I would suggest you get a copy of Futato’s Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook and Firth’s Interpreting the Psalms: Issues And Approaches. Also keep an eye out for Futato's new commentary published by IVP soon.
I'm slightly gutted that you'll be leaving Lichfield, our loss is Rochester's gain, and am thankful to God that we were able to spend some quality time together on CME chewing things over and praying for each other. Go well.
My copy was sitting on the floor of my study in a pile of books destined for a second-hand bookshop - purely on the grounds that I've never used it and it's taking up shelf-space I need. Having read this, I've rescued it!
I think there is far more to it than simply a link between Ps. 1 and the Lord's Prayer. Pss. 1 & 2 together form a coronation liturgy with Ps. 1 describing the ideal king (cf. Deut 17) and Ps. 2 describing the coronation of the king.
Owing to discoveries in ANE material, especially the Ugarit and Babylonian enthronement festivals, we can construct a festival at the feast of Tabernacles. Here Yahweh, speaking as the Covenant-Lord, proclaims the Law. Likewise Jesus, speaking as the Covenant-Lord, proclaims the Law of his nation, the new Israel of God.
I love your comments on the connections between Psalm 1 and the Sermon on the Mount. It's so obvious now you've pointed it out. And, on calling God Father - you get a hint towards that in Ps 2:7. And at least you get from that that the Psalms [of David], like the Sermon on the Mount, are the s/Son of God teaching (New) Israel (the son of God!) how to pray.
I happened to listen to Matthew Mason's sermon 3 on the Lord's Prayer (Praying For Our Needs) today where (as I remember it!) he quoted Luther as saying: "The Psalms give us the whole Bible in one book. The Lord's Prayer gives us the Psalms in a few words".
Having shown that the Sermon on the Mount is a reflection / expansion on Psalm 1, the next thing to add is that Psalm 1 (together with Psalm 2) form a deliberate introduction to the Psalter. Psalms 1 and 2 tell the gathered people of God how to read, pray and sing the 148 Psalms that follow.
So Psalm 1, the gateway to the Psalms, can be expanded upon by the Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of that Sermon lies the Lord's Prayer. And so, when Psalm 1 answers the question "teach us to pray" the answer, depending on whether you read the executive summary in Psalms or the full version in Matthew, is: both
for pointing this out James. As a non-expert, I like Alter's translation of Genesis. And I like 'teaching' rather than law for Torah and murmurs rather than meditates for hagah. But does he really translate yhvh 'Lord'? Not even 'LORD'? Hopeless! Whatever does that do to e.g., Ps 110.1? Sorry - hobbyhorse....
James has established, I believe, that Pros 1 is a real plus, not easily achieved by other ways of organising the Scripture readings in a local congregation.
Pros 2 is generally true, even if some churches which use the lectionary don't read all of it. The advantage is not only the amount of Scripture read but the fact that there is always OT and NT and regular exposure to the Gospels and Psalms.
I do not think Cons 1 is all that serious in practice. If I was in a group responsible for devising a lectionary I might be more vocal about the problems of specific lectionaries but as a preacher I can always choose to add a few verses or focus on a narrower selection and I don't think this would compromise Pros 1.
Cons 2 arises in particular with high festivals and is a problem for non-lectionary churches as well, I believe, but can be addressed to some extent by focusing on one of the other readings for a change.
Cons 3-5 are really about the knowledge and skills and inclinations of preachers. Preachers who focus on expository preaching more than biblical theology may find it easier (on the congregation as well as the preacher) to preach through biblical books, those who are keen on biblical theology and have a good enough general understanding of the Scriptures may well find lectionary preaching better suited for the task. The application to local needs is hardly easier from a set text which does not come by way of an agreed lectionary and in extremis one can always depart from the plan.
Great to read your blog as I had recently been marvelling at the same thing!
That reading Matthew 18, 15-20 in the context of the Lost Sheep before and the Merciful Ruler after, church discipline becomes a matter of God's love and God's mercy being so special that his people need to express and reflect it. Our treatment of the brother pointing everyone involved towards God's characteristics therefore, and as can be seen with parenting children the discipline becomes a very powerful and postive opportunity for God's characteristics to be made manifest in us.
God loves us so much that he will leave the 99 to bring back the 1, and so should we; and then God is so merciful and forgiving to us that we should forgive our christian brothers likewise - seventy seven times.
Yes, we could observe the church calendar in other ways that allowing it to drive the ministry of the word.
But: "Drive" is an emotive term. It no more "drives" the ministry of the word than does the pastor who chooses which book to work through sequentially next. Drives in the sense of shapes which portions of Scripture we dwell on at which times of year. But the word drives the church because, having picked the portion, we submit rather than stand over it. And besides, the word drives the calendar in the first place. We get a rhythm of
[Now it's time for what I've been reading to be really transparent to some readers:] I'm against "church calendars" because to call it a "church calendar" implies that the church has another, religiously-neutral, calendar whereas on Sundays we have another. It implies we have another rhythm to our lives other than the ones Scripture gives us, and then we impose the "church calendar" onto our more foundational one.
So I don't want to refer to "incarnation, life, death, resurrection, reign, Spirit-filled church, advent" as "the church calendar" but as "the calendar". At which point, how can the calendar that drives our lives not shape our reading of Scripture. Even if we read passages about the death of Christ at Pentecost, we do so breathing Pentecost air which moulds how we hear them. So having a lectionary shaped by the calendar is not as reductionistic a thing as always reading Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday. But to have a lectionary that is not shaped by the calendar is somehow to imply that the word speaks a different language from our calendar, which I'm against.
So, can we observe the church calendar without letting it drive the ministry of the word? I distinguish. Yes we can, because any portion of Scripture is fitting at any time of year. No we can't because both calendar and word are so foundational to our lives' rhythms that they cannot be divided.
I know there are drawbacks (and therefore the clause "considered as a factor on its own" is a fiction), but: Considered as a factor on its own, wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we can ring each other up on a Tuesday, and we're seeking to live in the light of the same passage of Scripture because the churches we each belong to both shaped their worship around it the Sunday before?
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where you can ring up any Christian brother and sister, anywhere in the world, and know the same thing in advance.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to open Operation World, or Evangelicals Now, or the Barnabas Fund website, and pray for persecuted or suffering Christians, whose name we don't know or whose name is all we know, but be able to pray for them to draw specific comfort (or to persevere in specific obedience) arising from specific Scriptures?
As I say, I know there are drawbacks. So that's never a factor on its own. But considered on its own, doesn't it have appeal?
Agreed. My gut thought is that we might do it by finding other ways to maintain catholicity.
There must be other ways to observe the church calendar without letting it drive the ministry of the word, for instance?
Saying the creed and emphasising that we're approaching all the saints in heaven gathered in festal assembly with thousands upon thousands of angels (Heb 12:22-23) during our worship strikes me as more obviously catholic than a common lectionary.
You're right about con number 5: One simply has to be free enough to depart from the lectionary whenever required. But we do this anyway don't we? Even if our "lectionary" is "Romans 1:1-7 this week, 1:8-17 next week, and 1:18-32 the week after" we still depart from that if pastoral needs require us to. At least, I have done.
The tough thing to hold together is Pro 1 and Cons 1-2. How do we maintain the catholicity of a lectionary, but solve the problems that exist in the Revised Common Lectionary? The thing about the RCL is its genuine catholicity - it's not just a Church of England thing. In fact, the C of E version of it re-inserts some of the missing verses to improve it. But as soon as we write our own to plug the defects of the RCL, we aren't reading the same portions as other C of E churches, let alone others considered more widely.
I get the feeling that 1-5 on the pros are good things that we all need to work on, but that none of them need a lectionary to be implemented.
Similarly, on the cons, 1-4 aren't problems intrinsic to a lectionary, they just need a good lectionary and good activities beyond the Sunday homily, especially 4.
5, though, leaves me thinking that there's no way round it, unless Sunday worship stops being the locus of the main authoritative address from our Father to his children. Presumably, one could say that congregations won't always have such urgent needs to be addressed on this one specific thing right now so that with occasional departures from the lectionary, the lectionary is still the staple.
Yes - I'd have thought that what is called a "math captcha" is an oxymoron.
The image ones are best, I think - especially if coupled with the option to read it out for visually impaired users. But I hit problems once spammers started paying people in China to answer the CAPTCHAs for them. I suspect mathematic ones would be more of a deterrent, because they are non-standard - but they are more prone to being solved by robots.
So I gave up and went for Mollom - which has (so far) let nothing through it shouldn't and blocked nothing it should have let through.
Sorry - very slow to notice this news. Congratulations! I'm sure Paul Mayo is thrilled.
At the end of paragraph 2 do you mean "Our service never puts God in our debt"?
I would suggest you get a copy of Futato’s Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook and Firth’s Interpreting the Psalms: Issues And Approaches. Also keep an eye out for Futato's new commentary published by IVP soon.
Rochester's gain indeed! Delighted to hear that you have got a job in our wonderful part of the world.
I'm slightly gutted that you'll be leaving Lichfield, our loss is Rochester's gain, and am thankful to God that we were able to spend some quality time together on CME chewing things over and praying for each other. Go well.
Wonderful news - for you, Kemsing, Oak Hall, and the Kingdom. God be praised.
My copy was sitting on the floor of my study in a pile of books destined for a second-hand bookshop - purely on the grounds that I've never used it and it's taking up shelf-space I need. Having read this, I've rescued it!
There are avenues there that I've never explored! I'm grateful for the link, and the chance to carry on discovering the psalms.
I think there is far more to it than simply a link between Ps. 1 and the Lord's Prayer. Pss. 1 & 2 together form a coronation liturgy with Ps. 1 describing the ideal king (cf. Deut 17) and Ps. 2 describing the coronation of the king.
Owing to discoveries in ANE material, especially the Ugarit and Babylonian enthronement festivals, we can construct a festival at the feast of Tabernacles. Here Yahweh, speaking as the Covenant-Lord, proclaims the Law. Likewise Jesus, speaking as the Covenant-Lord, proclaims the Law of his nation, the new Israel of God.
You may wish to check out this.
90 or 110 minutes - that's a long service!
I love your comments on the connections between Psalm 1 and the Sermon on the Mount. It's so obvious now you've pointed it out. And, on calling God Father - you get a hint towards that in Ps 2:7. And at least you get from that that the Psalms [of David], like the Sermon on the Mount, are the s/Son of God teaching (New) Israel (the son of God!) how to pray.
Thanks for this James.
Matthew
I happened to listen to Matthew Mason's sermon 3 on the Lord's Prayer (Praying For Our Needs) today where (as I remember it!) he quoted Luther as saying: "The Psalms give us the whole Bible in one book. The Lord's Prayer gives us the Psalms in a few words".
I missed a bit out.
Having shown that the Sermon on the Mount is a reflection / expansion on Psalm 1, the next thing to add is that Psalm 1 (together with Psalm 2) form a deliberate introduction to the Psalter. Psalms 1 and 2 tell the gathered people of God how to read, pray and sing the 148 Psalms that follow.
So Psalm 1, the gateway to the Psalms, can be expanded upon by the Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of that Sermon lies the Lord's Prayer. And so, when Psalm 1 answers the question "teach us to pray" the answer, depending on whether you read the executive summary in Psalms or the full version in Matthew, is: both
what a great site. thanks for the link. bookmarked!
I was being lazy. The HTML to get small caps is a fiddle. Yeah - all caps would be better.
No, he does translate it in capital letters so that the reader knows YHWH is in view.
(I'll change the post to capitals, and one day to small caps!)
for pointing this out James. As a non-expert, I like Alter's translation of Genesis. And I like 'teaching' rather than law for Torah and murmurs rather than meditates for hagah. But does he really translate yhvh 'Lord'? Not even 'LORD'? Hopeless! Whatever does that do to e.g., Ps 110.1? Sorry - hobbyhorse....
James has established, I believe, that Pros 1 is a real plus, not easily achieved by other ways of organising the Scripture readings in a local congregation.
Pros 2 is generally true, even if some churches which use the lectionary don't read all of it. The advantage is not only the amount of Scripture read but the fact that there is always OT and NT and regular exposure to the Gospels and Psalms.
I do not think Cons 1 is all that serious in practice. If I was in a group responsible for devising a lectionary I might be more vocal about the problems of specific lectionaries but as a preacher I can always choose to add a few verses or focus on a narrower selection and I don't think this would compromise Pros 1.
Cons 2 arises in particular with high festivals and is a problem for non-lectionary churches as well, I believe, but can be addressed to some extent by focusing on one of the other readings for a change.
Cons 3-5 are really about the knowledge and skills and inclinations of preachers. Preachers who focus on expository preaching more than biblical theology may find it easier (on the congregation as well as the preacher) to preach through biblical books, those who are keen on biblical theology and have a good enough general understanding of the Scriptures may well find lectionary preaching better suited for the task. The application to local needs is hardly easier from a set text which does not come by way of an agreed lectionary and in extremis one can always depart from the plan.
Great to read your blog as I had recently been marvelling at the same thing!
That reading Matthew 18, 15-20 in the context of the Lost Sheep before and the Merciful Ruler after, church discipline becomes a matter of God's love and God's mercy being so special that his people need to express and reflect it. Our treatment of the brother pointing everyone involved towards God's characteristics therefore, and as can be seen with parenting children the discipline becomes a very powerful and postive opportunity for God's characteristics to be made manifest in us.
God loves us so much that he will leave the 99 to bring back the 1, and so should we; and then God is so merciful and forgiving to us that we should forgive our christian brothers likewise - seventy seven times.
