At about the same time Wright released his massive Paul and the Faithfulness of God
The Churches of Christ, priding themselves on being a “New Testament church,” as though there might be some other kind, have not developed a theology of the Psalms. They aren’t discussed much in our lectureships and we don’t write books about them, other than the occasional devotional piece.
We are not alone among Protestants, and Wright argues for a fresh study of the Psalms as essential. After all, the Psalms were the hymnal of Jesus and his apostles. Just as we have unconsciously memorized the hymns of our childhood, First Century Jews surely did the same regarding the Psalms.
Just as “Amazing Grace” and “Blessed Be the Tie” will forever shape Baby Boomer’s reading of the scriptures, the Psalms heavily impacted the sayings and writings of Jesus and his followers. They were part of the Palestinian culture.
If we look, we can find countless references to the Psalms in the New Testament, and if we don’t know what the Psalms say, we’ll miss much of the depth of what the New Testament says.
Wright also points out that the Psalms reflect a particular worldview, which he calls “covenantal monotheism,” fancy words for there is one God and he has made covenants that define his relationship with humans — so that God remains in active and creative relationship with his creation.
Many in the Churches of Christ would say that God’s activity ended in the First Century, resulting in a kind of “covenantal monotheistic Deism” — that God used to be active but stopped 2,000 years ago. But this is an increasingly minority position. I’ll speak no more of it in this series.
Wright contrasts the worldview of the Psalms and First Century church with Epicureanism, a philosophy that essentially says the gods aren’t going to harm you but neither is there any blessed afterlife. This ancient philosophy is also the popular worldview of much of the West.
Western philosophers want to pretend that this is a new, scientific point of view, but it’s older than Christianity, having its roots in Grecian pagan philosophy.
On the other hand, Wright says, covenantal monotheism is both older than Epicureanism and also far more up-to-date.
As a result, even though the Psalms predate Jesus by centuries, they speak to us today in terms that can help us deepen and enrich our understanding of the world and God — if we see them through a Christian worldview and not a pagan one.
Wright then asks us to think of the crossroads of time, space, and matter. As to time, he is thinking of the place where the past and the future meet: the present — but recognizing that God’s past and future are different from ours.
As to space or place, he means the two realities — where we live and where God lives — sometimes called earth and heaven. But “heaven” in the Jewish mind is not a long, long way away or in the future.
As to matter, there is the present world, broken and sinful, and the future world for which we hope — perfect and blessed. And yet these two aren’t quite so far apart as we think, just as heaven isn’t so far away and the future isn’t so distant.
The Psalms, Wright says, can help us find the intersection between our reality and God’s — and thereby escape the Epicureanism that permeates our culture and media and find true reality.
Wright points out that poetry is not prose with rhymes. Rather, good poetry can take us beyond ordinary literature to feel and understand things that could not be explained by ordinary words.
And music adds that much more to the poetry. This is one reason those of us who grew up in church memorized far more hymns than scriptures. And most of us have memorized far more of the Psalms and other poems than scriptural prose. God uses poetry to speak to us because, through poetry, he can express things that are otherwise inexpressible.
Therefore, he urges us to bring the Psalms into our worship[1] with music. “[A]ll human art and skill can be and should be brought before the creator God in glad offering” (p. 25). (Obviously, this Anglican scholar is unaware of the Regulative Principle, which prohibits all forms of worship other than the pre-approved Five Acts. After all, why would we imagine that God giving us a gift to create somehow authorizes us to use that gift in worship to him?)[2]
Wright notes that the Anglican tradition encourages daily praying of the Psalms, so that when a crisis arises, the wisdom and power of God’s words are already present — and so that weekly worship is enhanced by the internalization of the Psalms read in the assembly.
Wright notes that poetry and music both have the power to evoke the past into the present and to bring to the present our hopes for the future. I would add that corporate worship — singing, really — can bring to feeling the presence of all Christians around the world singing with us in their own churches. And if we’ve been taught well, we might even feel the presence of the Christians already in heaven singing with us as the entire creation — heaven and earth — exults in God on the first day of each week. (This is very Orthodox but also very New Testament. Start with Hebrews 11-12 and then the fact that God is the God of the Living — and go from there.)
In fact, singing and prayer can make our future with God seem much more immediate and tangible — not quite so far off. And we can even find that heaven itself is but a handsbreadth away, just a reach, not up beyond the skies but right here if only we had spiritual eyes. The assembly becomes a place, like the Holy of Holies of old, where heaven and earth merge for a moment, so that God is present while still on his throne.
Thus, poetry, music, worship, singing, and prayer can change how we perceive reality. Time and space and matter all shift as we become aware of what is real, even though sometimes hidden.
(I’m riffing a bit on Wright’s ideas.)
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[1] I’m well aware of the argument that “worship” in the New Testament is not limited to the weekly assembly. I agree. But Wright writes within his tradition, and we aren’t about to stop meeting on Sundays to sing and recite and hear God’s word ourselves. And so I’m using his Anglican vocabulary without intending to get into that issue.
[2] Sarcasm, of course.
Jay,
I predict that this series will be much more pleasant to read, but that it will generate far fewer comments than the last. This is true even though it also is corrective of one of the Church of Christ shibboleths: “But that’s in the Old Testament.” Of course, we fall back on this only when there is something there that makes us uncomfortable.
