April 29 / Psalms 47-49, 84-85, 87

Psalms 47-49, 84-85, 87

We have thought on Your steadfast love, O God,
in the midst of Your temple.

Psalm 48:9

I think it is safe to assume that the psalmist originally had the Temple building in mind. But Saint Ambrose takes things further. He recognizes that the Temple points beyond itself to Christ and that the ultimate Temple of God is Christ’s body:

God’s true temple is the body of Christ, and in that body lies the purification of all our sins. Truly, that flesh is God’s temple, and in it there is no contagion of sin. On the contrary, it was itself the sacrifice that takes away the sin of all the world. That flesh is indeed God’s temple, and it shone in God’s image. In it there dwelled the fullness of divinity in a bodily manner, for Christ is himself that fullness… In that temple the psalmist tells us, “We have received your mercy.”

Saint Ambrose on Psalm 48:9

The notion of Christ’s body’s being the true Temple does not originate with Ambrose. Jesus Himself says as much:

So the Jews said to Him, “What sign do You show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking about the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:18-22

That is good food for thought as we work through the Psalms…

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April 28 / Psalms 15, 24, 42-46

Psalms 15, 24, 42-46

Today we return to the Psalms, a couple by David and some by the Sons of Korah.

I find it interesting that the descendants of Korah turn out so well, with 11 psalms attributed to them. Recall from Numbers 16 that Korah himself led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. The LORD caused the earth to open up under the rebels’ feet, but Korah’s sons kept their distance, did not join the rebellion, and did not die. And now the Sons of Korah help to lead worship, producing psalms that we still use today.

We all likely have some pretty nasty characters in our ancestry, but we are not doomed to follow in their footsteps. The flip side of that coin is also true. We may well have some godly ancestors, too, and that is a great advantage in life, but that does not itself make us godly.

Are you living your parents’ (or grandparents’ or …) lives? Are you stuck in their destructive patterns? Or are you leaning on their faith? We should all acknowledge the influence of our ancestors for good or ill — or both. But we are not our ancestors. Perhaps it’s time to live our own life in Christ.

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Two more things…

Who then will climb up there and stay there? Only a person innocent in action and pure in thought. ‘One who has not received his soul in vain,’ that is, a person who has not consigned his or her soul to the things that pass away but realizes that it [the soul] is immortal and longs for a settled, changeless eternity.

Saint Augustine on Psalm 24:4

Let us burn together with this thirst; Let us run together to the fountain of understanding. Let us long … rather for it as a hart yearns for a spring… Let us long for the wellspring of which Scripture says, “with you is the fountain of life”… Long for the fountains of water. With God is the fountain of life, a fountain that can never dry up… God has everything that will refresh you. He is able to fill anyone who comes to him… This is what I am thirsting for, to reach him and to appear before him. I am thirsty on my pilgrimage, parched in my running, but I will be totally satisfied when I arrive.

Saint Augustine on Psalm 42:1

April 27 / I Chronicles 23-26:19

I Chronicles 23-26:19

Chronicles wastes no time on the juicy details of how Solomon attains the throne, stating simply that David makes him king. (I Ch. 23:1) Instead, the Chronicler has a very different focus: worship, and all that it entails. Hence, we read about David’s preparations for building the Temple as well as his organizing of the Levites into their various divisions — 24,000 charged with the work in the house of the LORD, 6,000 officers and judges, 4,000 gatekeepers, and 4,000 musicians — all in the service of the LORD.

It may seem like we are reading the names of all 38,000 Levites in today’s chapters, but I hope that does not bog us down. All those names should remind us that we are talking about real people with real lives, real cares and concerns, and real duties to perform. And David’s decisions here shape those lives for generations to come.

We may think of David as a warrior or as a musician and psalmist, but how often do we think of him as a planner and administrator? Yet those are the roles that we see him filling here. They are roles that are every bit as necessary (though perhaps not as exciting to read about) as his other roles. If we pause to think about it, over a forty-year reign as king, David probably spent a good deal more time on these kinds of organizational activities than he did on the battlefield. There may not be much high drama here, but in organizing the Levites we can again see David’s heart for God, his desire to honor and glorify God and to set things in order so that Israel can properly worship the LORD after David is gone.

Do we have that kind of heart? Are we focused on worship?

April 26 / Psalms 37, 30; I Chronicles 22

Psalm 37; I Chronicles 22; Psalm 30

Recall II Samuel 7 and I Chronicles 17 with David’s proposal to build a house for the LORD and the LORD’s promise to instead build David’s “house”, his dynasty. (See the April 3 post.) The LORD does not allow David to build the Temple (I Ch. 22:8), but David does all he can to get everything ready for his son Solomon to build it. (I Ch. 22:5) Not only does David organize the labor force and stockpile supplies (I Ch. 22:2-4), but he also encourages Solomon to fulfill his calling, relaying to Solomon what the LORD had said to David:

Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for My name. He shall be My son, and I will be his Father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever.

