00:00:00:16 – 00:00:26:17
Clint Loveall
Welcome back. A little bait and switch here. Don’t pay no attention to Ephesians. Oh, on the screen. We are done with the Ephesians. And, many of you went through it with us, and we’re grateful. Today, we’re beginning a brief look, maybe, ten days or so, checking out, the book in the middle of our Bible, the Psalms.

00:00:26:22 – 00:00:53:10
Clint Loveall
An interesting book. Not. It kind of stands alone today. Will be mostly be doing an introduction. It literally is the middle of our Bible. There’s an interesting trivia thing. Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the Bible. Psalm 119 is the longest. In Psalm 118 is the numerical middle of the chapters of the Bible. So, if you need that answer on Bible trivia, you now have it.

00:00:53:15 – 00:01:26:28
Clint Loveall
There are 150 psalms. The Psalter itself is broken down into five sections called books. Most of your Bibles will even say book one, and then they’ll give the Psalms that are numbered. I I this is an opinion, Michael. That’s a somewhat arbitrary. They’re not broken down by theme or by style. It just seems to be the chunks that the Israelites, the way they recorded them, the way they kept them.

00:01:26:33 – 00:01:58:15
Clint Loveall
There are collections in some of those books that seem to fit together, but to my knowledge, there’s no there’s no hard break between, say, the end of book one, which is Psalm 41 and the beginning of Psalm 42. It’s not like if you were just reading them, you would not recognize, oh, we’ve shifted into some other content. We know that the Psalms are all over the place, and you can read, one kind of psalm, and then the very next one is very, very different.

00:01:58:15 – 00:02:26:49
Clint Loveall
And there’s no exception to that from the book to book in my, in my knowledge. Having said that. I, I don’t know what would you tell me what you think, Michael? I, I, I think most people who are of faith, people like the Psalms and probably really like a Psalm or two, I think it’s a little bit rarer.

00:02:26:49 – 00:02:50:08
Clint Loveall
A person that loves the Book of Psalms. I think of like Old Testament scholars. This is a in some ways a tough book to study because it’s so all over the I mean, for one thing, it’s largely poetry and lyrics, and it’s just it’s a little hard to dig into if you’re going to just plow through it verse by verse.

00:02:50:13 – 00:02:56:28
Clint Loveall
But having said that, I mean, there are beautiful treasures within this book that I think most people resonate with.

00:02:56:33 – 00:03:21:50
Michael Gewecke
So I think one way to frame that point, Clint, would be to say, if you think of the Psalms, this isn’t a perfect analogy, but if you think of the Psalms, much like a hymnal that we would have in our own experience, your your near, your tangential to what the Psalms are functioning as in the Bible. And so in the same way that you might pick up a hymnal if it was Scripture, which it’s not.

00:03:21:50 – 00:03:38:25
Michael Gewecke
But if you were to pick that up and you study your hymnal, then you’re going to find some spots in there that there’s some deep resonance for you, and there will be moments of life where one thing is going to really lift off the page, and then other moments of life where it just doesn’t speak to you.

00:03:38:25 – 00:03:51:36
Michael Gewecke
And I think the Psalms are very much in that vein. The only thing I would add to your comments is, I think there are some families of the Christian faith that use the Psalms very intentionally and very regularly.

00:03:51:36 – 00:03:52:49
Clint Loveall
And a few exclusively.

00:03:52:54 – 00:04:21:33
Michael Gewecke
Yes. And some will allow music with that, and others will not allow music with that, and some it’s just a part of the devotional reading throughout weeks and months. And so for those folks, I think the Psalms represent in their totality a kind of experience of the entire human life, because inside there’s anger and there’s grief and there’s repentance and there’s forgiveness, there’s restoration, there’s blessing.

00:04:21:37 – 00:04:47:39
Michael Gewecke
There is thanksgiving. There’s drawing near to God and feeling far from God there all in the Psalms. And it’s a reflection of all these different states of human being. And the community, the nation, all of it is packed in there. And so if you go through the Psalms, not so much as a a book or a narrative book that you read, but you go through the Psalms in sequence of life, you’re going to find resonances within them.

00:04:47:43 – 00:05:04:28
Michael Gewecke
But, you know, once again, to go back to I do think that this is a hard book, and we’re not going to go chapter by chapter through the Psalms, much like we did in the Proverbs, because that’s a very difficult way to engage with these if you’re not in an academic setting. I.