The authors of the NT found such value in the Psalms that they used it to convey the truths of the new covenant. Hard to avoid the relationship, humanness and passion of the Psalms. But how many of us initially missed its prophesy?
The Psalms in the King James Version is my Saturday morning pleasure. While my wife is still sleeping I sit with my coffee and my KJV, enjoying the most beautiful poetry found on this earth. My prayer is that the CoC, as well as the rest of the Evangelical world, is now secure enough to enjoy the KJV again, especially the Psalms.
Conservative denominations have cheated themselves out of much beauty due to their mistrust of art. They became so mired down in the “factual” epistles that the Psalms, and the Prophets, were seldom appreciated except for cherry picking verses to support our New Testement conclusions.
But the poetry of the Psalms and the Prophets has a life of its own that can mold and move us into a beauty that can refine this world, beginning with the people we meet each day. I believe that God has “wired” us for art as much as for religion and that they overlap and embrace more than not, and that it is a shameful state if we allow those who deny God to make the greatest claim on art, especially poetry.
I am bursting with joy as I read through this book!
One of the “little” points that Wright makes that is so beautiful to me is how John depicts the New Jerusalem as a gigantic Most Holy Place in the midst of the New Heavens and New Earth. This so perfectly fits with Jesus’ self-understanding as the dwelling place of God on Earth, with Paul’s temple theology in places like 1 Cor 3 and 1 Cor 6, and Peter’s assertion that we are being built together as living stones into God’s holy temple… Just awesome.
The psalms are replete with praise and worship. This is much different and much better than 2 songs, a welcome, 1 song, communion, and then a sermon on baptism.
Like tens of millions over the age, the Psalms will continue to comfort — perhaps most in these blogs are blessed to to experience such as I have. The Psalms tell us God is not “afraid” of our confronting him and asking “Where are you? Get down here and help, please.” What continues to support my life is God’s faithfulness in the midst of my own doubt and pain.Time to read again, in its’ genre; not primarily didactic, but devotional.
John, that is well said.
I hope none of us will fail to remember that our Savior is JESUS. The scripture most important to us who love JESUS is what reports on what JESUS said and did and what JESUS led His apostles to teach and practice. The examples and calls to worship which matter most to US are ones directed to US rather than to God’s people in ages prior to the church age. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church with ageless lessons, including the fact that the church there was praised for meeting for mutual edification. We still should care about one another supremely and work to bless one another as we honor Jesus as our LORD.
The Scripture most important to me is the Scripture that shaped Jesus’ identity, the Scripture that Paul says is profitable for doctrine, the Scripture to whose public reading Timothy was dedicated, the Scripture we’re called to sing as a means of being filled with the Spirit and teaching one another.
Let’s not let hobby horses cause us to blind ourselves to what Scripture itself says is important.
Nick, it seems we all have our own pony, they are just painted with different brushes.
And you think yours should get more hay than mine.
Lots of people, and I hope I am one of them, comment on many different topics with non-repetitive comments. We try to talk about, or at least start out engaging with, the ideas in the original post.
Some, however, seek to find a way to wedge their one or two favorite points of argumentation (whether it is the Trinity, baptism, mutual edification, congregational organization, worship style, OSAS, or whatever) into every discussion.
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I think our rearing in the works salvation ethic and our vision of scripture as an instruction manual sometimes make it difficult to get more out of the scriptures than “But what am I supposed to do about X?” Even the least foray into revelation beyond “Go ye therefore and remember these rules and do this stuff” gets us a warning to get back to work and stop staring out the window. But the very nature of the scripture should warn us from this narrow and utilitarian view. God put the Law on two stone tablets. THAT is the utilitarian approach.
So why has God related so much more to us in scripture? Why is Ruth recorded? Or Job? Or Song of Solomon? Or Philemon? Or Ecclesiates? Or Revelation? Surely a good editor could remove these texts, along with the minor prophets, and leave us no less well enlightened as to how to do our job and stay out of hell.
I think it is because he wants us to know him, not just to know what he wants us to do next. I am reminded of a question I heard the other day: “Why do people have kids?” And the answers all centered around having someone to love and whose lives we can take joy in. The utilitarian approach would answer: “Well, I need some to feed the chickens and some to work the plow and some to milk the cows and some to tend the pigs and some to plant the wheat…” Sadly, we have attributed this latter view to our own Father. Because many of us were reared in this latter mindset, we tend to divide our lives into work and play, with play being rather unseemly and wasteful. “Be still and know that I am God” is rendered optional -or even merely symbolic- while “Go ye into all the world” is an honorable use of our time.
This is not really an effort to draw near to Jesus, but more to get clear and detailed work instructions, so as to better justify our eventual eternal reward. It is reflected in our hymnody, where we have replaced “He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul” with “We’ll work (we’ll work) ’til Jesus comes, then we’ll be gathered home.” I don’t really see the improvement.
Martha, we love you, but do sit down with Mary for a bit. Thanks.
John Fortner has been translating and commenting on the Psalms: http://fortnersthinkshop.wordpress.com/category/psalms-studies/