What is your experience of the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible? Take a moment to reflect on the following:
- Which psalms most readily come to mind?
- What memories do you associate with those psalms?
- What people and places do you think of when you hear a psalm?
- What Christian hymns and songs extend the reach of a psalm?
- What psalms are referenced in classical or popular music?
- Which psalms do you return to in times of grief, anguish, rage, fear, or distress?
- Which psalms fill you with thoughts and feelings of peace, joy, and hope?
The collection of 150 psalms that we find at the centre of our Bibles was written and edited over several centuries. Many originated in oral tradition, and slowly grew to prominence in Hebrew piety and liturgy. We are the beneficiaries, along with our Jewish brothers and sisters, of a long spiritual and cultural tradition of sacred song and prayer.
The psalms reflect the everyday experience of those who first sang them, and wrote them down, and put the words to music. But the psalms also craft a conversation between earth and heaven, between humans and God, a conversation in which we too participate by tapping into the rich resources of the psalms in our prayers, our hymns and songs, and the yearning of our hearts and minds for God, for the infinite and incomprehensible Love at the centre of everything.
So many in our world today feel not just indifference but contempt for religious faith. Reading the psalms brings us all back to reality. The psalms ground us. Old Testament scholar Jerome Creach writes,
In a time when the church is struggling to speak authentically to the world around it, and when much prayer and devotion are shallow expressions of prosperity religion, the psalms are a breath of fresh air, an honest voice in the midst of so much inauthentic faith.[1]
The Book of Psalms as we have it is divided into five sections, symbolically – though not thematically – corresponding to the five Books of the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible). Each section ends with a passionate invitation to praise God (Pss 41:13; 72:18f; 89:52; 106:48; and all of Psalm 150).
Psalms also come in several genres. As well as “praise” psalms, there are “enthronement” psalms (e.g., Ps 93), “royal” psalms (e.g., Ps 2), “complaint” psalms (e.g., Ps 13; 88:1-7), and “wisdom” psalms (e.g., Pss 1, 37). We will take a brief look at the first psalm today.
Jewish and Christian people have used the Psalms for more than two millennia. Jesus knew and recited them. The “hymn” the first apprentices of Jesus sang at the end of the Last Supper (Mt 26:30) was probably drawn from the Hallel (Pss 113-118), traditionally sung by Jewish communities at Passover. Christians in every generation have found comfort, delight, and a voice for their heart experiences in the words of the Psalms. Today, as theologian Joel Kaminsky writes,
Churches that follow the common lectionary … will read or sing psalms each week, or even twice each day if daily services are observed. Other Christian groups may use psalms only in private reflection or occasionally in formal worship, perhaps reading portions of a psalm for special occasions or as prayers.[2]
In my personal experience with independent or nonconformist churches, the psalms were occasionally read aloud in public worship, but mostly they were used in private devotions and private prayer.
If you want to know more about Jesus, it’s probably a good idea to read one of the four Gospels (perhaps start with Mark’s Gospel). If you want to know how to live well and be more intentionally ethical in your daily life, read a chapter of Proverbs every day for a month. If you want to grow deeper in your knowledge of God, and of your self in relation to God, immerse yourself in the Book of Psalms.
Martin Luther, the German monk who became the key leader of the Reformation movement in the sixteenth century, said of the Psalms:
You may rightly call the Psalter a Bible in miniature, in which all things which are set forth more at length in the rest of the Scriptures are collected into a beautiful manual of wonderful and attractive brevity.[3]
The Swiss Reformer John Calvin described the Psalms as
an anatomy of all the parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men [and women] are wont to be agitated.[4]
The most common theme of the Psalms is the reign of God. The Psalms declare that there is a God, one who is eternal and all-powerful, yet relational and personal (e.g., Pss 47, 95). God created, sustains and rules the entire cosmos, yet he is also our king, shepherd, teacher, refuge, judge and healer.
