I think I was trying to do too many things in this short talk which means I didn't do any one thing well. Half of this talk was framing about emotions and Psalms/songs for the term, and then only quickly we look at two Psalms 149 & 150. This ended up being an intellectual event and not an emotive one, the opposite of what the theme was on. I didn't really define what praise was all that well, just maybe one or two lines, nor was there much application on where and how we might Praise God. I did however get them to write a poem using Psalm 150 as a model in five minutes, and I was impressed with what some of the teens came up with, so that was encouraging. Below is more or less what I said
Emotions can be tricky things to pin down sometimes. You can be feeling a whole bunch of things at any one time. Emotions can mix, and they can affect your current circumstance and you may not be aware of it. A previous encounter can boost or lower your spirits and you can then bring that into the current moment.
Your parent may tell you to pack the dishwasher or to remember to turn off that light, and are just on your back, but they do not know what Janice said to you on the playground today. Or how that teachers’ comments on your last assignment have affected you since they said what they said.
Now our emotions are not bad. Even the so-called “bad” emotions are good. Emotions are telling us something, and the Bible is full of people who grieve and get sad and angry. One author says:
I think it is a bit of both, as emotions are tricky. They may come automatically from within us in some situation, or they too may also come from what we think and dwell about.
Emotions are tricky but powerful, and really the Bible is concerned not about where emotions come from, but what our emotions do[3].
One powerful tool we humans use to express our emotions is songs. When you apply words over music it engages not just the mind but also the emotions. And this is a gift from God. God has made music and uses it for His glory. We sing at church and youth for a number of reasons, but one is, so that we can engage not just intellectually, but emotionally with God’s truth. We are not trying to elevation emotions above everything and use our emotions in songs as proof that God is with us today, but instead:
And, the Bible even has its own songbook: Psalms. There are 150 of them, that the Jews used to sing. Some are individual songs, some are corporate. Some are about praise and joy and contentment and they look at what is good in the world and thank God for those things. Other poems are about despair, and pain and anger and look at what is bad in the world and ask God to do something about it[6].
I only just learned that a whole bunch were used as songs when people would travel to and from religious festivals. In the same way, you make sure you have enough bangers on your phone for the car trip, pilgrims would bring their songbook for the journey so they could sing and listen on their journey to help with their trip.
So this term we are looking at emotions in the Psalms. The idea is to help you see and validate what you are feeling. Those emotions are telling you something, and to see in the Psalms how that author dealt with a particular emotion.
Ideally this term, you will also have a chance to try and express this emotion in the form of a poem.
At the end of Psalms, after all these poems and songs, whoever put together the order, wanted people to end on a note of praise. That is, to respond in gratitude or adoration or respect as a form of worship.
The book of Psalms deals with the history of what Israel has been thought, and through the ups and downs, of being rescued from Egypt to King David, to being captured and exiled, this book ends with these five songs hitting the note of praise as hard as it can be.
For the sake of time, we are only going to skim over the last two, Psalm 149 and 150. Now you might already know, “yeah sure we need to praise God, that is like saying good things about Him”. But what might surprise you, particularly in Psalm 149 is what it is saying about praises to God.
One key poetical device Jews would use is parallels. They would say the same thing twice. Proverbs is like this and may line in Psalms too. Just look at almost any verse in Psalm 149.
Verses 7-8 does the same thing. Verse 7 wants to inflict vengeance or the next line, punishment on the nations or the peoples, the same group.
Verse 8 wants to bind kings with fetters, and a fetter is just a chain and the next line is wanting put shackles of iron, which is like a binding on noble people, who are the people kings work with.
Do you see the overlap in these lines? You can pretty much do something like this to every line in this Psalm
So then using this concept of parallels, what might you make of verse 6? What is their praise? Have a look:
At the bottom of your page you can see the lines “Praise God in..”, “Praise God for… “, Praise God with…”. This is a very simple model that you probably can reproduce, and we will get to that in a sec.
But first, it is always important to read the Old Testament, even Psalms and Proverbs thought a Christian perspective. It is good to first understand what it is saying for the original Jewish audience, but we don’t stop there. More time and history has passed from the writings to Jesus and then more time has passed to us now. Before jumping to us today, and jumping to talking about turntables, and keyboards and electric guitars, we shouldn’t bypass Jesus. Don’t forget Him as we connect the text to us.
These Psalms praise God for what He has done, for the victories He has won for His people.
Because of Jesus, we have even more things we can praise God for. He has won the victory over death itself. Because Jesus took our punishment for us, because He paid our ransom, we are now free and declared innocent. It is only by Jesus’ work that we are saved, not because of anything we have done. We can not boast in things we have done to achieve our salvation, but we can praise God for giving us salvation won for us in Jesus. We are adopted childing of God now.
So now we are free, we can sing, we can rest easy, we can dance and praise God.
[7] Psalms (Understanding The Bible Commentary Series) by Craig C Broyles. Also, pointed out in the same commentary is that most likely this Psalm was written after the Exile when Israel had no standing army under the Persian Empire
Emotions
How are you feeling? Like really feeling? Do you know, can you tell?
Your parent may tell you to pack the dishwasher or to remember to turn off that light, and are just on your back, but they do not know what Janice said to you on the playground today. Or how that teachers’ comments on your last assignment have affected you since they said what they said.
