Bible Reading Challenge Blog

I wonder if Jesus was thinking of this psalm when he said in Matthew 5:45: “for [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  Here we just might find a somewhat clouded reference to vs.6.  In this Psalm we find David probably speaking about the times when Saul was pursuing him and he is told to flee to the mountains to escape his troops, or the time that Absalom, again, was pursuing him and he had to flee.  But you see his reticence to flee because he felt a certain responsibility to stay behind and make sure the foundations are upheld.

From there you find a transition to the presence of the Lord which gives us a great opportunity to speak to the difference between Old Testament and New Testament understandings to the presence of God.  In the Old Testament God was sitting upon his throne either on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, or in heaven, or in the temple, or in the ark of the covenant.  There was a literal definitive place where one could locate God and then go and worship Him.  I am fully aware that this is a simplistic approach to a much more developed theology, but let’s stay with that for now.

With the advent of Jesus our understanding is that the veil which separates people from God has been torn.  We find that reference in Matthew 27:51 where we find the veil from the temple torn down the middle when Jesus was crucified which signified access to the Holy of Holies.  Okay, what it means for us as disciples of Jesus Christ is that with the death and resurrection of Jesus there is no need for an intermediary who would establish and clean up any relationship we might have with God.  God establishes that relationship directly through Jesus.  We can reach out to God without the help of a pastor, or a priest, or a rabbi or anyone at all.  We can in the quiet of our room cry out to our Lord just as King David did.  That’s pretty extraordinary.

Where is God when things are going bad?  I hear so many people tell me that they just can’t watch the news anymore.  The implication is that they are tired of hearing bad news.  The logical segue from that comes the question: why doesn’t God do something to stop the terrible things happening in this world?  Do you hear that question in vs. 1 of Psalm 10?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?  But do you notice the trouble that the psalmist is describing.  The trouble is when the wicked persecute the poor.  Oh no, we aren’t going to have yesterday’s conversation again are we?  I told you yesterday that whenever you talk about the poor and God’s love for them, people are going to feel left out in some way, or delegitimize the poor in some way.

We have here a second breath from Psalm 1 which focused on the difference between the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous.  But the juxtaposition that we find in this chapter is not necessarily just the poor vs. the rich, but those who have power from this earth and are able to wield it against those who do not have power.  Look at the list of those who are harmed in this psalm and it should give us pause: vs.2 the poor, vs. 8 the helpless, vs. 9 the poor, vs. 10 the helpless, vs. 12 the oppressed, vs. 14 the helpless and the orphan, vs. 17 the meek, vs. 18 the orphan and the oppressed.  The king of Israel is asking God to look out for those who are the most vulnerable.

Now wait a second, King David, isn’t it your job to look out for them?  He does end his psalm by stating that God is absolutely not going to forget them.  He does say that God will bring about justice.  It is a comforting Psalm as we hear all that is wrong with this world, and then the final chapter of the book brings us justice and righteousness.  It’s nice to know what the last chapter is going to be.

I often use this example of how we can make it through life with a confidence that comes from knowing the final chapter of our book.  We know what the end of the story is going to be.  Just like this psalmist writes that God will bring about righteousness, we know that this is going to be the final chapter.  God will bring about His victory.  One of my favorite movies is Big Fish.  There is a scene in that movie where the protagonist is dared in a scene to visit the house of a witch who had a glass eye.  When you looked into the glass eye you would see a foretelling of how you would die.  The protagonist did it and from then on he had a confidence because he knew what the end of his story was going to be.

Like King David we can be assured of what the final chapter will be.  God will win.  Like the protagonist of the Big Fish we can live our lives with complete confidence, but for our sake it is confidence in Christ, because we know that we can face up to all things in this life, because it does not end with our defeat, but rather with the victory of Jesus.  It allows us to view life always from the perspective that God is in control and is always working to bring about his kingdom.  I’m not sure I would recommend Big Fish if children are in the room, however.

The introduction to this Psalm is once again hazy in its meaning.  The term Muth labben could mean “death of a son”, which in David’s life would not be unusual considering the history of Absalom and his death which we saw earlier in the Psalms.  But if you look at Psalm 9 and notice its tone, that would seem to make much less sense.  This Psalm is very much of a celebratory Psalm of praise and not in any way does it reflect a death of a child, but rather a conquest of a battle.

