N. T. Wright on the Psalms

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Since I heard about N. T. Wright’s new book on the Psalms I have been waiting for it to come out. While I have my differences with Wright, I am glad to hear him speaking on this important issue.

He recently did an interview with Christianity Today on the topic of the Psalms which is quite useful. Here are a couple of excerpts:

For us to distance ourselves from the Psalms inevitably means distancing ourselves from Jesus. …

When people give up using the Psalms, they often invent poor substitutes—songs, prayers, or poems that have a bit of Christian emotion and a bit of doctrine, but nonetheless lack the Psalter’s depth, passion, and rich variety of expression. If one tries to do without the Psalms, there is an identifiable blank at the heart of things.

The full interview is not very long and is worth reading. If you have read any on this site, you will know that I resonate with the things Wright is saying here. We need the Psalms, and it is not difficult to get started using them in singing and praying.

Tolkien, A Son and A Father’s Legacy

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Recently the first ever press interview with Christopher Tolkien, son of J. R. R. Tolkien and the official executor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate, was published (the link takes you to an even more recent translation of the interview into English). The headline makes much of Christopher Tolkien’s displeasure with Peter Jackson’s movie interpretations, but what I found most intriguing was the story of a father’s affection for his son and the son’s labors to preserve and advance the work of his father. It is a beautiful story of father-son interaction and devotion.

As those familiar with the works of Tolkien will know, it is to Christopher Tolkien that we are indebted for The Simarillion and other published pieces of the story of Middle Earth. When J. R. R. Tolkien died his unpublished work was a mass of scattered and unorganized papers. Christopher resigned his faculty position in Old English at New College Oxford and threw himself full time into editing the work of his father and preserving and advancing his legacy. As the article states: “One thing is certain: from father to son, a great part of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has now emerged from its boxes, thanks to the infinite perseverance of his son.”

This devotion was fired by the father sharing his stories with his son.

“Christopher Tolkien’s oldest memories were attached to the story of the beginnings[The Silmarillion], which his father would share with the children. ‘As strange as it may seem, I grew up in the world he created,’ he explains. ‘For me, the cities of The Silmarillion are more real than Babylon.’”

Fathers, none of us are J. R. R. Tolkien, but we do have great stories to pass down, especially The Great Story of redemption. This article encourages me to press on in passing down the stories of the Bible and of God’s faithfulness in our family’s life, allowing my children to see what these stories mean to me in hopes that they will own these stories as well. It reminds me that we are always inhabiting a story. The question is simply, “What story?” I want to be providing the parameters of great stories so that my family can inhabit and be formed by them.

(Also posted at The Children’s Hour)

“O Ye Sons of Men Be Wise”

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My poem of the week last week was this great gospel declaration by Joseph Hart:

“O Ye Sons of Men Be Wise”

O ye sons of men be wise,
trust no longer dreams and lies,
Out of Christ, almighty pow’r
can do nothing but devour.

God you say is good. ‘Tis true.
But he’s pure and holy too;
just and jealous is his ire,
burning with vindictive fire.

This of old himself declared:
Israel trembled when they heard.
But the proof of proofs indeed
is he sent his Son to bleed.

When the blessed Jesus died
God was clearly justified:
Sin to pardon without blood
never in his nature stood.

Worship God, then, in his Son,
there he’s love and there alone.
Think not that he will, or may,
pardon any other way.

See the suff’ring Son of God,
panting, groaning, sweating blood!
Brethren, this had never been
had not God detested sin.

Be his mercy therefore sought
in the way himself has taught:
There his clemency is such,
we can never trust too much.

He that better knows than we,
bids us all to Jesus flee.
Humbly take him at his Word
and your souls will bless the Lord!

 

–          Joseph Hart (1712-1768)

“The Mighty Minds of Old”

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One of my favorite poems about books was my “poem of the week” last week.

Robert Southey (1774-1843)

“His Books”

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

 

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew’d
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

 

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.

 

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet, leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

 

– From The Oxford Book of English Verse (#569)

 

 

“proclaim the truth and suffer for the truth, and if necessary, even die for the truth.”

