Psalm of the Week

My sabbatical officially starts tomorrow. (Woo hoo etc.!)

One of the aims is to prioritise my walk with the Lord and therefore to give some extra time to personal Bible reading, prayer and reflection on the Scriptures.

I am thinking of having a Psalm of the Week which I read, study, pray, think about, listen to and may be even sing.

I'd love to know the church's divinely authored prayer and hymn book better and in particular to have more of the Psalms at my finger tips and be able to think of some appropriate Psalms that would suit particular circumstances or needs as they arise.

I plan to start with Psalm 6 as I have preached on the first five psalms in living memory.

Tremper Longman III encourages us about the importance and usefulness of the Psalms:

"It has long been observed that the book of Psalms is a "microcosm" of the message of the Old Testament. Athanasius, the fourth-century theologian, called the Psalms "an epitome of the whole Scriptures." Basil, bishop of Caesarea in the same period, regarded the Psalms as a "compendium of all theology." Martin Luther said the book is "a little Bible, and a summary of the Old Testament."

Series Preface to John Goldingay, Psalms, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, volume 1, p9 (Baker Academic, 2006)