Genesis to Revelation: Psalms Leader Guide: A Comprehensive Verse-by-Verse Exploration of the Bible; Psalms Leader Guide - Brossura

John, Prof Holbert C

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1501848399 ISBN 13: 9781501848391

Casa editrice: Abingdon Press, 2017

Riassunto

The Book of Psalms study begins with a look at the hymns of praise and ends with the Psalms of confidence. Some of the major ideas explored are: God is the Creator of all, what does the Lord require of me, the diversity of the Psalms, responses to crisis, and the use of Psalms in worship.Leader Guide includes: A verse-by-verse, in-depth look at the Scriptures. Background material, including word studies and history of the biblical setting. Answers to questions asked in the Participant Book. Application of the Scripture to daily life situations. Discussion suggestions. A variety of study options. Practical tips for leaders to use.More than 3.5 million copies of the series have been sold.This revision of the Abingdon classic Genesis to Revelation Series is a comprehensive, verse-by-verse, book-by-book study of the Bible based on the NIV. These studies help readers strengthen their understanding and appreciation of the Bible by enabling them to engage the Scripture on three levels: What does the Bible say? Questions to consider while reading the passage for each session. What does the passage mean? Unpacks key verses in the selected passage. How does the Scripture relate to my life? Provides three major ideas that have meaning for our lives today. The meaning of the selected passages are made clear by considering such aspects as ancient customs, locations of places, and the meanings of words.The meaning of the selected passages are made clear by considering such aspects as ancient customs, locations of places, and the meanings of words. The simple format makes the study easy to use. Includes maps and glossary with key pronunciation helps.Updates will include: New cover designs. New interior designs. Leader Guide per matching Participant Book (rather than multiple volumes in one book). Updated to 2011 revision of the New International Version Translation (NIV). Updated references to New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible. Include biblical chapters on the contents page beside session lesson titles for at-a-glance overview of biblical structure. Include larger divisions within the contents page to reflect macro-structure of each biblical book. Ex: Genesis 1-11; Genesis 12-50; Exodus 1-15; Exodus 16-40; Isaiah 1-39; Isaiah 40-66.The simple format makes the study easy to use. Each volume is 13 sessions.

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Genesis to Revelation: Psalms Leader Guide

A Comprehensive Verse-by-Verse Exploration of the Bible

By John C. Holbert

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2017 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-4839-1

Contents

Outline and Introduction, 
1. Hymns of Praise, 
2. Hymns of Praise, 
3. Songs of Zion, 
4. Royal Psalms, 
5. Communal Thanksgiving Psalms, 
6. Individual Thanksgiving Psalms, 
7. Individual Laments, 
8. Individual Laments, 
9. Individual Laments, 
10. Individual Laments, 
11. Communal Laments, 
12. Wisdom Psalms, 
13. Psalms of Confidence, 

CHAPTER 1

HYMNS OF PRAISE

DIMENSION ONE: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 8

1. The psalm talks to whom? (8:1) The psalm talks to Yahweh, the Lord.

2. What has God created? (8:3) God has created the heavens, the moon, and the stars.

3. How are human beings described in the psalm? (8:4-5) Human beings are a tiny part of creation, and at the same time "a little lower than the angels."

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 19

4. What is proclaiming God's glory in the psalm? (19:1) The heavens declare God's glory.

5. How does the psalmist describe God's law? (19:7-9) God's law is perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, firm, and righteous.

6. What must our words and thoughts be in relationship to God? (19:14) They must be pleasing in God's sight.

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 29

7. The psalm talks to whom? (29:1) The psalm speaks to the "heavenly beings," or the mighty ones.

8. What does the voice of God do? (29:3-9) The voice of God thunders, breaks cedars, makes mountains shake ("makes Lebanon leap like a calf"), brings lightning, causes earthquakes, and strips forests bare.

9. What does the psalmist ask from God? (29:11) The psalmist asks strength and peace for the people.

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 33

10. Who should praise God according to this psalm? (33:1) All righteous persons should praise God.

11. How should God be praised? (33:2-3) God should be praised with lyre, harp, skillful playing, a new song, and shouts for joy.