00:05:04:33 – 00:05:26:56
Clint Loveall
I think for exactly those reasons. Psalm is is a hard book to study. Now, if you’re a Hebrew scholar. Yeah, you love this book because there’s obscure words and there’s phrases that we don’t always understand. And there’s these things, in your own Bibles, I’ve noticed that my study Bibles have omitted this, Michael, which I think is very interesting.

00:05:26:56 – 00:05:55:27
Clint Loveall
But if you thumb through your Bible off to the side of many of the Psalms, you will see a word that is a, a sailor, and we don’t know what it means. It the best guess is that it was an instruction to singers or musicians to perhaps pause or take a breath. So if you’re interested in those kind of mysteries, the Psalms are really fun for those people.

00:05:55:32 – 00:06:15:15
Clint Loveall
But to study them, like, how would you study a hymn? That’s hard. We were just talking about some music. And to think that you’re going to dig in and ask, what’s under this? And what does it mean for my life is is not probably, an approach that’s going to give you a lot of resonance with the Psalms.

00:06:15:19 – 00:06:48:16
Clint Loveall
Having said that, it is almost surprising some of what we find in this book. And I think one of the the powerful, profound and beautiful things about this book is the honesty that it has about human life. There are Psalms that just lift the name of God, and exalt and praise and thanks. And the very next one says, God, you’re not keeping up your end of the bargain.

00:06:48:16 – 00:07:13:22
Clint Loveall
And I’m suffering and and why aren’t you doing something? And the very next one says, thank the Lord for everything he’s done. And the one after that says, Lord, would you kill all my enemies flocks and destroy their houses? And it this is the most human eye. Maybe I’d say it this way, Michael. I think our humanity with God is most on display in the Psalms.

00:07:13:22 – 00:07:22:39
Clint Loveall
Now, those things all exist in other places. But here you have this condensed experience of them that I think is is really interesting.

00:07:22:44 – 00:07:51:20
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. I think that what we discover in the Psalms is a reflection of the various places where our lives coincide with God’s action in the world, and there’s a way in which the psalmist is really honest about that. And I think to make this really practical, I suppose there’s a part of this introductory conversation which is a making a case for why this psalm should be a part of our Christian faith and discipleship.

00:07:51:25 – 00:08:17:04
Michael Gewecke
And if you’re going to lay a framework, a ground level, for that argument, I think what you have to argue is that you may be able to make it through whatever your common days are, and feel like you don’t need the Psalms, but the moment that you find yourself in need of healing, or the moment that you find yourself reeling from grief, or the moment that you’ve come face to face with your own inner sinfulness.

00:08:17:04 – 00:09:06:25
Michael Gewecke
And that’s spilled out the moment where life has broke open and whatever normal is ceases to be. And now you stand bare before the reality of the day. The Psalms have built into them words, reflections, realities of what it’s like to encounter God in those broke open moments of life. And so therefore, I do think the Psalms are very uncomfortable for us sometimes there there are phrases and there are specific Psalms that are troubling it just even the wording about guards praying for retribution against enemies, or the way that the psalm turns towards self-justification there there are reflections in the Psalms that would make us uncomfortable.

00:09:06:30 – 00:09:34:52
Michael Gewecke
And their presence there, I think, represents the fact that the people of Israel and the Christians who have followed them have always seen that shying away from these things is ultimately a way of not being honest about who we are, and also, therefore not being honest about who God came to save. God has full awareness of the people that we are, and all of the foibles that come with it, the good and the bad and the Psalms is honest about that.

00:09:34:57 – 00:09:55:08
Michael Gewecke
And so it requires a kind of courage to look in that mirror for us to look into the Psalms and see it reflect back to us the truth of who we are. And if we’re able to do that and willing to do that. I think that the Psalms are instructive in that they teach us something about that truth and who God wants us to be in the midst of his work.

00:09:55:22 – 00:10:31:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah, because many of the Psalms, I would say the majority of the Psalms are addressed to God, and that essentially puts them in the language of prayer. So I think if you know, if you allow for that and part of what the Psalms teach us is an incredible freedom in how we approach God in prayer with our best selves that are grateful and joyful and adoring, and our worst selves which are confessing our sins and hoping that our enemies have a bad fall on them.

