Summer Psalms 

👤 Geoff

We've done this before, but we're doing it again! During August we are taking a look at some of the psalms. The Book of Psalms is in the Old Testament and is roughly in the middle of most bibles printed in English. (If you have a bible, try opening it in what you judge to be the middle and see if it works for you!)

The psalms are a compilation of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers that come from different times in Israel’s history. It's hard to give a general summary because it is a collection of independent pieces of many kinds, serving different purposes and composed over the course of many centuries.  (However, there are some unifying themes and an intentional structure, but that's for another day.) There are individual prayers of praise and thanksgiving, prayers of the community, confessions of confidence in the Lord, hymns in praise of God's majesty and celebrating his universal reign, royal psalms - by, for or concerning the king, pilgrimage songs, liturgical songs, instructional songs.

Most of all the psalms capture all of life, with its ups and downs, and often express real passion and raw honesty - dealing with the triumphs and tragedies, and wrestling with the battles and the suffering that we all face day by day.

Why not make it your goal to read a psalm a day (or maybe one each week) over the course of the summer? And if you want to catch up with some of our previous sermons on the psalms, go to our sermons page, click on 'Advanced Options' (top right, above 'Sort') and search 'Psalms' in the 'Bible Reference' box. Alternatively, click on the links below.