12. What does God do? (33:13-14) God sees "all mankind" and watches "all who live on earth."

13. What makes the psalmist glad? (33:20-21) Trusting in God's holy name makes the psalmist glad.

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 47

14. Who is asked to praise God? (47:1) All nations are to praise God.

15. Why should God be praised? (47:7) God should be praised because "God is the King of all the earth."

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 96

16. What kind of song does the psalmist want us to sing to God? (96:1) We are to sing a new song to God.

17. Why should we sing to God? (96:4-5) We are to sing to God because God is great and to be feared above all the gods of the nations, who are idols.

18. What should we tell the nations about God? (96:10) We should say that God reigns; God "will judge the peoples with equity."

Answer these questions by reading Psalm 104

19. Where do we find the clearest evidence of God's work in the world? (104:10, 14, 24) We must look at the creation to find evidence of God's work — the springs, the grass, the creatures.

20. How long will the psalmist praise God? (104:33) The psalmist will praise God as long as he lives.

DIMENSION TWO: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE MEAN?

Background Information on the Psalms

The psalms to be covered in this lesson are 8, 19, 29, 33, 47, 96, and 104. Psalms 93, 95, 97, 98, and 99 are of the same type, but are not examined in this session.

The hymns of praise are often threefold in structure. They contain a call to praise, the reasons for praise, and a vow to continue and extend praise. By indicating this type of structure, we are engaging in a scholarly approach to the psalms called form criticism. Study of the Bible in this way began in the early years of the twentieth century in Germany. Its founding practitioner was Hermann Gunkel, a brilliant and insightful folklorist. What he did was both simple and very important for the study of the Bible.

In a groundbreaking study of Psalms, Gunkel showed that the psalms followed literary patterns. Some were hymns of praise. Others were laments, songs of thanksgiving, and so forth. Gunkel showed us that the psalms were not only the work of the free imaginations of individual poets. They were born out of the struggles of the community of the faithful in Israel.

Gunkel wrote a history of the use of these songs in Israel's worship. From his study, whole new vistas of the early life of Israel opened up to us. To examine the forms of the psalms is to get closer to their original force and to their continuing power in the life of worship. In the psalms, we see the record of a people of faith, wrestling with life and with God's role in it. Form criticism gives us a valuable tool to discern more clearly the community that produced the great literature of Israel.

Perhaps two persistent questions concerning the psalms should be discussed here: First, who wrote the Psalms? Jewish and Christian tradition has long said that David, the second king of Israel, wrote many of the psalms. He was a famous harpist whose soothing music calmed the raging of King Saul (1 Samuel 16:23). He is said to have sung the famous lament after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:19-27).

The usual translation of many of the headings for the Psalms reads "A Psalm of David" (see Psalms 8 and 19, for example). In fact, the translation of these particular headings might just as easily be "A Psalm to David." The Hebrew could be translated either way. If this second translation is given, these psalms could be seen as dedicated to David, the patron saint of Hebrew song. Even if translated "A Psalm of David" or "David's Psalm," that is hardly proof that David wrote these psalms.

The psalms came into existence as they were needed to express community concerns in worship. Some were probably written by individuals, and some were nurtured in the worshiping community of Israel. Who wrote the psalms is a question that cannot be easily answered and is not the most important question to ask about the Book of Psalms.

The second question follows from the first: What are these headings on some of the psalms? Who wrote them? Let us look at Psalm 8 for an example. It reads "For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David." The word translated director is not easily understood in Hebrew. It comes from a word meaning "enduring" or "eminence." Could it be a technical designation, defining a particular way of performing this psalm in the worship service? We do not know.

The second phase, "According to gittith," is even more mysterious. Is it a musical instrument? Is it a certain kind of musical accompaniment? Is it a reference to a particular group of musicians? Again, we do not know.

Most scholars feel that these headings were added well after the psalms originally were written. They tell us a little about when and under what circumstances the particular psalms might have been used, but they can tell us nothing about the actual writing of the Book of Psalms.

