TEACHING PSALMS

Volume 1

From text to message

CHRISTOPHER ASH

SERIES EDITORS: DAVID JACKMAN & ADRIAN REYNOLDS

PT RESOURCES

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked ‘ESV’ are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ‘NRSV’ are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Proclamation Trust Media 2017

ISBN: 978-1-52710-004-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published in 2017

by

Christian Focus Publications Ltd,

Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire,

IV20 1TW, Scotland, Great Britain.

with

Proclamation Trust Resources,

Willcox House, 140-148 Borough High Street,

London, SE1 1LB, England, Great Britain.

www.proctrust.org.uk

www.christianfocus.com

Cover design by Moose77.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London, EC1 8TS www.cla.co.uk

To Carolyn, my dear wife and daily prayer-partner

Almighty God, you alone can order the unruly wills and passions of sinful men: grant that your people may love what you command and desire what you promise so that among the many and varied changes of this world our hearts may be firmly fixed where true joys are to be found through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.1

Contents

Author’s Preface

Series Preface

Part One: How to pray the Psalms in Christ

1. We must pray the Psalms

2. We can’t pray the Psalms

3. How to pray the Psalms in Christ

4. Examples of praying the Psalms in Christ

5. Drawing the lines to Christ

Part Two: Difficulties we face in the Psalms

6. Who are ‘the righteous’ in the Psalms?

7. How can we pray Psalms of suffering?

8. Can we pray for God’s judgment on the wicked?

Part Three: Integrating the Psalms into the Bible story

9. Creation in the Psalms

10. Abraham in the Psalms

11. Exodus in the Psalms

12. Sinai in the Psalms

13. Zion in the Psalms

14. Exile in the Psalms

15. Lament and Praise in the Psalms

Part Four: How to teach the Psalms

16. How Hebrew poetry works

17. The fourfold task of the Psalms Teacher

18. A Framework for preparing to teach a Psalm

19. Planning a Teaching Series on the Psalms

Conclusion: How the Psalms reshape our prayers

Bibliography

Commentaries on the Psalms

Other Sources