Bible Reading Challenge Blog

As I’m reading through this Psalm I hear the words of Judges ringing in my ear.  If you look at that book you can hear repeated over and over again: “And the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  When we read that we need to remember that we are talking about the people of God.  These are people who are supposed to be followers of the Creator, the one God.  But the Psalm really seems to point a finger to those outside of the fellowship of believers.

So here is the danger.  We are often in danger in the church of thinking that we are the ones that God favors while those outside of the church…not so much.  But throughout Scripture we see that it is the people of the church, the people of God who are called as those who have little faith, who turn their back on their leaders and seek out other gods, who commit adultery with the wives of their military leaders, who betray their Savior.  How tempting it is for us to call out as this psalmist does against the evildoers around us without seeing the evil in us.

Just wondering if you noticed that we see God is the refuge of the poor.  Jesus isn’t the only one who has a soft spot in his heart and ministry for the poor.  It is consistent within the Trinity.

I went to a gathering of pastors yesterday and we spent the entire time praying for you.  Seriously, the entire time, except for the meal afterwards that is.  At the end one of the pastors said that he wanted to pray that this would be the year of the Lord’s favor and he explained what he meant by that.  He wanted to pray that this year would be the year that God would bless the churches financially.  I squirmed.  Even if at the end of this psalm we read: “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”, we need to fully recognize that the psalmist also says: “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”  

My strategy for church finances is if you love the people, if you are excited and passionate about what you are doing and invested and connected with the projects and the programs, people are just going to naturally respond.  I have prayed in the past with business people that God would help the business grow and be financially viable, but for some reason don’t feel comfortable asking for the favor of the Lord for the church in that respect.  I’m thinking that is my problem.  Why wouldn’t we ask God to bless the church financially.  Probably because part of me thinks that we should be able to do that ourselves.  I know, that isn’t what I preach and it really shouldn’t be what I believe.  I think I just found one more area where I need to grow as a pastor and as a person, thanks Psalm 13!

Once again we find a psalm that is to be set to the eighth octave which gives it a sense of deep foreboding and seriousness.  The primary object of this psalm is a word that we all have heard before: gossip.  Now, there is nothing more offsetting than a sermon or statements made that are moralism gone amuck.  Anyone can say that gossip is bad and it would really have no impact.  Let’s analyze exactly what we mean when we talk about gossip.  Let’s use this psalm as an example.  It begins with vs.2 where we hear that they utter lies to each other and they flatter themselves.

We have been taught that gossip is when we say unkind things about other people.  Here it seems that the psalmist is speaking out against those who promote themselves or others just for the sake of flattery.  What does flattery produce?  It is an opportunity to get ahead and to curry favor from others.  The author speaks out so strongly against us trying to be someone that we are not simply for the purpose of others thinking that we are someone that we are not.  I have to say that this last sentence has been a primary complaint from non-church goers for generations.  I have heard often the complaint that the reason why I don’t go to church is because it is a bunch of hypocrites.  We are well known for saying one thing and then doing another.  We are well known for praising people to their faces and then saying something completely different to others in our company.

But what I really want us to think about, about which this psalms almost demands that we think, is what does it mean to say that all flattering lips should be cut off?  The psalmist uses it to describe an evil generation with the wicked prowling and vileness exalted.  What direct correlation can you make of those who flatter with their lips and, as vs.3 states, tongues that make great boasts? We need to be careful not only of the company that we keep, but especially what we say and what we think when we are with company.

Every now and then I get on a reading kick where I begin by reading the first work of an author and then work my way through much of what they have written.  I am now on an Ayn Rand kick.  I hope I survive it.  She is different, but she emphasizes the danger of being phony and pleasing just to get in the favor of people.  She is an individualist to the extreme.  For some reason as I’m reading her works I hear a voice saying: she would not be real crazy about church and its insistence that we all think and do alike.  Oh, for a church where we could be individuals and not have to stay with the status quo but somehow create our own status quo.  

But it is hard to break out of a preservationist mentality exactly for the reason that David wrote against this psalm.  We like telling each other lies and saying things about ourselves which are not true so that we can advance and be thought of as respectable.  Jesus didn’t worry about that.  He did what he knew his Father demanded and he acted equally.  Strive to do the same.

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.