06.11.06
The Psalms (1): The Psalms as Literature
In 1850, the first Europeans settled on a remote hillside in Queensland, Australia, and formed a community called ‘Mount Morgan’. These settlers scraped a meagre living from the land through farming. But in 1874 a certain William McKinlay discovered gold, and since then 247 tonnes of gold, 40 tonnes of silver and 247 tonnes of copper have been mined out of Mount Morgan. For 24 years, the settlers were scraping away a living when, if they had dug a bit, they would have found gold and never had to plant another potato. The 1850 settlers on Mount Morgan literally didn’t know the riches they were sitting on. We are a bit like that, for we, with our exclusive Psalm singing heritage think that our praise is barren rock and desert – but all the time we haven’t realised and appreciated that when we sing a psalm, we are singing gold itself. And what I want to do over the next few weeks is to open up seams of gold in the Psalms so that you will begin not just to cherish your heritage and stop being apologetic about singing the Psalms, but also so that you may be able to find new wonders of worshipping God in this marvellous book called the Psalms. After all, in the original language of the Old Testament – Hebrew – these psalms are called “The Tellihim” – which literally means, “the Praises”; this is God’s praise book! Read the rest of this entry »