Yes, we could observe the church calendar in other ways that allowing it to drive the ministry of the word.
But: "Drive" is an emotive term. It no more "drives" the ministry of the word than does the pastor who chooses which book to work through sequentially next. Drives in the sense of shapes which portions of Scripture we dwell on at which times of year. But the word drives the church because, having picked the portion, we submit rather than stand over it. And besides, the word drives the calendar in the first place. We get a rhythm of
or
because the word gives us that rhythm.
[Now it's time for what I've been reading to be really transparent to some readers:] I'm against "church calendars" because to call it a "church calendar" implies that the church has another, religiously-neutral, calendar whereas on Sundays we have another. It implies we have another rhythm to our lives other than the ones Scripture gives us, and then we impose the "church calendar" onto our more foundational one.
So I don't want to refer to "incarnation, life, death, resurrection, reign, Spirit-filled church, advent" as "the church calendar" but as "the calendar". At which point, how can the calendar that drives our lives not shape our reading of Scripture. Even if we read passages about the death of Christ at Pentecost, we do so breathing Pentecost air which moulds how we hear them. So having a lectionary shaped by the calendar is not as reductionistic a thing as always reading Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday. But to have a lectionary that is not shaped by the calendar is somehow to imply that the word speaks a different language from our calendar, which I'm against.
So, can we observe the church calendar without letting it drive the ministry of the word? I distinguish. Yes we can, because any portion of Scripture is fitting at any time of year. No we can't because both calendar and word are so foundational to our lives' rhythms that they cannot be divided.
Or am I drawing unwarranted conclusions?
Sure.
I know there are drawbacks (and therefore the clause "considered as a factor on its own" is a fiction), but: Considered as a factor on its own, wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we can ring each other up on a Tuesday, and we're seeking to live in the light of the same passage of Scripture because the churches we each belong to both shaped their worship around it the Sunday before?
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where you can ring up any Christian brother and sister, anywhere in the world, and know the same thing in advance.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to open Operation World, or Evangelicals Now, or the Barnabas Fund website, and pray for persecuted or suffering Christians, whose name we don't know or whose name is all we know, but be able to pray for them to draw specific comfort (or to persevere in specific obedience) arising from specific Scriptures?
As I say, I know there are drawbacks. So that's never a factor on its own. But considered on its own, doesn't it have appeal?
Agreed. My gut thought is that we might do it by finding other ways to maintain catholicity.
There must be other ways to observe the church calendar without letting it drive the ministry of the word, for instance?
Saying the creed and emphasising that we're approaching all the saints in heaven gathered in festal assembly with thousands upon thousands of angels (Heb 12:22-23) during our worship strikes me as more obviously catholic than a common lectionary.
It gave me serious pause for thought.
You're right about con number 5: One simply has to be free enough to depart from the lectionary whenever required. But we do this anyway don't we? Even if our "lectionary" is "Romans 1:1-7 this week, 1:8-17 next week, and 1:18-32 the week after" we still depart from that if pastoral needs require us to. At least, I have done.
The tough thing to hold together is Pro 1 and Cons 1-2. How do we maintain the catholicity of a lectionary, but solve the problems that exist in the Revised Common Lectionary? The thing about the RCL is its genuine catholicity - it's not just a Church of England thing. In fact, the C of E version of it re-inserts some of the missing verses to improve it. But as soon as we write our own to plug the defects of the RCL, we aren't reading the same portions as other C of E churches, let alone others considered more widely.
Thanks, James, that's really helpful.
I get the feeling that 1-5 on the pros are good things that we all need to work on, but that none of them need a lectionary to be implemented.
Similarly, on the cons, 1-4 aren't problems intrinsic to a lectionary, they just need a good lectionary and good activities beyond the Sunday homily, especially 4.
5, though, leaves me thinking that there's no way round it, unless Sunday worship stops being the locus of the main authoritative address from our Father to his children. Presumably, one could say that congregations won't always have such urgent needs to be addressed on this one specific thing right now so that with occasional departures from the lectionary, the lectionary is still the staple.
What did it leave you thinking?
Steffen
Yes - I'd have thought that what is called a "math captcha" is an oxymoron.
The image ones are best, I think - especially if coupled with the option to read it out for visually impaired users. But I hit problems once spammers started paying people in China to answer the CAPTCHAs for them. I suspect mathematic ones would be more of a deterrent, because they are non-standard - but they are more prone to being solved by robots.
So I gave up and went for Mollom - which has (so far) let nothing through it shouldn't and blocked nothing it should have let through.
Why isn't 4+12 Turing-compatible? I should have thought that was exactly the sort of problem computers are excellent at.