But what I want you to see which you could easily overlook is the hint of something that we have not seen so far and which Jesus seems to emphasize in a very deliberate way in the New Testament.  Look at vs.18 and you see the writer, who if it is King David is wealthy and travels in the circles of the rich and famous, remind the readers that the needy shall have a voice and the poor will never lose hope.  Jesus undoubtedly has a penchant for the poor.  Jesus has  preference for the downcast and the marginalized.  Look at Luke 6 and you hear Jesus say: Blessed are the poor.  Blessed are the hungry.  He then follows that up with woe to you rich and woe to you who are full.  

To say that Jesus emphasized his love for the poor and the weak is an understatement.  He is consistently describing how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of heaven if you are rich and then turns around and states quite forcefully that the widow has given more because she gave all that she had.  There should be no doubt that Jesus not only loved the rich but even favored the rich.  I know, that is a statement that many find controversial, but I’m okay with that.  

The main reason that I am okay with that is that if only a certain population group within our society is with hope or that a large swath of our population is forgotten, again back to vs.18, then I have a problem with that.  Jesus came so that the entire world would be saved and would have an equal opportunity to live out their lives in fulness in a direct relationship with him.  If anyone within our community has a limited opportunity, or less opportunity than I have, to achieve that, then I have a problem with it.  It isn’t that the poor or the marginalized want something special.  They just want to take for granted what someone like me takes for granted.  David can rejoice because he is in a position to rejoice.  My goal is that all people can find themselves in that same position where they can sing praises to the Lord whatever their lot in life.

So this might be a little more your speed than what I’ve been copying lately.  Whenever I think of Psalm 8 I can’t help but think of this song that when I was growing up was incredibly pervasive in the Christian music to which I was exposed.  And, by the way, isn’t it great to get out of the laments?  Weren’t you getting a little down from reading David time after time calling out to the Lord?  How nice to hear a psalm of praise and celebration after so many complaints.

Do you hear how much God loves us?  The way in which God created us reflects His love for us.  There is a rhetorical question in vs.4 where the psalmist asks: What are we that you are mindful of us?  And then he goes ahead and answers his own question by saying…we are just a tad lower than God, than the creator himself.  This matches perfectly with what we hear in Genesis that we are created in the image of God.  He refers back to Genesis when he states that he has given us dominion over all of creation, all  of it.  

So if you are ever feeling a bit worthless and wondering where your value lies, read psalm 8.  O Lord our Lord how majestic is thy name in all then earth and sing a little Sandi Patti and things should start to smooth out in your day.

It seems like in these beginning psalms we have some explanation to do in order to clarify some terms that are used which simply are not a part or our normal vocabulary.  The term we find used in the introduction to the psalm is this word “shiggaion”.  It is again another one of those terms whose definition is not completely clear.  We find it used also in Habakkuk 3:1 which is an introductory phrase just like what we find in Psalm 7.  The best scholarship tells us that a shiggaion refers to a meditation.  A meditation which in this case we might find king David in thought and in prayer in regards to the life situation in which he finds himself.  Again, the historical context is important.  We think we find ourselves in a time when David has been anointed as King but not yet made it on the throne.  King Saul is still in power and some of his followers, like Cush from the tribe of Benjamin, is accusing and pursuing David because he feels that he is being disloyal.  That doesn’t seem too far fetched.  King David, the writer of the psalms, is not yet king, but about to be.  The king in power, Saul, has allies and they are accusing David of being disloyal.

On to the psalm.  So we live in an age where the word terrorist strikes fear in many hearts.  I think back to just 16 years ago when if we used the word terrorist it didn’t have any meaning which we thought might affect us.  We traveled freely, didn’t have our eye on people in a crowd, didn’t pay attention to bags that might be lying around unattended.  When I read through this psalm I think of the fear which David was facing as he was hiding out in caves never knowing if someone was targeting him from some obscure place.  He cries out to God to deliver him and to provide him refuge.  

He goes on to ask God that if there is any wrong in him, that God would eliminate that from his life.  Now, that’s an interesting transition.  To go from God save my life from those who are looking to kill me to, oh, and while you are at it, can you eliminate the sin in my life?  I know that I’m not perfect and since you are around putting a hedge of protection around me, can you also get rid of those bad habits which have plagued me my entire life?  Can I have a two for one?

One fear that I have for us as we read these psalms is that we might put ourselves in the position of the psalmist where our self-righteousness seems to monopolize our words.  We should never find ourselves in a position where we think that we are the righteous and in no way do we represent the evil or the wicked and so God is always on our side.  I wish that were the case.  David does seem to present himself in that light.  But let’s be realistic that at times we are the ones pursuing the righteous, we are the ones who don’t allow the downtrodden to have a voice, we are the ones who dig our own holes and have a hard time digging out.  But every now and then we can take our side next to David and be glad that God has blessed us and we know it.  It is good to have balance.

