Comments on: Preaching Psalms

By: Peter Mead

Peter Mead — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:34:18 +0000

Hi Philip, I honestly haven’t ever preached from Psalm 119 or studied it, so I probably have little to suggest. I suppose with the somewhat repetitive nature of it as an extended acrostic, I would be looking for patterns of thematic development within the 22 sections. I expect a good commentary or two would be helpful with this. Then preaching it would probably involve selective presentation since repeating yourself with explanation and application added can be hard to take for the listeners! All the time I’d want to preach it as psalm rather than turning it into an analysed discourse. Jeffrey Arthurs is worth reading on Preaching With Variety as he addresses ways to preach Psalms as Psalms.

By: Philip Decker

Philip Decker — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:06:16 +0000

Peter,
I have been working through Psalm 119 for a while now and have recently been given the opportunity to teach it. I have plan has been to take it one stanza per sermon and work through it that way, and finish up with an overview sermon. Can you give any tips or pointers on preaching from this psalm. It’s flow seems far more pithy (like Proverbs) than the the others, but can be very repetitive. Any “biblical preaching” helps that you can offer?

By: Saint Jonny

Saint Jonny — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:23:19 +0000

It’s interesting, I’m certainly not an engineer, but an artist (turned pastor), and yet I find the Psalms one of the hardest genres to preach!

I stumbled across your post with a Google search and have found it quite helpful as I prepare my Easter Sunday evening preach on Psalm 16: “The Psalm of the Resurrection”. Many thanks for your thoughts!

By: Dan H

Dan H — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:52:16 +0000

Thanks for posting this. “A psalm that is felt and understood will make a far deeper impression than a psalm that is merely analysed and understood. In fact, you have to question whether analysis alone can lead to understanding poetic literature.” Amen.

By: Hank

Hank — Thu, 17 May 2007 05:36:54 +0000

I am certain that engineers should not teach or preach the Psalms. All that fuzzy emotive language and imagery stuff. And in our technology age there are lots of people with the engineering outlook. When working through all the imagery it is a scary prospect to go too far and end up in the theological weeds. So the engineer opts to not go far enough. The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty and the engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

By: Peter Mead

Peter Mead — Sat, 12 May 2007 22:03:24 +0000

I am just reading Preaching With Variety, by Jeffrey Arthurs. It is excellent and will be reviewed on this site before long, but another thought on preaching Psalms from his chapter on the subject: Just like the Psalmists, use concrete and vivid language - this means definite nouns and verbs, rather than vague ones. Arthurs writes, "The word anger does little to conjure up an image in our minds, but in the psalms wrath 'kindles' and 'burns.' Confusion makes us 'stagger'; trouble is an 'arrow that flies by day'; security is a 'shelter' from the sun or a 'wing' to hide under; and jubilation causes 'trees to clap their hands' and 'seas to lift their voices.'" So when preaching a Psalm, do not lose the power of an image by making it unnecessarily abstract. And when preaching a Psalm, be sure your own material is also concrete and vivid in description and presentation.

By: Peter Mead

Peter Mead — Fri, 11 May 2007 06:13:17 +0000

Just a couple more thoughts on preaching Psalms.

1. Don’t be too bold on what you’re not told – A handful of Psalms provide historical background information at the beginning (eg Psalm 34). Most Psalms tell us very little. Even if a Psalm is “Of David,” we should be careful not to boldly determine what part of David’s experience this Psalm relates to unless there are very clear clues in the text. It is very risky to guess at a historical background to a text and then interpret the text in light of that background. You usually do not need crystal clear historical background in order to vividly preach a poem, especially if God has not given us that clarity within the text.

2. Always check the context – Obviously it is important to consider the context within a Psalm. I probably should have added a separate point to state that it is usually better to preach an entire Psalm (or to preach a section of a long Psalm in reference to the entire Psalm in the case of Psalm 119!) But here I am referring to the Psalms around your preaching text. The collection is not as random as many assume it to be. So for example, reading Psalm 130 may give a clue as to what is too difficult for David to grasp in 131:1, especially if there are any textual hints to link the two Psalms (such as the unique phrase found only at the end of these two Psalms). Reading the Psalms before and after may not provide much help, but it does more often than you might expect.