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“The role of the priest is to proclaim the truth and suffer for the truth, and if necessary, even die for the truth.” – Polish priest-martyr Jerzy Popieluszko

Jim Kushiner from Touchstone Magazine has written a powerful essay interacting with a new documentary on the life and death of Jerzy Popieluszko, a Polish priest in the 1980’s. Kushiner examines the work of Popieluszko as an example of how Christians should stand firm, not in hatred but in love. There is much wisdom (& challenge!) for us here concerning living in challenging times.

Beauty & Necessity of Christ-Centered Preaching

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foxcroft gospel ministryI am really enjoying Thomas Foxcroft’s little book, The Gospel Ministry. It is a sermon he preached in 1718 on the nature of gospel ministry as he began a pastorate. He is particularly eloquent in urging that every sermon should be about Christ. Here is a long quote which is particularly rich.

“Whatever subject ministers are upon, it must somehow point to Christ. All sin must be witnessed against and preached down as opposed to the holy nature, the wise and gracious designs, and the just government of Christ.  So all duty must be persuaded to and preached up with due regard unto Christ; to His authority commanding and to His Spirit of grace assisting, as well as to the merit of His blood commending – and this to dash the vain presumption that decoys so many into ruin, who will securely hang the weight of the hopes upon the horns of the altar without paying expected homage to the scepter of Christ.  All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.  Dark and ignorant sinners are to be directed to Christ as the Sun of righteousness; convinced sinners are to be led to Christ as the Great Atonement and the only City of Refuge.  Christ is to be lifted up on high for the wounded in spirit to look to, as the bitten Israelites looked to the brazen serpent of old.  The sick, the lame, and the diseased are to be carried to Christ as the great Physician, the Lord our Healer; the disconsolate and timorous are to be guided to Christ as the Consolation of Israel, and in us the hope of glory.  Every comfort administered is to be sweetened with pure water from this Well of salvation, which only can quench the fiery darts of the evil one. The promises of the gospel are to be applied as being in Christ ‘yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us’ (2 Cor. 1:20).  So the threatenings of the law are to light and flash in the eyes of sinners as the terrors of the Lord and sparks of the holy resentment of an incensed Savior, which hover now over the children of disobedience and will one day unite and fall heavy upon them.  The love of Christ for us is to be held forth as the great constraining motive to religion, and the life of Christ as the bright, engaging pattern of it.  Progress and increase in holiness are to be represented under the notion of abiding in Christ and growing up unto Him who is the Head, even Christ.  Perfection in grace is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and eternal life is a being forever with the Lord where He is, beholding His glory and dwelling in our Master’s joy.

Thus, in imitation of the apostolic way of preaching, there must be a beautiful texture of references to Christ, a golden thread twisted into every discourse to leaven and perfume it so as to make it express a savor of the knowledge of Christ. Thus every mite cast into the treasury of the temple must bear this inscription upon it, which was once the humble language of a pious martyr in the flames, ‘None but Christ, none but Christ,’ so that everyone, beholding in the Word preached as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory.” (9-11; emphasis added)

Luther: ‘the souls of men and women were a charge which came upon him daily’

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I recently came across this comment from Luther scholar, Gordon Rupp. It contains a valuable challenge to any who are involved in biblical study and pastoral ministry.

“In the National Gallery there is a Flemish landscape. The artist, Patinir, had never seen real mountains, and he practiced with shards of rock which jut grotesquely from the level plain. Erasmus’s handling of the controversy was a little like that. His gospel was smooth and pleasantly even as his native Holland. When compared with Luther’s grim expositions of the tempted Christian … his “Enchiridion” is an arm-chair study of the Christian warfare. …

“He did not understand the great heights and depth of the Christian faith: What it meant, with Luther and Augustine, to peer steeply down into the nauseating “abyss of the human conscience,” with Luther and Bunyan to tremble in the Valley of Humiliation, and to weep upon the Delectable Mountains at the brave prospect of distant Zion. It cuts deeply between the two men that while Erasmus never exercised spiritual direction, never had cure of souls, for Luther the souls of men and women were a charge which came upon him daily ….”

–          Gordon Rupp, The Righteousness of God: Luther Studies (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953), 284-85.

