Psalm Wordles

Ben Williamson has cleverly provided wordles for the Psalter and for each of the 5 books of the book of Psalms. (You know the things, size of word proportional to the number of times its used). I wonder how this would compare to our hymn books or our contemporary worship songs?

More Psalm Resources

If I ever get an idle moment (ha ha) I must collect together these Psalm resources.

By the wonders of Facebook, a friend suggested the following:

http://www.uupsalmsproject.blogspot.com/

http://www.inlightofthegospel.org/?p=5114

http://www.crownandcovenant.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=Psalm

More metrical psalms

By the power of Facebook & Google, another friend hath suggested these Psalms unto me.

Again, all that time on Facebook has not been wasted. Another friend pointed me to:

http://www.psalmistry.com/psalms_christian_music_directory.htm

http://genevanpsalter.redeemer.ca/

http://metricalpsalms.homestead.com/archives.html

Praise! Online

A friend kindly pointed me to Praise! Online. For £10 a year one can get access to the Praise! words and music, extra stuff like background information, new songs, MP3s etc. I'm particularly interested in Praise! as it has at least one metrical version for each of the Psalms and I hope the online version will save me having to type out the words for us to sing in church.

Sing Psalms

In obedience to Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16, and 'cos its the Word of God and all that, I'd love us to sing the Psalms regulalrly. Great as many of our hymns and songs are, the Word of God must be better, surely?

But sadly I find Anglican chant (which allows you to sing the words straight out of an English Bible if you want to, as the music adapts to fit the words) very hard to get the hang of. And if the Vicar can't do it, I imagine your average 21st Century occasional church-going might not find it easy either.

So I'm trying to find some metrical (i.e. hymn) versions of the Psalms we could sing.

As, sadly, the words are often not as familiar to us as they might be (!) I'd like to go for really easy well-known tunes so it's not too much of a car crash!

Maybe this would even help us to get the words into our heads. I'd love to be able to wander round the house belting out the Psalms and not just bits of "Hey, big spender!", or whatever!

You can find some suggestions of one hymn to the tune of another from Steve Jefferey here.

I'm going to suggest one week soon we try:

Words: Praise! 2b by Jim Sayers (Psalm 2)
Tune: Jerusalem by C. H. Parry Long Meter Double 88 88 D - Praise! 172 / Hymns Old & New 31 / Mission Praise 438

and then the next week:

Words: Praise! 3 by Mollie Knight (Psalm 3)

Tune: Long Meter 88 88 - Duke Street (e.g. Fight The Good Fight) Praise! 544 / Hymns Old & New 128 / Mission Praise 143

Preaching the Psalms

Today I'm running a session at the Sussex Coast Ministry Training Course for my little preaching group to tee up our term's work on preaching the Psalms. I've grandly entitled my jottings:

APPRECIATING, APPLYING & PREACHING PSALMS

Here's my handout:

All the usual things to think about when preaching / speaking plus:

The 5 books of the Psalter – cf. 5 books of the Law – significance?

The Context of the Psalms

- original historical context – how important? the importance of the superscriptions (original) – sometimes unknown - speculation

- original / early use of Psalms e.g. in gathered corporate worship, Psalms of Ascents pilgrim festivals

- in a cycle / group of Psalms, the book of Psalms, in Psalms as a whole – e.g. Ps 1 & 2, 42 & 43

- in the Bible / salvation history – the Psalms as a Christian book

Content & form (e.g. acrostics, parallelisms – synonymous, synthetic, antithetical etc.)

The form / genre / types / use of the Psalms – songs / prayers / laments / imprecatory, Royal etc. didactic?

What do we miss by not knowing Hebrew? – word play / sounds, alliteration, ascenance - translations

Reading poetry (English & Hebrew!): What images / poetic devices are used / how / why?

The mood, feel, emotions, intended effects / response of the Psalm

“Levels” of meaning / application of the Psalms:

- The psalmist – how “unique” or typical?

- the historical speaker of the Psalm

- David(ic) King

- Jesus, the Messiah, the ultimate Davidic King

- All believers (in Christ)

- Us / me

Jesus praying / saying / singing this Psalm / singing or saying it to Jesus

The use of the Psalms today

- private study / meditation / reflection / prayer / singing

- family devotions, small groups etc.

- public – neglected? Eph 5:19; Col 3:16 – for teaching

- sung, said, prayed etc.

How will you have the Psalm read / sung / prayed?