Background Information on the Hymns of Praise

The psalms of Israel and the hymns of praise did not arise from general religious feelings. No psalm of Israel was written in an ivory tower. These poems have a feeling of urgency. They were written as responses to the active presence and power of God in the real-life situations of a particular people.

People often tend to read the psalms as if they were nice, sweet poetry, addressing pleasant religious sentiments. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each psalm is the culmination of a lengthy theological struggle with basic questions about God and God's actions in the world. Let us look more closely at Psalm 96:1-3.

Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

This familiar religious language can dull the power locked into the words. Following the threefold pattern of the hymns of praise, the psalmist calls on "all the earth" to sing a new song to God. But our new song is not to be senseless babble. It must have clear content. That content must be based in "his salvation day after day." Verse 3 carefully defines this as "his marvelous deeds among all peoples." In other words, God's salvation comes through God's marvelous works for all peoples.

The psalmist did not simply dream up such a lofty thought. The perception that God had actually done some marvelous work of salvation in Israel was the inspiration for the psalmist's call to praise.

We cannot be certain about the actual settings for the recital of these psalms. We can assume that all were used at one time or another in some worship setting in Israel. Psalm 96 probably was chosen by the worshiping community to praise God's power in giving victory in battle, success in harvest, or overcoming some other catastrophe.

Psalm 8. This psalm is actually a meditation on Genesis 1. What is the appropriate response to God's creation of the world and to God's creation of persons? Point out to the group the beautiful literary balance of the poem. Obviously, it begins and ends with the same phrase. In between, it speaks first about God's glory above the sky and concludes with human dominion over "all that swim the paths of the seas." In other words, God's authority stretches from above the sky to the bottom of the sea, a greater distance even than all the earth.

God's glory is spoken by the most unlikely of things — children and infants. This surprise is matched by the surprise of the human creation, which is at once tiny and yet the most significant thing in God's creation. See what other similarities to Genesis 1 you can find. Ask the group to discover some. These parallels are what give the psalm its enduring power.

Psalm 19. This psalm emphasizes the relationship between God as creator and God as lawgiver. We see God as readily in God's teaching and commands as in God's physical creation. Also, the psalm helps us see the value in the Torah (Law) of God. The Law here is not a great burden from which the psalmist wants to be set free. It is more precious than gold and sweeter than honey.

Christians have often seen the word law through the eyes of Paul's continual plea to be free of the law. Law becomes a prison, shackles to bind persons. But Judaism never saw the Law in this way. It was quite literally God's gift of grace to the people of Israel. It was the crucial way for humanity to be "warned" (verse 11). Life needs boundaries, and God's Torah provides these.

You might ask the group what boundaries they think are essential for life. Then, too, keeping the Torah brings "great reward." This idea has been abused by many modern Christians. Many think that if you follow the Law, God will shower you with material blessings. Ask the group what they believe. What is the great reward promised here?

Psalm 29. This may be the oldest psalm in the Book of Psalms. Phrases and concepts nearly identical to those in Psalm 29 have been found in the literature of the Canaanites. This literature was found in 1929 at a place called Ugarit on the Lebanese coast of the Mediterranean Sea. These Ugaritic writings have been dated to 1500 BC.

You can sense the great age of the psalm by examining the nature symbols — thunder, lightning, wind, and earthquake. Also, we noted in the participant book the idea of a divine court of gods, ruled by Yahweh. Remind the group that monotheism, the exclusive belief in one God, was a fairly late idea in Israel's religious life. Israel was surrounded by cultures that worshiped many gods — wind, fire, storm, sun, and moon. Not until after the Exile (587–538 BC) did the writers of Israel affirm what we might call monotheism. (See Isaiah 43:10, for example.)

Have the class members discuss the psalm's unity. The "heavenly beings" begin by proclaiming the Lord's strength. The poet ends by requesting that strength from God for the people. In addition, the poet asks for peace for the people. The voice of God is the active agent in the world. The poet's voice, calling on the heavenly beings to praise, is asking us to join the praising voices as well.