We won’t understand Scripture well while peering in from the outside. Only when submerged in the travail of our own souls and burdened with the care of the souls of others will we truly know God and understand His word. Peering calmly from the outside will lead to the deadening deliberation of details which miss the point of God in Christ reconciling condemned souls, adopting them and holding them fast- truths which anchor the soul and allow us to rejoice exceedingly even in a fallen world. Let us be those who wade in.

Annual Survey of Bible Reference Works for Preaching Magazine

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preachingmag books 2013

I have recently finished this year’s survey of new study Bibles and Bible reference works for Preaching Magazine (links to most of the previous years’ installments can be found on the “Publications” page of this site). The photo above shows most of the books which are dealt with in the article which is scheduled to appear in the September-October issue.

I have commented on some of these books here along the way as I have worked through them. The article will include my “top picks” from the books published in the last year. If you’ve not checked out Preaching Magazine before, I encourage you to do so. they provide a lot of helpful resources.

Dennis Kinlaw, Lectures in Old Testament Theology

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Last week I spent some time in Lectures in Old Testament Theology, by Dennis Kinlaw (with John Oswalt). This is a very useful summary of Old Testament teaching. It is essentially the transcripts of oral addresses and thus it reads very easily. Though aware of the academic issues, these addresses are pitched at a level for interested lay people and students. The volume is especially strong on theology and application.

I liked how he placed the Psalms at the center of Old Testament theology (see below).

Here are a few quotes to illustrate the approach of the book:

“The basis of the ministry of the church of Christ is in the Scripture” (13).

“The place to begin reading the Old Testament theologically is with the book of Psalms” (13).

“…my concern is that too often we separate theology from worship. If the goal of theology is the knowledge of the true God, the end result of that experience ought to be adoration and praise and prayer” (13).

“The book of Psalms is, without question, one of the greatest pieces of human literature” (13).

“…let us take Psalms for our starting point, because here is where we find what Israel really believed, and how it affected their daily lives” (14).

“…it is, as I have said, the truest record of Israel’s faith. The Psalms portray Israel at prayer. And it is when we pray that we find out what we really believe, what our theology actually is” (15).

“You will not find Him in a bit of superficial reading. You must immerse yourself in the text. This is not because God is hiding Himself or ‘playing hard to get.’ He wants to be found far more than we want to find Him. It is just that we are so superficial that God cannot break through us very easily. So you live in the text. You must get to the place where God’s Word is part of you. But if you do, you will go back and give thanks for this study the rest of your days, not because of the teacher or the textbook, but because of the exposure to the Word of God” (16).

“One of the reasons the New Testament does not live for us is because we do not really know the Old Testament the way we should” (17).

“The Bible’s purpose is that we might have communion with God” (21).

Invitation to the Psalms

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I am not typically pleased or impressed with guides to the Psalms. The Psalms are examples of engagement with God meant to be used and most study guides treat them as objects of analysis. While the guides often make true statements, they end up with abstract categorizations rather than helps for making use of these songs and prayers in pouring out our hearts to God.

Therefore, when I received a copy of Invitation to the Psalms: A Reader’s Guide for Discovery and Engagement by brothers Rolf and Karl Jacobson, I did not expect much. However, I was delightfully surprised. These authors get the Psalms. Here are two exemplary quotes:

“The psalms are meant to be read, they are meant to be experienced. Analysis of poetry is helpful and important – but only if that analysis serves to assist the reader to enter into a poem with greater sensitivity” (1).

“Because the psalms are the poetry of faith, they are not meant to be studied; they are meant to be read. The prayers of the Psalter are meant to be prayed. The songs of the Psalter are meant to be sung. The lessons of the Psalter are meant to be lived. The angry psalms are meant to be shouted. The meditations are meant to be meditated upon. When it comes to Psalm 23, the most well-known of all psalms, it is not meant as a lesson for a teacher to commend to a student, but a prayer that is meant to be prayed:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths,

For his name’s sake. (vv. 1-3)

“The psalm does not just describe trust: it is an expression of trust. When the faithful follower prays the psalm, the psalm does not merely express how the pray-er feels. Rather, through praying the psalm the pray-er comes to trust.

“If there is any value in learning about the psalms, it is just this – that by learning about the psalms, the students may learn to read, pray, sing, shout, chant, and wonder the psalms” (2).

This is a useful tool in learning to pray and sing the psalms.