Resources on the Psalms

Derek Kindner, Tyndale Commentary (2 vols)

J. Clinton McCann Jr., A Theological Introduction to the Psalms: The Psalms as Torah (instruction) (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1993)

G. Grogan, Prayer, Praise & Prophecy: A Theology of the Psalms (Christian Focus, 2001)

Tremper Longman III, How To Read the Psalms (IVP, 1988)

Alec Motyer, Journey: Psalms for Pilgrim People (IVP, 2009) – Psalms of Ascent - Ps 120-136

Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David – hints for preachers etc. (3 vols)

Michael Wilcock, The Message of the Psalms, Bible Speaks Today Series (2 vols)

Gerald H. Wilson, The NIV Application Commentary (vol 1) – Psalms 1-72

Sermons & other stuff online:

Mike Reeves on Psalm 1 & introductory comments on Psalms on All Souls, Langham Place website: http://www.allsouls.org/ascm/allsouls/static/sermons/showsermon.flow?id=10800

John Cheeseman recent sermons on a selection of Psalms - http://www.holytrinityeastbourne.org.uk/sermons.php

Preaching The Psalms

God-willing, I'm going to share some thoughts on preaching the Psalms with my little preaching group at The Sussex Coast Ministry Training Course on Tues 27th. All hints and tips gratefully received.

Sing Psalms

I just don't understand why we, the conservative Evangelical, really Bible-believing Christians, don't sing the Psalms (Col 3:16). It might be hard and difficult and unpopular, but we would usually say that we don't want to give up on the Bible and go for the easy popular sold out to our culture approach.

I know there are lots of lovely excellent hymns and songs out there, and I'm all for singing them, but what about the 150 God-breathed perfect songs we have in the Scriptures? Shouldn't we prioritise them? Or at least give them a regular place?

How many Psalms do you know by heart? And how many hymns or contemporary worship songs do you know? Is that good and right and helpful? Wouldn't singing the Psalms be an great way to have the Word of Christ dwell in us richly?

So what are we going to do about it? And when?

David Jackman on Ps 86 at EMA

A prayer under pressure.

How to lay hold of God at times of personal need.

Key verse: v11 - pivot, chief request: "unite my heart" - a single focus / direction / control-centre / goal / concentration, God is one, the unique authority, only God can engage all our powers and capacities

Distinguish petulance and perplexity. Take both to God.

Word affects walk (way) and worship

vv1-7: A cry for help

We are needy but not unworthy since depending on God's faithfulness and character not our merit we live with faithful covenant loyalty.

Some Christians have a joy so deep they have difficulty ever allowing it to surface!

vv8-13: A celebration of faith

vv14-17: An application of the remedy

Not just grit your teeth and get on with it but grit your teeth and go to the Lord with it.

With our self-confidence we are like a mad-man with a knife. The more we grasp it the more it hurts us. We need to drop it and look to the Lord (Spurgeon).

He Shall Have Dominion

A live blog from camp!

All is going well - through many dangers, toils and snares, and with His strength made perfect in weakness and so on. Thanks if you prayed and to the Lord and to all the team!

We've been having excellent times in Psalms 1 & 8 so far thanks to Mr Ken MacDonald.

I was especially struck by how dominion was seen partly in Adam, lost, exercised fully in Christ, progressively in us and perfectly in the future.

Think of Jesus domion over nature: He calms the storm and walks on water.

And over the beasts of the field: He rides an unbroken donkey no one else has ever ridden and the pigs rush to their death as He allows demons to enter them.

And over the fish of the sea: they climb into nets at His command, they pay His taxes and he serves them up.

And over the birds of the air: the Spirit comes on Him in the form of a dove and not a bird falls from the heavens except at His Father's command.

I just have to go and exercise a bit of dominion over Mr Dan Ritchie who is a very naughty leader. He just said there was some man outside the main building to see me. I took off my Christmas tree hair band, picked up my official looking folder and pen and marched out, where upon a group of boys water bombed me. Vengance may be the Lord's but a bit of corrective "punishment" might be in order...

Sing to the Lord a new song

Here's the text of a handout (which I didn't in fact handout!) for a sermon on Psalm 98. Some further jottings here.

What?

Sing (vv1, 5) / shout to the LORD (vv4-5)

jubilant (v4) / for joy (vv4, 6)

a new song (v1)

a variety of instruments (vv5-6)

Why?

(a) What he has done:

marvellous salvation (vv1, v3b)

revealed to the nations (vv2, 3)

covenant faithfulness (v3)

(b) Who he is:

the LORD, the King (v6)

(c) What he will do:

comes to judge in righteousness (v9)

Who?

God’s people (v3)

All people (vv2, 3, 4, 7)

The whole creation (vv7-8; Ps 19:1-6; Rm 8:19-21)

Sermonizing a song

Just thought I might share a little sermon preparation angst with you. I hope the following dilemmas make sense. Any tips welcome, though really the sermon ought to be ready by supper time.

