Journal

Worshipping with the Psalms

Posted on October 28th, 2005, in the evening

For a while I've wanted to become better acquainted with the book of Psalms. Generations of Christian believers (and of course Jews for centuries before them) have held this book at the heart both of personal and corporate worship.

My own church tradition is not fluent in the Psalms. Hymnody and modern worship songwriting have almost completely replaced them in our corporate worship. I love hymns and modern worship songs, but if I am truly to draw on the rich heritage of Christian worship (which is one of my aims as I lead worship with my church) then I should be considerably more familiar with the Psalms than I currently am.

One of the reasons for this lack of familiarity is the content of the Psalms themselves. There's no escaping the fact that there are hard passages in the Psalms; sentiments that I can barely bring before God in the privacy of my own room, let alone use to lead a Sunday meeting. I find it hard to fully escape the question of whether this Old Testament book is really appropriate for Christian worship at all.

There is also a part of me that feels like I'm being somehow unfaithful to Isaac Watts' precious won freedom to express Christian truth in new ways in public worship by 'going back' to the Psalms.

But I'm convinced there is a value in this exercise, and posting my thoughts will help me discipline myself in it.

The plan is definitely not to attempt to write a verse by verse commentary on the text (which is a good job considering how unequal I would be to the task!) Rather, I will make notes on each Psalm in turn as I use them in my own devotion. I'll post on passages that move me and passages that are hard to stomach. I'll particularly think about how each Psalm could be used in the kind of corporate worship I am most familiar with leading.

This could take months! I'm not sure how frequently I'll post these, but it will be nearly three years if I post on one Psalm a week, so get ready for the long haul if you're going to stay with me on this one...