I Chronicles 22:9-10

Note that the name “Solomon” is derived from “shalom,” which means “peace.” As we shall see, the LORD does indeed give peace to Israel during Solomon’s reign, so there is a direct fulfilment of this promise in King Solomon, but that fulfilment is significantly muted by Solomon’s own flaws. The ultimate fulfilment of this promise is in Jesus Christ.

It is well known that Solomon died without living long, and that his throne came to an end. He gives the name Solomon, therefore, to our peaceable Lord of Whom blessed Paul says, “For He is our peace, who has made the two one and has broken down the dividing wall.” [Eph. 2:14] … Now it was not Solomon who had dominion to the ends of the world [either] but He who sprang from Solomon in His humanity, Jesus Christ, and was called Solomon on account of His peaceable and gentle nature and His being the cause of peace.

Theodoret of Cyrus

OK. So we can all say, “Cool! What a neat bit of biblical interpretation.” But so what? What difference does that make for you and for me? Do we know Christ’s peace? If so, how? (Please share!) If not, why not?

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April 25 / Psalms 86, 102, 109, 139-141, 143

Psalms 86, 102, 109, 139-141, 143

You may have noticed a common theme in many of the psalms today and lately: the call for God’s judgment and vengeance upon the wicked, often quite graphically. Are you uncomfortable when the Psalms say such things? Do you think that such sentiments are somehow “unchristian”? Do you even feel guilty reading/praying these psalms? Do you think, then, that the psalmist is wrong, and that if Jesus were given an editor’s pen that He would thoroughly rewrite these psalms, striking out all those “nasty” verses?

Think again.

Jesus himself declares that Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), so the Editor’s pen is not an option. Yes, Jesus tells us to love our enemies (Mt. 5:44), and yes, Peter says that the Lord does not [wish] that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (II Peter 3:9) And so, yes, we should pray likewise, that the wicked would repent and find salvation in Jesus. But it should be abundantly clear that most of the wicked cling to their sin and never repent. Given that the wicked remain wicked, what then should our (and the psalmist’s) prayer be? It should be exactly what the psalmist does, in fact, pray. So stop being hesitant about asking the LORD to set things right. Stop feeling guilty about praying for justice. The LORD knows how to execute that justice properly.

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April 24 / Psalms 53, 55, 58, 61, 64, 69-71

Psalms 53, 55, 58, 61, 64, 69-71

For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach,
that dishonor has covered my face.

Psalm 69:7

Good people are always a reproach to the wicked, because they are quite unwilling to sanction their crimes. They carefully withdraw from them, join in no compact with them. These reproaches bear witness to the slaps, scourgings and spitting that the Lord Savior endured from the mad crowd.

Cassiodorus, “Expositions on the Psalms”

It seems to me that in commenting on Ps. 69:7 Cassiodorus here flips the verse on its head. The verse talks about how the psalmist (or, really, Christ — see Ps. 69:9; Rom. 15:3) bears (erroneous) reproach from the wicked, but Cassiodorus talks about how the wicked feel (correctly) reproached by the righteousness of the righteous. Food for thought…

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April 23 / Psalms 35-36, 38, 40-41

Psalms 35-36, 38, 40-41

For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light do we see light.

Psalm 36:9

What other light of God can we speak of in which a person sees light except God’s spiritual power, which when it lightens a person causes him either to see clearly the truth of all things or to know God Who is called the Truth? Such then is the meaning of the saying “in Your light we shall see light;” that is, in Your word and Your wisdom which is Your Son, in Him shall we see You, the Father.

Origen

Since the fount is life, and life is Christ, the fount is Christ … By meditating on what is made, we will see Christ, and in understanding Christ, we will see God.

Evagrius of Pontus

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April 22 / Psalms 25-28, 31

Psalms 25-28, 31

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31b

I hope that we all always read these Scriptures in context. We must not forget that David himself faced many perils, many hardships, many sorrows — over long periods of time — and that these laments are written while in distress, yet he expresses hope and faith in the LORD. Similarly, Paul’s letter to the Romans does not indicate that “bad stuff” will not happen to the believer. Quite the contrary, the context leans far more toward the expectation that “bad stuff” will most certainly happen to the believer, but that none of it can separate us from God’s love in Christ. (Romans 8:31-39)

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April 21 / Psalms 11-14, 16-17, 22

Psalms 11-14, 16-17, 22

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Psalm 14:1

To whom do you listen? To the news media? To Hollywood? To social media? To celebrities or other “influencers”? To politicians? To scientists? To experts?

And do they say — either explicitly or by the lives they lead — “There is no God”?

Why, then, do you listen to such fools?

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April 20 / Psalms 4-6, 9-10

Psalms 4-6, 9-10

We all know that David wrote a lot of psalms. We have already read those that are tied to specific events in David’s life. Now for the next several days, we get to read the rest of them, with just a couple of peeks back into Chronicles. So settle into the Psalms for the next several days. It may seem like we are racing through them, so you may want to schedule some extra time to be able to sit with each one individually. Take a look at last year’s comments and think about what you yourself might say. And then let the rest of us know.

For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.

Psalm 9:18

Officiant Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
People Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.

2019 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 22,48

Ever wonder where the BCP gets its prayers?

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