As a general rule I would have thought its good if the style and manner of our preaching matches the genre and feel of the passage we’re preaching from. I guess that under God we're usually after the same emotional response and rhetorical effect that the original writer intended to produce.

I’m preparing to preach on Psalm 98 which is an exuberant call to triumphant praise. Enthusiasm and even a little flamboyance would seem called for. I wont be breaking in to song, but a little loudness wouldn’t be out a place (vv4-6).

Yet I feel tempted to crunch the Psalm down into clear propositions. I feel the need for headings and structure. I’m toying with rearranging the material (something like: 1. What should be done? 2. By whom should it be done? 3. Why should it be done?). Its a way of mining the psalm for its teaching but this would be a move away from the poetry of the psalm that I’m reluctant about. A line by line approach might help me to stick to the feel of the psalm rather more.

Maybe I’m over attached to the attractiveness of a neat(ish) handout! I don’t want to sacrifice clarity or precision yet I fear that showing too much scaffolding in my sermon may not be the best way to get the effect of psalm across.

I know there ought to be practical applications, but too many specific take-home lessons about what our corporate worship should be like, for example, seem to risk blunting the call to praise the Lord! But I guess that sometime somehow such applications also need to be made from such texts, if they genuinely are implied by them, since when would they otherwise be made?

Maybe they shouldn’t be, but some of these things can seem like competing concerns and I’m not sure which of them really matter (or matter for the sermon) and how best to do justice to them all. We are going to sing a version of the Psalm (Sing To God New Songs of Worship) and we’ve tried to pick some other stuff that fits its mood. Maybe it would be good to read the psalm aloud together too?

Perhaps I need to do some more thinking about specifically what the sermon's for. I'm not sure I really know the ideal I'm aspiring to! But I guess as the clock is ticking I'll probably just try to say some true and useful things from the passage without being too dull...

He hath done marvelous things

God-willing I’ll be preaching on Psalm 98 on Sunday morning and in preparation I’ve been reading Spurgeon’s comments in The Treasury of David (which can be found on-line here).

Having been helped by Spurgeon's quaint sayings and tips for preachers I just told baby Jonathan about "the song of the seas" and "the hallelujah of the hills" (v7-8), and got a very happy smile in return!

Here are some favourite moments:

Jesus, our King, has lived a marvellous life, died a marvellous death, risen by a marvellous resurrection, and ascended marvellously into heaven. By his divine power he hath sent forth the Holy Spirit doing marvels, and by that same energy his disciples have also wrought marvellous things and astonished all the earth. Idols have fallen, superstitions have withered, systems of error have fled, and empires of cruelty have perished. For all this he deserves the highest praise. (p210)

It is no small blessing, or little miracle, that throughout all lands the gospel should be published in so short a time, with such singular success and abiding results. (p211)

All repetitions are not vain repetitions, in sacred song there should be graceful repeats, they render the sense emphatic, and help to fire the soul; even preachers do not amiss when they dwell on a word and sound it out again and again, till dull ears feel its emphasis. (p212)

Man’s voice is at its best when it sings the best words in the best spirit to the best of Beings. Love and war must not monopolise the lyric muse; the love of God and the conquests of Immanuel should win to themselves man’s sweetest strains. (p212)

Let but the reigning power of Jesus be felt in the soul and we shall cast aside that chill mutter, drowned by the pealing organ, which is now so commonly the substitute for earnest congregational singing. (p213)

This psalm is an evident prophecy of Christ's coming to save the world; and what is here foretold by David is, in the Blessed Virgin's Song chanted forth as being accomplished. David is the Voice, and Mary is the Echo.

1. DAVID. "O sing unto the Lord a new song." (The Voice.)

MARY. "My soul doth magnify the Lord." (The Echo.)

2. DAVID. "He hath done marvellous things." (The Voice.)

MARY. "He that is mighty hath done great things." (The Echo.)

3. DAVID. "With his own right hand and holy arm hath he gotten himself the victory." (The Voice.)

MARY. "He hath showed strength with his arm, and scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts." (The Echo.)

4. DAVID. "The Lord hath made known his salvation; his righteousness hath he openly showed, "&c. (The Voice.)

MARY. "His mercy is on them that fear him, from generation to generation." (The Echo.)

5. DAVID. "He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel." (The Voice.)

MARY. "He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy." (The Echo.)

These parallels are very striking; and it seems as if Mary had this psalm in her eye when she composed her song of triumph. And this is a farther argument that the whole psalm, whether it record the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, or the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, is yet to be ultimately understood of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, and the proclamation of his gospel through all the nations of the earth: and taken in this view, no language can be too strong, nor poetic imagery too high, to point out the unsearchable riches of Christ. Adam Clarke. (p214f)

Psalm 95 sermon

The handout for my sermon today on Psalm 95 (which is here as a Word document) would have looked something like this, if the church office computer hadn't decided it was junk (mail)!

Famous Anglican Texts (2): Psalm 95 (page 602)

O Come, Let Us Sing To The Lord

(1) An Invitation / Command: Worship With Joy

What to do: vv2-3, v6

Joyfully sing & shout humble, confident, thanksgiving & praise to God

Why to do it: vv3-5, v7a

Because God is our supreme great LORD, Rock, Saviour, King, Creator, controller, Shepherd

(2) A Warning / Command: Obey God’s Voice Today

What not to do: v7b-8

Don’t harden your heart to God’s Word

Why not to do it: vv9-11

Because God’s angry judgement against his people could cut you off from his rest

(OT context: Massah & Meribah = Rephidim, Exodus 17:7)

(NT application: Hebrews 3-4)

Here are some notes for the sermon as a Word document.

How To Learn Anglican Psalm Chant

When some of us were trying to learn Anglican Psalm chant, before we started on the Psalm we'd la-la the chant a few times. No doubt that's helpful but here's another approach:

In fact, when choirs are learning a new chant, one of the first things they will do is speak the words together repeatedly, until everyone feels and reproduces the same cadence at an ordinary reading/speaking pace. Next, they will sing the same text on a monotone, again striving to develop a unity of pace/diction/cadence for the lines of the text. Finally, they will add the actual notes of the chant, striving to keep the pace and cadence that was present when they were simply reading it in unison.

(From Jack's Pipe)

If you think about it, it makes sense to get to know the words before you try to chant them since the whole point of Anglican chant is that the words govern the music and the melody you've been la-la-ing is going to be different for every line anyway.

Long term best or short term fix?

Maybe this is a stupid question but how do we decide between the long term best and the short term fix? Or, if we want to get there, where do we go from here?

For example, if some of our church music is pretty weak and we want to improve it (particularly making it more attractive to the under 40s) and eventually we want to chant the Psalms, do we just do it, introduce Psalm practice, start on some metrical Psalms, or give up on the whole thing and buy Spring Harvest 07, or what?

Or take the Sunday School. If we want children to be in church with their parents as much as possible, do we spend lots of time and energy on having a great Sunday school so that we can have lots of kids to send out to it?

I know, it all depends and we must distinguish. But it feels like giving up on long term goals for the sake of short term expediecy. Maybe its time for a cuppa.

Site for Singing Metrical Psalms

I'm sure chanting the Psalms to music is the way forward, but since I'm something of a lazy musical retard I was delighted to see this whizzy site, Music For The Church of God / Psalms in Meter, which lets you choose from a number of different metrical versions of each Psalm and a number of different tunes (which it plays at you) to sing them by. Hours of edifying "fun" and Psalm chanting as an ambition for the grandchildren.

Thanks to Dr Field, Mr Newman, Jack's Pipe and Father Mouser.

Why Do The Nations Rage?

Here are some headings for a sermon I preached at Holy Trinity, Eastbourne. There are some more jottings here.

Why do the nations rage?

Psalm 2

(1) The nations stupidly rebel against the LORD (vv1-3)

(2) But God has established his King (vv4-9)

(3) So “kiss” the Son (vv10-12)

God’s enemies: fear – flee to the Son

God’s people: fear, rejoice, serve, blessed, safe, refuge
Confidence and boldness in evangelism

Invitation to the Good Life

Here are some headings for a sermon I preached at Holy Trinity, Eastbourne. There are some more jottings here.

The Secret of Happiness

Psalm 1

An invitation: (1) to the Psalms
(2) to the good life (“Blessed” / Happy, v1)

2 Ways: a stark choice
now & later pictures - 2 directions & destines

(1) Avoid the way of the wicked


Don’t waste your life!

(2) Choose the way of the righteous


Don’t you want this kind of blessing?

The secret of the good life: “on his law he meditates” (v2)

How will you do it?

The Blessed Man

Trust in Him

Psalm Singing

Calvin says: “On the other hand, there are the psalms which we desire to be sung in the Church, as we have it exemplified in the ancient Church and in the evidence of Paul himself, who says it is good to sing in the congregation with mouth and heart. We are unable to compute the profit and edification which will arise from this, except after having experimented. Certainly as things are, the prayers of the faithful are so cold, that we ought to be ashamed and dismayed. The psalms can incite us to lift up our hearts to God and move us to an ardour in invoking and exalting with praises the glory of his Name.”

(Articles concerning the Organization of the Church and of Worship at Geneva proposed by the Ministers at the Council January 16, 1537, Reid, Calvin: Theological Treatises, LCC, p53)