Psalm 33. Verses 4 and 5 contain several key terms. The word right in verse 4 has the basic meaning of "straight" or "smooth." God's word is said to be not crooked, and thus not untrustworthy. The word faithful in verse 4 comes from the same word we say at the end of hymns and prayers, Amen. The word means "firmness" or "reliability." We say Amen because we want what we have said or sung to occur with God's help. Likewise, God's work is reliable and certain.

Two words of verse 5, righteousness and justice, are often found together, particularly among the prophets of Israel. (See Amos 5:24; Jeremiah 22:3, 15; Ezekiel 45:9.) Righteousness in the Old Testament is the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship whether with human beings or with God. It is not a passive term. One is righteous when one works to protect, restore, and help those whose rights have been taken away. Jesus is fully Hebrew in his fourth beatitude (Matthew 5:6) when he speaks of "hungering and thirsting" for righteousness, an active concern for the right. Righteousness is a particular quality of life.

Justice is the maintaining and affirming of righteousness. To be just is to be ready and willing to uphold the quality of life represented by righteousness. These two terms are among the most important in the Bible.

The last crucial term in verse 5 is unfailing love (hesed in Hebrew). This word is often used as proof of God's perpetual care for the creation. When we meet this term in the Old Testament we meet God's promise of eternal love for all of God's children. For Christians, God's unfailing love was made most evident in the gift of the son, Jesus of Nazareth.

Psalm 33 might also bring forth a discussion of God's involvement in the world (verses 8-12). How does God act with nations and people? What does the phrase, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," really mean? How do the definitions of justice and righteousness given above affect the answer to this question about the blessed nation?

Psalm 96. Notice how similar Psalm 96 is to several other hymns of praise. Compare 96:7-9 to Psalm 29:1-2, and compare 96:12-13 to 98:7-8. This similarity tells us that many of the psalms use stock and familiar phrases, phrases well known in the worshiping community. Mark Twain once said, "Familiarity breeds contempt, and children!" He may be right on both accounts, but familiarity also can be very helpful.

I have never conducted a Christian funeral without reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. Why? Its familiarity strikes deep chords in the hearts of the congregation and family. It expresses for us in certain terms the feelings we cannot easily express in our times of grief. Thus, the psalms are universal statements of praise, joy, sorrow, fear, lament, and complaint. Their universality has made them live for so long and explains why we have them even now.

You might explore with the group how the psalms were used or are about to be used in this morning's worship service. Get a bulletin and examine it together. Does the opening call to worship come from the psalms? Are any of the morning's hymns based on psalm texts? How about the responsive reading? Does your pastor ever preach from the psalms? Does your worship service itself follow a pattern familiar to you from your study of the hymns of praise? What is that form?

DIMENSION THREE: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE MEAN TO ME?

Psalm 8 — GOD Is the Creator of All

A great and profound combat is raging in these hymns of praise. The psalmists are quite literally struggling for the souls of their people. Their question is, "Who created the world, and who created me?" Their answer is always, "God!" The one God, the God of justice, righteousness, and law — it is this God beside whom there is no other. As the participant book says, to praise God as sole Creator of all is to set your priorities straight. God demands absolute and ultimate loyalty, because God is the absolute and ultimately loyal creator of all.

Other religious traditions have given different answers to this great question. Some of their answers were: "Many gods had a hand in creation"; "Ra created all, but other gods create and destroy as they will"; "El creates but Baal provides." Hundreds of other answers from hundreds of other traditions could be provided. But the Hebrew answer that one God created and one God provides is a revolutionary one in human history. So if this answer is true, and if that God is really righteous, just, loyal, and loving, and if that God demands these things from the faithful, the world can be turned upside-down. This basic affirmation lies behind all the hymns of praise. This affirmation should lie behind all our relationships to God and to one another.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Genesis to Revelation: Psalms Leader Guide by John C. Holbert. Copyright © 2017 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Abingdon Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2017
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1501848399
• ISBN 13: 9781501848391
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 128
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile