Preaching the Psalms Sequentially: 8 Practical Benefits
This article was originally published at Christian Renewal Magazine.
The Psalms series referenced in this article is available in our sermon archive.
I became a Calvinist in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University. That’s my favorite proof for the sovereignty of God… and also one of my excuses for why at age 46 I’m still learning anew many of the remarkable contours of my adopted theological tradition. Most notably, the power and beauty of the Psalms in Christian worship.
Baptized and educated as a Roman Catholic, I migrated with my family out of the Roman church when I was about twelve years old, into the wild west of evangelical Christianity. By the time I reached college my interest in the philosophy and theology of Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth left me wondering what the boundaries of evangelical faith were, or if there even were any. A related interest in questions about free will and predestination led my undergraduate thesis adviser to direct me to Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will and John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. I never looked back.
At the time this remarkable transformation in my faith was taking place, I knew very little about the Psalms. To my mind, Reformed theology was roughly identical to the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God. Gradually I discovered the means of grace, ecclesiology, and catechesis. I suppose I had read the psalms as much as any part of the Bible, probably more because of their bite-sized beauty. But they held no special place in either my old evangelical faith and worship or my newly adopted Reformed faith.
I learned in seminary as a matter of church history that psalms had a special place in the worship of the Reformed churches, and I learned to love the close study of Hebrew poetry. But it was only as a minister and worship leader over the last eleven years that I have finally begun to appreciate the power of the Psalms to shape Christian prayer and worship; the prominence of the Psalms in the Reformed tradition; and as a result, the extent to which the Psalms have shaped the Reformed tradition in particular.
Early in my ministry, I preached a series of 20 sermons through the Psalms. The idea was to introduce my congregation to the Psalter, preaching on psalms from each of the five books and illustrating the various forms of praise, confession, lament. Naturally, I preached on many of the best-known psalms, 1, 22, 23, 32, 110, 119, 150.
A few years later, I was struck by the idea of preaching through all 150 Psalms sequentially, and in January of 2013, I began doing so. Obviously, one downside of preaching all 150 Psalms in order is that the series can run to three years in length — or more if you take your time with Psalm 119. While there’s nothing wrong with a long sermon series, lack of variety in the sermon diet can be challenging for some congregants.
Thus, I decided to preach an annual set of about 10 – 15 sermons. This year I preached Psalms 42–51 over the summer months, the opening of Book II. Lord willing, I’ll finish preaching through the psalter in about another decade or so. It’s one of my small personal goals in ministry.
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect that preaching through the psalms in order is fairly rare. The longer I do it, however, the more I’m convinced that this should be a more common practice. Here are a few advantages I have found:
Preaching the whole Psalter teaches us how to Praise God. The Hebrew title for the Psalter is “The Book of Praises,” despite the fact that we find more songs of lament and confession than songs of praise in the Psalter. In fact, as you read through the Psalter, you see a progression from more lament to more praise, with a climax of Praise in Psalms 146 – 150. In a sense, the Psalter teaches us how we can move from lament to praise in our own lives, how we can Praise God in the midst of life’s struggles.
Understanding the argument of the whole Psalter deepens our knowledge of God’s word. Recent decades have seen a flowering of both academic and lay literature that views the psalter as a unified collection with an argument that progresses from Introduction (Psalm1-2) to Conclusion (Psalm145-150) through each of its five books. Understanding this unity and flow add greatly to the understanding of individual psalms, and can bring great pleasure to even the most experienced psalm readers. This summer, we accompanied our series with a mid-week study through W. Robert Godfrey’s Learning to Love the Psalms, which our congregation thoroughly enjoyed.
Reading Psalms in their individual context enlarges our appreciation for each psalm. Most Christians read each psalm as an isolated unit. However, when you begin to read the Psalter as a carefully structured collection, you see that there are often interesting relationships between neighboring psalms. This summer, I noted that Psalm 42-43 (I agree with those who believe they are originally a single composition) and Psalm 44 deal with dark seasons in Israel’s history, first individually then corporately. Then Psalm 45 was a royal marriage song, shifting our attention to the beauty and glory of the Lord’s anointed — quite an answer to Israel’s darkness. Likewise, Psalm 49 is a wisdom psalm warning the rich and powerful of their pride, and Psalm 50 was a song of God’s coming judgment. This pair is followed of course by Psalm 51, David’s great song of confession following his sin with Bathsheba, made all the more poignant when you see that the King had as it were been warned by the preceding psalms.
Preaching rare, unfamiliar, or difficult Psalms broadens our perspective on the Psalter. It’s natural for preachers to gravitate to more familiar, more beautiful, or more “important” Psalms when selecting texts to preach. But in preaching the psalms selectively we tend not to preach the whole counsel of God, and we overlook many psalms we’re just not very familiar with. Often in wrestling with these unfamiliar psalms you can see beautiful facets of God’s revelation.
Preaching the entire psalter connects us with the people of God through history. Reading through the entire Psalter in a regular cycle (weekly for many monastics, or monthly) has been a regular practice in Synagogue and church. It is a discipline that, if practiced regularly, deeply enriches our vocabulary for prayer and song in church and home. Modeling this through a consecutive sermon series is a great way to introduce the practice to God’s people.
Preaching the whole Psalter helps us sing the Psalter with understanding. When I preach a psalm, we always try to sing that psalm. Some are more difficult to sing, with unfamiliar music than others. But gradually we are exposed to more psalm tunes and broaden our selection of familiar psalms to sing. And when we return to them in subsequent services, we can sing them with a deeper anchor to their main points, which ultimately makes the sung worship of God’s people more significant for them.
Preaching the Psalter sequentially improves our prayer life. The psalms are inspired prayers, and the more of them we are familiar with, the better. As a pastor and a student of God’s word, I often don’t “get” a psalm until I take the time to study it deeply and preach it to God’s people. Likewise, God’s people may not get the thrust or logic of many of these prayers without hearing a well-constructed sermon. Our prayer language is weak, and we can always use more biblical instruction in how to pray.
Preaching the whole Psalter lends balance to our view of the Christian life. The preponderance of laments in the Psalter reminds us that the life of the faithful in this world is a life of pilgrims and sojourners, often filled with difficulty and struggle. Modern Christians are often drawn to the cheerful and upbeat; we desire optimistic sermons, even if we’re not listening to Joel Osteen teach us how to have “Our Best Life Now.” If we preach the Psalter selectively, we may naturally gravitate to preaching more positive, upbeat Psalms. The discipline of preaching the entire Psalter selectively, however, ensures that we cover the whole inspired range of emotions in the psalms, and serves as a corrective to the view that the church is full of “shiny, happy people.”
I’m sure there are more benefits to be found in preaching through the entire psalter, and I’m sure that after another 99 sermons (including Psalm 119) I’ll have unearthed a few more of them. The Psalter is a rich resource, too often neglected in the Christian church. Thankfully, its place has been well preserved in our Reformed tradition, and I believe we should do a better job of proclaiming this part of God’s word to those who have largely forgotten it.