00:10:31:39 – 00:11:07:35
Clint Loveall
I there there is an openness in and honesty to this book that I do think is not typical of most of the rest of maybe. I would say it’s more obvious in this context. And I think one of the helpful ways to read the Psalms is through that lens of prayer. What what does it mean to call upon God’s name from place of blessedness, or from a place of pain, or from a place of confusion, or a place of oppression?

00:11:07:35 – 00:11:34:21
Clint Loveall
And I think the Psalms give us a very wide breadth and depth to the ways in which we see that people have been, comfortable, I guess, or at least been allowed to talk not only about God, which is theology, but to God, which is prayer.

00:11:34:26 – 00:12:04:15
Michael Gewecke
And the inherent uncomfortable nature of that is it’s also very creative, both in its metaphor and its use by the professor that his entire professional life had been spent studying the Psalms. Specifically related to the question are the Psalms poetic? And that is actually a very complex question, because it depends on how you define poetry, because this is not Western in its literature.

00:12:04:15 – 00:12:50:25
Michael Gewecke
So therefore what Western people think of poetry as having rhythm and rhyme, and these sort of defining features are not 1 to 1 present in the Psalms. I’m not going to get into all of that. But the reason I pointed out is there’s been an intense amount of study about how the Psalms have acrostics in them, about how the Psalms are filled with different metaphors and similes for God, how there’s intentional repetitions throughout the Psalms, within individual Psalms, and then you’ll find it throughout the whole book, just ways in which a creative task of bringing words to bear as it relates to these prayers to God, these reactions against God, these hopes and yearnings

00:12:50:25 – 00:13:34:54
Michael Gewecke
for the future that you see embodied. Quite frankly, there are Psalms entirely devoted simply to different moments in a king’s life. You know, whether that king is, being installed or that king is going to war, that all of this is embedded in the Psalms in a meaningful way. And so what’s fascinating is to engage with this scripture as an artistic creation, as humans, having made this thing in their worship and service, love and desire to reflect on their intersection with God’s work in their life, and then for the community throughout thousands of years to say that these are not just a fruit of human creativity, that that God has something to teach, inform us,

00:13:34:58 – 00:13:51:02
Michael Gewecke
through these words, they become Scripture. And that is a powerful way of of seeing how this what may appear to be a mismatch or a sort of forcing together of a lot of different things, it has a cohesive whole in that center.

00:13:51:07 – 00:14:24:34
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I think to some extent beyond other places in Scripture that can do that, because there is something about whether we I mean, we could argue if this is Hebraic poetry or not, but there is something about lyric and verse and song that that lands in a different place. It’s communal, you know, think about singing together in church.

00:14:24:39 – 00:14:54:42
Clint Loveall
It’s it’s deeply. You and I have both had the experience of being at nursing homes with people who are not communicative and amazing grace starts and all of a sudden their mouths are moving. That that those things, those expressions of faith live in musically, in the deepest parts of who we are. When families get together at end of life, care for loved ones that they often sing, it’s just there’s something.

00:14:54:46 – 00:15:22:10
Clint Loveall
There’s something deeply raw and powerful about expressions of music for for good and for bad, for praise God and woe is me and all the range in the middle. And I think the Psalms land on that. And to that, to to that thing. Like I’d say my maybe last point, I’m sure this exists online. I’m sure it exists in print form.

00:15:22:15 – 00:15:53:57
Clint Loveall
I don’t know of a serious attempt that’s ever been made to change the Psalter and categorize it, but I do think the Psalms would almost be more accessible if we said Psalms one through 40. Here’s your praise Psalms. Psalms 40 through 50, here’s your your crying psalm. You know, if people didn’t have to hunt their way through for what they were feeling in that moment, and maybe I don’t know that that’s better or worse.

00:15:54:01 – 00:16:15:06
Clint Loveall
But over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to talk about different categories of Psalms where some of those are located and and try to pick a good example in each of those categories to, to unpack, not necessarily what the psalm itself means, but what is behind the psalm and what we learn from it.

00:16:15:10 – 00:16:37:24
Michael Gewecke
I want to be careful here. If you are a person who likes poetry, and what I mean by poetry is not rhythm and rhyme, I mean that you like the experience of looking very closely at words and living with words and the varieties of meanings that an author can imbue with words. Then the Psalms, I think, are going to be a home for you and I.

