Old Testament

Psalm 34 is an acrostic. In Hebrew, the first word of each verse starts with successive letters of the alphabet. So, if this were English, verse 1 would start with A, verse 2 would start with B, and so on.

At Trinity Church, we’ve been preaching through Book 1 of the Psalms (that is, Psalms 1-41) from Easter until the end of August. We won’t have had time to preach on all of them; we’ve had 18 weeks, so there will have been time to preach on just under half of them. Nevertheless, we thought it would serve the church better to preach selected psalms from the first book, rather than a selection dotted across the whole psalter.

I've been studying Deuteronomy chapters 5-7, preparing some notes for our small group leaders. As I've been doing that, I find myself approaching Easter freshly. Here are a couple of questions for us with chapters 5-6 particularly in mind.

Many modern Christians are familiar with Jesus' parable in Luke 14:15-24. The NIV entitles it, "The parable of the great banquet". I wish to give it a new name temporarily: "The parable of the great excuses". Although, once we've looked at it in context, we shall see the NIV has the emphasis right after all.

This morning, at Trinity Church Scarborough, we continued our preaching series in the book of Proverbs, looking at Proverbs 25-29.

Is the idea of an afterlife new to the New Testament? In fact, there is hope of life after death even as far back as the Joseph narratives in the book of Genesis.

At Trinity Church Scarborough, we're preaching through Proverbs throughout the autumn.It's not a book I've ever studied in any detail, so I've taken a step back, read a few things others have written, and collected thoughts I've had over the years as I've read through Proverbs as part of my own personal Bible reading. I wanted somewhere to jot down the things I've learnt, so I can refer to it later, and thought this public space would be good as it may help others too.

Here's a detail I've just noticed, and rather love.

Psalm 95:7 in the NIV reads as follows:

"For he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock under his care."

Take that phrase "flock under his care" and look more closely.

וְצֹ֣אן יָד֑וֹ

Literally "the flock of his hand".

I'm a big fan of Bruce Waltke's commentary on Genesis (paid link). He does a great job at holding together two tasks that are vital. It's easy to lose one whilst trying to do the other. He both pays attention to the narrative craft of Genesis, and at the same time tracks the overall storyline of Genesis and what the book as a whole is communicating.

Zedekiah, king of Judah (597-587 B.C.) consistently expected that God would bring a last minute reprieve, and he and his people would not be conquered by the Babylonians. He underestimated the sin of his people, and he underestimated God's power to deal with that.

For this reason, the prophet Jeremiah consistently has to warn him that there will be no reprieve. Into exile they will go.