I’m learning a lot about music in this study.  So if you look at this Psalm it has this puzzling introduction which is part of the Scripture which states: “To the leader; with stringed instruments; according to the Sheminith.”  According to the what?  So in Hebrew if you look at the word sheminith it has as its root “eight”.  What we think, keeping the psalm in mind, is that this psalm was to be played an octave lower to highlight the agony and the lament that takes place in the psalm.  We see the same word used in I Chronicles 15:21 and it refers again to a musical piece being played in a similar manner.  If nothing else this incredibly exquisite detail should remind us that these psalms are not just words that are passed down from heaven without any significant impact on the individuals who wrote them.  No, in fact, these psalms were written with an eye to detail by real people who had real preferences for the type of music that accompanied these songs and prayers.

Now on to the meat of the psalm.  There are two very distinct sections to this Psalm.  We can separate it into vss.1-7 and then 8-9.  We can pretty much assume from the first part of this Psalm that it makes sense that this is written by David after the death of his son Absalom.  We saw that in Psalm 3 where David fled from him, but now we see the end result of that story in the Bible where Absalom is killed and David is filled with type of grief that is inconsolable and without hope.  But look what happens at vs. 8.  After crying out to the Lord, after being angry at the Lord, we see an incredible transformation.

I need to say that there have been times when I have been angry with the Lord and I absolutely let Him know it.  This scene from this movie has always resonated with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5v5DOEF45E.  Again, like yesterday’s clip, it is a bit on the extreme side, but it works perfectly in this Psalm.  I can see King David yelling at the Lord just like Robert Duvall.  Vs. 3 the Psalmist calls out: How long?  

But the transition comes in vs.8 where find that the Lord has answered the psalmist.  “The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping”, and again, “The Lord has heard my supplication”, and again, “The Lord accepts my prayer.”  It takes him a while to get there, but he gets there.  In the midst of this anger and grief he comes to the realization at the end of the Psalm that God is, and always was, there.

So it is okay to be angry with God, just don’t live and reside in your anger.  There has to come a time, hopefully sooner rather than later, when you switch as the Psalmist does and say: Thank you Jesus for accepting my prayer. 

So I’ll handle the stream of consciousness first.  Psalm 5 begins as a song which would sound best if played with a flute.  Whenever I think of flutes I think of this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zic2jFZ745w.  I know, completely unrelated, and Ian Anderson can be a bit creepy, but I can think of no greater electric flute solo than Jethro Tull’s Locomotive breath.  Let’s move on, shall we?

I hope you notice in these similar psalms that the author begins by laying out a problem.  In this psalm it is gossip and hurtful tongues that are bringing down the writer.  Look at vs.9 where he accuses his enemies of having no truth in their mouths, destructive hearts, and flattering tongues.  There is a stark contradiction in these people who are described and those who are described starting in vs.11.  We read here about people who use their mouths to sing for joy, and exult the name of the Lord.  If I were to ask you a simple but honest question, could you give me a simple, honest answer?  Are you more like those who speak and harm others or do you speak and provide joy?  Once you give me your answer will you let me check your facebook account?  Actually, there’s a good practice.  Check your facebook account, your sent emails, your texts, however you communicate with people and ask the question: am I uplifting when I communicate with people, or do I really like to put others down because it makes me feel better?  The psalmist is speaking to all of us in this psalm.  Are we people who can listen to others or do we feel compelled to speak first and often and drown out the voices of others?  

The Psalmist definitely points the way of life as being the one who listens and humbly bows in the house of the Lord.  The Psalmist speaks of all those who trust in the Lord.  But he begins by speaking about himself, and asking God to come to his rescue.  He says this within the security of knowing that God hears his voice and trusts that God pays attention to his pleading.  

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most possible, where would you put yourself on the “being at peace” scale?  This Psalm, once again a lament and a cry for help, begins with a cry to the Lord for Him to “answer me when I call!”  It isn’t a request, it is a demand, a command.  God, answer me when I call, is a prayer that we should never feel afraid or ashamed to pray.  There is nothing more that I could desire than to hear God’s answer to my prayer.  Psalm 4 is once again a prayer which is then set to music and should be played by stringed instruments, I guess they mean the acoustic or electric guitar.  No, I’m guessing it was meant to be played with the harp.  