00:16:37:24 – 00:17:03:48
Michael Gewecke
And this will be comfortable. There will be many who that is not a comfortable experience for you. And I just want to invite you to join us here. This is going to be a short series. We’re not going to go for an incredibly long period of time on this. So just commit to six, 7 or 8 episodes and and listen through because there’s wisdom in slowing down and living with words.

00:17:03:48 – 00:17:43:25
Michael Gewecke
And the Psalms represent more than just narrative. They represent music. As we’ve said, they represent communal prayers. They represent ancient ways of reflecting upon how even nature itself reveals God’s presence in our lives. And there’s inherent in the Psalms this assumption that God is here no matter where you are. And so whether the people of Israel were in Assyria, right, whether they were captive, whether they were things were going really well, whether they were under the thumb of Rome.

00:17:43:30 – 00:18:07:04
Michael Gewecke
There’s always been a resonance with these words because fundamentally they are people who have taken seriously the task of looking at the bare state of their soul and then seeing where God is in the midst of it. And if we’re willing to look full on and reflect on some of the substance of that, we will no doubt be encouraged.

00:18:07:04 – 00:18:14:31
Michael Gewecke
We will be stretched, will be pushed, there will be something here for you, even if it is an uncomfortable task.

00:18:14:36 – 00:18:46:15
Clint Loveall
I think I could defend this statement, Michael, but, you know, check me if it goes too far. While in general, I think our hope is always that the Scripture speaks to us, I think there’s a sense in which we can also say the Psalms speak for us. Yeah, they they become our voice. Or maybe we accept their voice in in a way that the stories of Genesis don’t do right.

00:18:46:15 – 00:19:10:21
Clint Loveall
I mean, you read the Moses stories of Exodus or the Abraham stories in Genesis, or even maybe the Jesus stories in Luke or Matthew that you don’t feel like, oh, those were the words I needed. Those are my those are coming from the depth of my soul. And the Psalms is one of those very rare books that lives on the other side of that fence.

00:19:10:21 – 00:19:13:30
Clint Loveall
And I and I think that’s that’s partly their power.

00:19:13:31 – 00:19:34:43
Michael Gewecke
Not to take a shot at our tradition. But I do think that Protestants largely have so much at stake in when we pray that it is all extemporaneous in that moment, that it just flows out from the heart, that we forget that we have a prayer book in our scriptures, that there’s a way in which the Bible wants to teach us how to pray.

00:19:34:48 – 00:19:54:06
Michael Gewecke
And some of our. And I don’t mean this, I don’t mean this to sound critical, but like the the father gods. And, I’m just here with you today, and I’m just so grateful today that we have this kind of parlance in our prayers. There’s a way in which we would do well to return to the Psalms and to be taught again how to pray.

00:19:54:10 – 00:20:05:22
Clint Loveall
I also think there are times in which the Psalms are uncomfortable. Why aren’t you listening to me? God is a yeah, that’s a jarring.

00:20:05:29 – 00:20:06:09
Michael Gewecke
It’s forceful.

00:20:06:09 – 00:20:27:13
Clint Loveall
That that’s in the Bible. Right? Like that’s somebody, some ancestor we had in the faith felt that and and prayed it on behalf of a people who then said, let’s keep that in the book. And, yeah, sometimes we flinch when we read some of the Psalms. They’re intimidating at times.

00:20:27:18 – 00:20:47:21
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. I think my my last would be said. My last word here is people who come in who are grieving deeply and say, I don’t know what to say. I have often recommended I’ve got a book that I want to look through with you, because when we there are there are negative experiences we have in life. We feel timid to bring to God.

00:20:47:25 – 00:20:50:13
Michael Gewecke
The Psalms are not timid about those experiences.

00:20:50:15 – 00:21:04:30
Clint Loveall
When I think that’s one of the. That’s one of the amazing things about the book that, again, the highest praise and the deepest complaint live side, side by side in the middle of our Bible tablet. And and the Bible’s okay with that.

00:21:04:35 – 00:21:14:11
Michael Gewecke
And we may or may not be, but we’re going to study it either way. Thanks for being with us. I we look forward to you going on the study. Sorry about the Ephesians on the screen. I’ll be fixed next time. We’ll see you.

00:21:14:11 – 00:21:14:34
Clint Loveall
Series.