5 minute Bible » Psalms

E100-72: Acts 3:1 – 4:37: The rejected stone

tim — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:10:19 +0000

Igorot Beggar photo by martiniko

Peter gets some powerful lines in these two great chapters :) Since I was a child I’ve loved his: “I don’t have silver and gold, but what I do have I’ll give you. Get up and walk!” So different from what we usually hear… And then when faced by the authorities he talks about his Master as the “Stone the builders rejected” quoting Ps 118:22. This superb Psalm all through contrasts human power and “protection” with God’s steadfast love that endures forever…

So in these chapters, two powerful reminders from Peter that Christian faith is NOT about human power, just the opposite. And the challenge of hearing how the first Christians lived. The Bible is perspicuous, we just wish we could remain blind and deaf!

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E100-43: Psalm 103:1 – 103:22: God is faithful and loving

tim — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:39:56 +0000

There are some technical details to explain: what a “hymn” is (not a long old-fashioned worship song), what it means to “bless God” and the meaning of hesed. But mainly this podcast aims to encourage you to hear the celebration of the creator God who is gracious, even to those who do not deserve it, merciful and above all faithful. It’s a beautiful psalm, that expresses how God is not “a god” clearly and sharply, and it just begs us to join in blessing Yahweh!

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E100-42: Psalm 51:1 – 51:19: Have mercy on me

tim — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:12:44 +0000

The biblical text tells us how to read this psalm. Whether or not we agree with those who see the words “build the walls of Jerusalem” at the end as a reference to the need to (re)build after the destruction of 586, and so (perhaps along with other reasons) see the psalm as actually written later, we are told to read the psalm against the story of David’s sin and Nathan’s visit

NB: the headings like <To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.> are often printed as if they had less authority than the big bold headings Bible publishers add – but they are part of the Bible and the publishers headings are NOT!

So that’s how I’ll read it. In doing so I’ll commont on details of wording, as well as on how this psalm fits into the big picture of the Bible.

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E100-41: Psalm 23:1 – 23:6: A psalm of the life of faith

tim — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:48:05 +0000

Wadi Qelt, Judean Desert, with St George's monastry by Ester Inbar, available from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ST

Perhaps the best known and popular psalm among both Jews and Christians but not easy to categorise, except that it expresses trust in God. The imagery makes even better sense when some geography and culture is understood:

sheep follow shepherds, they are not left on the hills and then driven
green pastures, means land where there is some green vegetation, not just rocks and dust
wadis: steep sided gorges, semi-desert little vegetation, quick run off from hills = flash floods

For more on this see also my “Psalm 23 in context”

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E100 Week 9: Psalms and Proverbs

tim — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:10:55 +0000

This week’s 5 is a somewhat artificial collection, putting together two different things. Yet both Psalms and Proverbs work differently from the narrative/history and prophecy that comprise the bulk of the Old Testament, and both are used a lot by Christians along with Genesis and Isaiah (while most of the Old Testament lies unread the Two-Thirds Bible).

In this podcast we’ll look at how different genres (see the posts here, especially: Genre matters: 1- Why genre matters) work. This will help understanding and applying the week’s readings. In doing this we’ll learn for example why so often proverbs contradict each other!

Incidentally in the Bible the commonest genre of psalm are complaints, but there are no complaints among the three readings chosen, to lpearn more about them see the podcasts here.

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Being Ideal Readers: 1 in which we discover the importance of a Psalm

tim — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:47:00 +0000

In this podcast we’ll begin to grapple with a complicated idea, but quite simply begin to discover how to become (more) ideal readers. We’ll be looking at Eph 4 , and you will also need a bookmark in Ps 68 . This is a podcast in two parts (otherwise I’d have to change the name to 10 minute Bible, so do listen to tomorrow’s episode after today’s ;)

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A Text without contexts is dumb! 2: Text without cotext is dumb

tim — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:14:00 +0000

For the second part of this “A text without contexts is dumb” series we’ll think about cotext, the text that surrounds a text, providing context. The biblical examples come from Psalms and Ephesians. You might want to listen to Part 1 here first ;)

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Complaint Psalms: Part Two

tim — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:45:00 +0000

This second look at the complaint psalms continues to focus on Psalm 22. Part three will return to Jeremiah…

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Complaint Psalms: Part One

tim — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:16:00 +0000

This post starts to talk about Psalm 22, mentioning Job 10 on the way, we will examine these passages as a way into understanding “complaint psalms”. Complaints are the commonest type of psalm in the book of psalms. You might like to listen to my earlier post “Arguing with God: Jer 12:1-4” first, it sets the scene for this one, and should probably have been called “Complaint psalms: Part One”!

I hope the next post – in a few days – will follow up looking some more at Psalm 22.

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A Text without Contexts is Dumb!

tim — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:42:00 +0000

This latest one is aimed at real beginners in biblical study and addresses why multiple contexts are important for reading/hearing texts, particularly the Bible.

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