Praying The Psalms (Gordon Wenham)
“For nearly a thousand years the priests and the Levites and lay people too sang the psalms in the Jerusalem temple. The Jews also used them in their synagogues and homes. It was traditional to sing Psalms 113–18 at the Passover meal. We know that Jesus used these psalms at the Last Supper, for the Gospels mention it in passing. Matthew 26:30 says “And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives.” The hymn Jesus and his disciples sang at this point, just after the meal, comprised Psalms 115–18…
It is quite likely that Jesus and his disciples knew the psalms by heart, for we next hear Jesus reciting them on the cross. He quoted Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” A bit later, just before he died he quoted Psalm 31:5, “Into your hand I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). It has been suggested that our Lord was just praying his way through the Psalms as he hung on the cross. As I shall say later, this would have been a very appropriate thing to do, for so many of the early psalms are the prayers of a good man suffering and crying to God for help.
The early church continued the practice of praying and singing the psalms. St. Paul tells the Ephesians, “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms …, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart” (Eph. 5:18–19). The apostle says much the same to the Colossians (3:16). If we turn to the book of Revelation, we are privileged to hear some of the songs of the saints in heaven, which too seem to be based on the Psalms.
Move on a couple of centuries and meet Athanasius, the great African theologian who saved the church from denying the divinity of Christ. He wrote a marvelous letter about the Psalms to a man named Marcellinus. The gist of the letter is that the Psalms are the best part of the Bible, and we should use them for our prayers whatever our situation may be because there is a psalm that suits our every need. Below are a few sentences from this wonderful letter:
Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.… The Psalms … show you how to set about repenting and with what words your penitence may be expressed.… The Psalms not only exhort us to be thankful, they also provide us with fitting words to say. We are told, too, by other writers that all who would live godly in Christ must suffer persecution; and here again the Psalms supply words with which both those who flee persecution and those who suffer under it may suitably address themselves to God, and it does the same for those who have been rescued from it. We are bidden elsewhere in the Bible also to bless the Lord and to acknowledge Him: here in the Psalms we are shown the way to do it, and with what sort of words His majesty may meetly be confessed. In fact, under all the circumstances of life, we shall find that these divine songs suit ourselves and meet our own souls’ need at every turn.
The later church took Athanasius’s advice to heart. When Saint Benedict set up monasteries in about AD 600, he prescribed the reciting of psalms at the eight times of prayer each day. In this way the monks prayed every psalm at least once a week. As noted in chapter 1, in the Middle Ages, before the age of printing, the only piece of the Bible a lay person was likely to have was a copy of the Psalms. I am told that is still the case in southern Ethiopia today.
The Protestant Reformers were just as keen on the use of the Psalms. Again, Luther described the Psalter as a mini-Bible, which sums up the whole message of the Scriptures. John Calvin wrote, “Whatever may serve to encourage us when we are about to pray to God, is taught us in this book.” In many Reformed churches that followed Calvin’s teaching, only the psalms, or hymns that were a close paraphrase of the psalms, could be sung in church. Other songs or hymns were forbidden. In the Church of England prayer book the Psalms are divided up so that, on average, five may be said or sung each day and every psalm is thereby prayed once a month.”(1)
Throughout the centuries, across denominations, continents, and cultures, the people of God have routinely found life in praying through the Psalms. Join us Wednesday mornings as we corporately sit with God in the wrestling, lamenting, adoring, interceding, hoping, thanksgiving… of The Psalms.
(1) Wenham, Gordon. 2013. The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.