustine or another classic spiritual writer, with Augustine in the predominance. Each of the reflections are 1-2 pages in length except for a few in verse that may be up to 3-4 pages. Readers are encouraged to read the Psalm in their Bible, then the reflection, and then re-read the Psalm The readings are organized into eight chapters for groups going through this together, which means two or three readings over the day, sometimes leaving one with “make up” days. At the end of each chapter, five discussion questions are offered that concern Habitat, Head, Heart, Hand, and Habits according to an explanation in the resource section.

The readings usually focus in on a verse or several verses from the Psalm. Augustine and Calvin, it seemed to me stayed closest to the text. Mary Sidney Herbert’s verses offered paraphrases of the text, often accompanied with notes on archaisms and what they mean. Others often began with the text and brought in other insights from scripture and the spiritual life. One theme developed in many of the readings is epitomized in John Calvin’s observation on Psalm 4: “David testifies that although he may lack all other good things, the fatherly love of God is sufficient to compensate for the loss of them all.” Throughout we are reminded that God’s most precious gift to us is the gift of God’s self. Caesarius of Arles reminds us from Psalm 41 that “Confession is the very beginning of restoration to health.” Reflecting on Psalm 55, Augustine proposes that “Perhaps the reason your heart is troubled is because you have forgotten him in whom you have believed.” And as the Psalms come to a close, Augustine urges us from Psalm 148 to “Praise with your whole selves: that is, do not let your tongue and your voice alone praise God, but your conscience also, your life, your deeds.”

Reading through the Psalms using this book reminded me of what a gift both the Psalms and the great figures of the church are to us. The Psalms remind us of what matters, God and his word and give us words when we have sinned, are in a great need, beset by enemies, discouraged personally or for our people, and for exultation in God. The saints in these pages testify from the Psalms to the truth of what is written. What a powerful combination.

The reader should not conclude without reading through the resource section which includes an afterword, and explanation of the purpose of this series and a variety of ways to do “Psalm work” and “Soul work including a wonderful chart on what Psalms to pray for particular purposes. Other sections give us brief biographies of Augustine and friends, place them on a timeline, show the Psalms each appear in, and provide for each Psalm, the source of the reading–many available for free online. Resources for further reading are offered as well.

My sense is that this book is well designed for the devotional and discipleship purposes for which it is intended with carefully curated readings, discussion questions for groups, and supporting resources. I might also mention that this may be a good resource for those who regularly read the Psalms as they follow a lectionary set of readings through the year (the one I follow, for example has morning and evening readings that go through the Psalms every two months). Saints through history have found that the Psalms give them language to express their longings for God and the turmoil in their souls. In this book, we get to accompany a number of them as we read the Psalms with them and each other.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.