In the Psalms, God speaks, and we hear God’s voice. We speak to God, and he hears us and answers our prayers. The Psalms model the warm trusting personal relationship that is possible between God and human persons (e.g., Pss 1:6; 27:1; 46:1; 91). Old Testament scholar Gerald H. Wilson writes, “Beyond being models for our own prayers, the psalms, when meditated upon, become texts in which God speaks to us in all parts of our being: body, soul, mind, and spirit.”[5]
But there are times when it’s hard to imagine that God is in control, that God is with us, or even aware of our existence and our prayers, our experience of injustice, our sense of feeling overwhelmed. Life grows tough, and uncertain, and dark. We observe people who live as enemies of God, and in opposition to the Way of Jesus, yet they seem to be blessed with prosperity, health and happiness.
The reflective, introspective “wisdom psalms” speak directly to the challenge of faithful living in a secular, materialistic, hedonistic world (e.g., Pss 1, 14, 37, 73, 91, 112, 119, 128).
Let me take you on a five-minute tour of Psalm 1, an exemplar of the wisdom psalm, and an ideal introduction to the Book of Psalms. Psalm 1 sketches the character of a person who pleases God, and a lifestyle that counts for God, and contrasts this with its opposite.
The psalm begins with a beatitude (cf Mt 5:3-11) – the psalmist imagines a happy person whose moral life brings a smile to God’s face. Verse 1 introduces us to this ideal person by sketching three moral opposites:
- “the wicked” – those whose actions attract a guilty verdict
- “sinners” – people with an inclination to wrongdoing
- “scoffers” – people whose lives are shaped by ungodliness
Don’t be like these people! Walk in the opposite direction! Live the other way, the way of godliness, the Way of Jesus.
Note the three corresponding verbs: walk, stand, sit. There’s a progression, a sense of growing intimacy with evil. Don’t live like that.
Note also the three nouns: advice/counsel, pathway, company. Don’t take moral advice from people of questionable ethics. Don’t follow their way of life. Don’t identify with them. If you do, they will drag you down with them.
Verse 2 offers a positive contrast: the godly person for whom Scripture is a delight, who welcomes advice from God’s word rather than from people of compromised faith or no faith (cf Joshua 1:7f). We do this by adopting a regular practice of reading the Bible, memorizing key texts, studying it in small groups, hearing it expounded in sermons, investing in biblical knowledge, understanding and wisdom, leading to transformation both personal and social.
This is part of the process I outlined in previous sermons, the experience of being with Jesus and becoming like him. It’s more than an intellectual understanding of reality: it’s a holy commitment to being good and doing right.
Verses 3 and 4 present two similes. First, the good person is like a tree, “planted” (that is, intentionally placed) beside a reliable water source, leading to a fruitful and sustainable future. Reliance on the “flowing streams” of Scripture leads to productiveness and longevity, blessing and purpose. Trees clustered together form an oasis, a place of life, food, rest, and peaceful community, and the blessing flows out to others.
The second simile is altogether different: a vivid image of an ultimately purposeless life and divine judgment (vv. 4-5; cf Mt 3:11f). At the end of the age, we will all appear before the universal judge, and those whom the judge does not know, who did not walk in the Way of Jesus, will not stand.Their lives will be judged useless, worthless, ruined, and blown away as chaff or dust in the wind.
So take God seriously. Feed on God’s word. Learn as much as you can. Walk in his way. Invite God to quench your spiritual thirst and satisfy your hunger for reality. Ask God to revive and restore you, to transform your life in ways that are fruitful and sustainable.
Only God can do this.
Seek the blessed life in place of the sad and wasted life. Take on the qualities of the tree planted beside flowing streams of life and hope, a tree that bears good fruit, and healthy growth, a blessing to others.
This is the life that Jesus modelled for us. He calls us into just such a life, aligned with God’s great global vision for shalom: a life of holiness, tranquility, abundance, and everything that is good about community.
Who would not want to be blessed with such a life?
Sermon 799 copyright © 2025 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 16 March 2025. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
References
[1] Jerome F. D. Creach, Reading Psalms: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2021), 1f.
[2] Joel S. Kaminsky, The Abingdon Introduction to the Bible: Understanding Jewish and Christian Scriptures (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), 181.
[3] Martin Luther, Works (ed. 1553), 3: 356.
[4] John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 1:27.
[5] Gerald H. Wilson, Psalms (2 vols; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 1: 100.
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