There has been for generations now the long standing debate between contemporary and traditional worship services, and to be honest, most of it comes down to the music.  I’ll never forget when we were looking for a music director in Florida and I had a musician call me and ask the following question (it was actually more of a statement): “I won’t be required to play what you call contemporary music, will I?  I fully believe that it is of the devil.”  Needless to say that person was discouraged from applying.  Is there any stronger way to express our thoughts and feelings to our Savior than in music?  Can anyone sing How Great Thou Art without a tear coming to our eye?  

But so many of the contemporary songs have as their settings these psalms which are repeated in a unified chorus.  It is actually very reformed and Presbyterian to read or sing psalms during the service.  See, we didn’t even know that at the second service we are actually following a long standing Presbyterian tradition of saying or singing the psalms.  Did you also notice that all of my call to worships at the first service are psalms in sequential order? There is a lot in the psalms that drive us to a deeper understanding of our God.  Psalm 4 is a great example of that.  Let’s actually work through it.

It begins with a call to be heard, a call that I mentioned earlier we do not need to shy away from.  But he quickly transitions from calling to the Lord to castigating the people for not seeking after the Lord with all their heart, mind and soul.  He then gives us advice on how to seek after the Lord.  When we are upset or angry it is always better to not sin but rather to be silent and think about it on our beds, in the safety of our homes.  This is a very direct counsel to not be reactionary to any situation which we may face, but rather to allow ourselves the time and the composure to address issues within a perspective of time.  When we react to a situation we tend to sin when we do.  Think about that next time a driver cuts you off on route 30.

But time has become so collapsed that it is hard to imagine how we can live our lives without reacting immediately to issues that come before us.  We receive text messages and people are upset if we don’t respond within a few minutes.  We receive emails and people are upset if we don’t respond in a few hours.  We receive phone calls and we are expected to not only pick up but to return the call immediately.  The time that we have today to process information has been condensed which almost demands reactionary responses from us.  So for us today here is what I would say: If we see a message on facebook and we don’t know what to say or do then allow a day to pass before you answer.  If you receive a text that upsets you don’t fire off a text…allow some time to pass, you may not even need to respond.  If you receive a long email that demands that you answer, let it go and maybe ask the person out for coffee where you can talk face to face.  I love being connected, but love less the demand that we feel to answer immediately.  I tend to try to buck that trend by answering after prayer and consideration and normally it is a phone call.

This might be a key to having the peace that is described in vs.8.  People like to put demands on our lives.  Listen to the pastor who is infamous of asking people to help and volunteering them to do certain things.  It is true, though.  The demands that people put on us should never weigh us down.  If they do, then we have to say no, even to that pastor who asks you to lead a program which just might expand the ministry in leaps and bounds.  Sorry, my family comes first.  It is only being enfolded in the arms of the Lord where we are going to be able to discern how demands will affect our lives.  We lie down in safety because our priorities are in the right place and we won’t be in danger of putting others before our families or whatever is first in your life aside from Jesus.

Here we go.  Psalm 3 introduces us to two methods which the psalmist will use throughout this entire book of the Bible.  The first is the method of using introductory remarks to set the context of the psalm.  Let’s be clear, in some Bibles you will have short phrases that summarize what will come next in the Scripture.  For example, before the Lord’s prayer there might be a title above the paragraph which reads: “Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray”.  It is important to note that these summaries are at the liberty of modern translators and are not in the original texts.  They simply are not a part of the Bible.  But that is not the case with the Psalms.  We find the introductory sentence: “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.”  This is in the original Hebrew and is supposed to set the context for the psalm which we read.  This is in the Bible and this is important.  Scripture contains contextual information so that we can understand what the psalmist is saying and why he is saying it.  It might be helpful to read the passages in the Bible that depict Absalom chasing King David in II Samuel 17 and 18.  Some have called this the darkest, most difficult days of David’s life.  You can probably imagine what you would write or say as you are going through the most difficult time in your life.

Let’s set the stage for David.  Absalom is David’s son and is planning on overthrowing his father.  The story ends in II Samuel 18 with Absalom being killed and David is unconsolable.  The drama, tragedy, and intensity of this story cannot be overstated.  David is distraught as he recognizes that he is paying for his sin with Bathsheba in the death of his son Absalom.  The sins of the father have certainly come back to destroy the son.  David now realizes this as he writes the psalm.  Think of this story as you read this psalm.  

Another method to which we are introduced is the refrain which is called Selah which is a Hebrew word that could mean that a break should take place in the singing of this psalm at this time.  As our music sometimes contains the word (chorus) interjected in various points in songs and we know what it means, we are to repeat the chorus, so in this instance the word Selah could be a musical term which means that a break in the music and the song take place so that potentially the Torah or other books of the Hebrew Bible could be read.  (Wow, I just read through this sentence and it is really long, but I don’t want to change it)  So, now you know that when you get to a Psalm and it says Selah, and you don’t know what it means, that’s okay, no one else really does either.  

