I love the Psalms. Always have.<\/p>\n
Even as an unbeliever the poetry and passion arrested my restless attention and drew me to take a closer look.<\/p>\n
The Psalms have taught me to pray.<\/p>\n
They have been my pattern of praise.<\/p>\n
And they are a sure guide into the human condition, standing before God.<\/p>\n
I have read them for pleasure, for instruction, by assignment.<\/p>\n
I have read them piecemeal and in huge gulps.<\/p>\n
And I’ve dissected and studied them.<\/p>\n
I taught a class on the Psalms that lasted for over a year, culminating in us writing our own psalms and putting together books to keep them in for a memory.<\/p>\n
It was a great class. And I was looking through my notebook yesterday and decided to share some of the insights and lessons we learned .<\/p>\n
Basically, we had a list of questions that we answered about each psalm, and then finished by sharing what that particular psalm meant to us.<\/p>\n
Before I gave them the questions, however, I challenged them to take a big gulp.<\/p>\n
To read the entire book through once to get the style and language.<\/p>\n
Then to read it again looking for attitude and placement in history.<\/p>\n
And then to read it once again, just to look at the names of God this book revealed.<\/p>\n
I gave them a month to accomplish these tasks and during that time I decorated notebooks for them with a pocket on the back that had a card with 10 questions on it. This was our analysis card- each psalm was looked at according to this criteria and then prayerfully considered with the last question in mind.<\/p>\n
These are the 10 questions:<\/p>\n
1) Who wrote it?<\/p>\n
2) What are the circumstances? ( historically, personally, nationally?)<\/p>\n
3) Are there questions asked? Identify them.<\/p>\n
4) Are those questions answered? By whom?<\/p>\n
5) Can I pray this psalm?<\/p>\n
6) What names for God are used by the psalmist?<\/p>\n
7) What is the relationship between the psalmist and God?<\/p>\n
8) Are there any New Testament references ( or any other Biblical reference)? <\/p>\n
Do the references make the psalm more clear?<\/p>\n
9) Whose voices are heard? (ex. psalmist, God, unbelievers, nations, etc.)<\/p>\n
10) What does it mean to me?<\/p>\n
For the forseeable future, I am going to embark on this study again and post them on Sundays. You are welcome to study along with me and post your observations in the comments area- you are also welcome just to read along and enjoy- letting me know when you agree or think I’ve gone off the deep end.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n If you are not interested, skip the Sunday portion of my blog, because I am headed for a journey into the Psalms.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I love the Psalms. Always have. Even as an unbeliever the poetry and passion arrested my restless attention and drew me to take a closer look. The Psalms have taught me to pray. They have been my pattern of praise. … Continue reading