Okay, back to the content of Psalm 3.  David does seem to express his desperation in terms of enemies which are pursuing him and surrounding him, just like his real life situation dictated.  But notice the flow of the psalm.  We begin with David lifting up a problem: my foes are against me and my advisors are telling me there is no hope.  But somehow in the recesses of his mind David remembers that God is our shield, God is our glory, God is the one who lifts up our head.  He hears God’s response in his supplications.  So even in the face of insurmountable odds, even in the face of what others might see as hopelessness, we find that God sustains us, we will not be afraid because deliverance belongs to the Lord.  

Is it okay to not be a huge fan of certain verses in the Psalms?  I’m going to say yes.  So, for me, vs.7 is one of my least favorite in Scripture.  I really don’t want God to break the teeth of my adversaries, but then again, I’ve never had my son, or daughter, pursuing me to kill me.  But what if we were to find ourselves where our life is in danger, would we ask God to strike our enemies and to break their teeth?  I would hope that the pacifist nature that has been nurtured in me would say no, there has to be another way.

But David’s point in this entire psalm is that even if those around you say that God is not there and you have no hope, we have to remember in those times that God is absolutely there and will always rise up to deliver us.  God does not sleep on us.  God does not abandon us.  God never, ever leaves or forsakes us.  I love the Psalms, I need to hear that more often than I think.

I wanted to cover a couple of administrative issues before we launch into Psalm 2.  First of all, who noticed that I put the wrong year on my post yesterday?  It is hard to get out of the past, isn’t it?  Secondly, when we talk about the Psalms and we are addressing the entire book we call it Psalms.  The reason why is because there is more than one Psalm in the book, there are 150.  But when we speak about each individual Psalm, like today we are discussing Psalm 2, we use the singular.  It is a very, very common mistake to speak about an individual Psalm and describe it in the plural.  I have heard consistently someone talk about Psalms 6, or Psalms 23, when it should be in the singular.  Just a heads up, it is one of those things where people are able to distinguish who knows their Bible and who doesn’t.  It reminds me of how we pronounce the book of the Bible Job.  It is a long o and not something that you do to make money.

Okay, on to Psalm (singular) 2.  There are many categories of Psalms.  We have laments where the author basically complains that the entire world is against him.  We have Psalms of praise where the author rejoices in what God has done for him.  Today we find what we call a royal psalm which describes God’s doings with the ruler of Israel.  Remember, David could have been king at the time of this writing so when he describes God as being on his side, well, that isn’t unusual.  Whenever the Scripture describes the anointed one then we know that he is talking about the king.  The literal word for anointed one is Messiah.  So here David is described as the Messiah, anointed one.  See, I told you that we are going to find Jesus in these Psalms.

But it gets better.  Look at vs.7.  Where have you heard the beginning of vs.7 in the New Testament?  Remember when Jesus is baptized?  Go to Matthew 3 and you will hear after he is baptized God says: This is my son.  In John we find John the baptizer deny that he himself is the Messiah, but saying that the one who came after him, Jesus, would be the Messiah.  From the very beginning we find that the author is laying out the fact that God has chosen a people and He will be their advocate.  But we also find that from the beginning of time the Son, Jesus himself, had a plan to be involved in the life of the people of God.

It is interesting in this day and age when there is much conversation in our nation about the nation of Israel and whether we are their ally or not.  Okay, I’m about to dive into a fairly controversial topic, but it applies as we read in Psalm 2 the author depicting God as being an unabashed ally to the people of Israel.  But when Jesus comes we hear the Apostles Paul tell us in Galatians 3:28 that there is no Jew or Greek.  We hear in John 3:16 that God so loved the world, not just one group of people.  So today, when one group of people refer back to the Old Testament in order to give themselves primary citizenship then there has to be a red flag.  When they are involved in similar human rights abuses as other nations against which we speak out, then we need to remain consistent.  We should be vigilant about all abuses of power.  

As Christians we do a disservice to God’s Word when we side almost exclusively with one group of people because we think that it is somehow commanded by God.  No, God commands us to love and protect, and work with all people, whether they are mentioned in the Scripture or not.  I fully recognize that this may put me outside of  the common approach for evangelical Christians, but I simply do not see a backing in Scripture for the affinity that many Christians have for the people of Israel to the point where a blind eye is turned to injustice and oppression that may be caused by the hand of the nation of Israel.  We must be vigilant about all abuses of power.