Now our emotions are not bad. Even the so-called “bad” emotions are good. Emotions are telling us something, and the Bible is full of people who grieve and get sad and angry. One author says:
The basic logic in the Bible is this: if you care about others and the kingdom and mission of God in this world, you will be and you should be full of sorrow when you or those you love are injured, suffer loss, or die. You ought to feel angry in the presence of injustice. Your heart should beat faster when your family is in danger. As counterintuitive as it seems, awful feelings like grief can actually be exactly the right feelings to have, feelings that honor God and would be wrong not to feel.[1]Emotions don’t really come from one place either[2]. Plato and a bunch of others thought that emotions came from within us as impulses and we needed our mind to give them shape. Others say that the things we value and think about affect our emotions, so we should adjust our thinking to control our emotions.
I think it is a bit of both, as emotions are tricky. They may come automatically from within us in some situation, or they too may also come from what we think and dwell about.
Emotions are tricky but powerful, and really the Bible is concerned not about where emotions come from, but what our emotions do[3].
Songs
Vibrant singing enables us to connect truth about God seamlessly, with passion, so that we can combine doctrine and devotion, edification and expression, mind and heart.[4]
Psalms
The good news is that God wants to use music, and has even designed music, to break through our apathy and hardness of heart, and to help us engage emotionally with his Word.[5]
I only just learned that a whole bunch were used as songs when people would travel to and from religious festivals. In the same way, you make sure you have enough bangers on your phone for the car trip, pilgrims would bring their songbook for the journey so they could sing and listen on their journey to help with their trip.
So this term we are looking at emotions in the Psalms. The idea is to help you see and validate what you are feeling. Those emotions are telling you something, and to see in the Psalms how that author dealt with a particular emotion.
Ideally this term, you will also have a chance to try and express this emotion in the form of a poem.
Praise
Praise is not just a mayonnaise it is one of the dominant categories throughout the Psalms. In fact, the last five Psalms in the book are all praise. They all start and end with the line “Praise the Lord”.
The book of Psalms deals with the history of what Israel has been thought, and through the ups and downs, of being rescued from Egypt to King David, to being captured and exiled, this book ends with these five songs hitting the note of praise as hard as it can be.
For the sake of time, we are only going to skim over the last two, Psalm 149 and 150. Now you might already know, “yeah sure we need to praise God, that is like saying good things about Him”. But what might surprise you, particularly in Psalm 149 is what it is saying about praises to God.
Psalm 149
Did you feel uneasy with Psalm 149 when it was being read? Have a look at verse 6-9. The people are to praise God with their mouths and to have a sword in their hand. They are to be inflicting vengeance and punishment. They are to bind kings and nobles with chains. What do you make of that?One key poetical device Jews would use is parallels. They would say the same thing twice. Proverbs is like this and may line in Psalms too. Just look at almost any verse in Psalm 149.
let Israel rejoice in their Maker,Both lines are saying the same thing. Israel is the people of Zion, they are to rejoice or to be glad because of their Maker who is their King.
let the people of Zion be glad in their King. (Ps 149:2)
Verses 7-8 does the same thing. Verse 7 wants to inflict vengeance or the next line, punishment on the nations or the peoples, the same group.
Verse 8 wants to bind kings with fetters, and a fetter is just a chain and the next line is wanting put shackles of iron, which is like a binding on noble people, who are the people kings work with.
Do you see the overlap in these lines? You can pretty much do something like this to every line in this Psalm
So then using this concept of parallels, what might you make of verse 6? What is their praise? Have a look:
May the praise of God be in their mouthsand a double-edged sword in their hands (Ps 149:6)
Their praise is a sword against the nations. “Judah’s power for punishment on the nations, lies in their worship of God”[7]. Praising God binds kings, it confronts them of their wrongdoing and deems them guilty. If this is true, it means praises to God are powerful. They are strong enough to topple nations.
The bigger picture of Psalm 149 is calling people to sing a new song to God, to rejoice in Him for God, in verse 4, delights in His people and God gives them victory. We praise God for what He has done for us, and these praises to God are powerful.
The bigger picture of Psalm 149 is calling people to sing a new song to God, to rejoice in Him for God, in verse 4, delights in His people and God gives them victory. We praise God for what He has done for us, and these praises to God are powerful.
Psalm 150
Psalm 150 is a pretty simple poem, and that is fine, we don’t have to overcomplicate anything. There is a neat simple framework. It looks at where people can praise God, what they can praise God for and how they might praise God. “in”, “for”, “with”.At the bottom of your page you can see the lines “Praise God in..”, “Praise God for… “, Praise God with…”. This is a very simple model that you probably can reproduce, and we will get to that in a sec.
Through Jesus
These Psalms praise God for what He has done, for the victories He has won for His people.
Because of Jesus, we have even more things we can praise God for. He has won the victory over death itself. Because Jesus took our punishment for us, because He paid our ransom, we are now free and declared innocent. It is only by Jesus’ work that we are saved, not because of anything we have done. We can not boast in things we have done to achieve our salvation, but we can praise God for giving us salvation won for us in Jesus. We are adopted childing of God now.
So now we are free, we can sing, we can rest easy, we can dance and praise God.
Our own poem
Think about what God has done for you in Jesus.
Write out something specific that He has done for you in Jesus.
If you were to re-write Psalm 150 in the model of where you can praise God, what can you praise God for and how you can praise God, what would you write?
If you were to think hard on praising God, how might you describe it?
I’m going to give you 5 minutes right now to get started in response. Use Psalm 150 as a guide, use the questions down the bottom of your page to help.
As an example, on Tuesday night, I gave some of the leaders this same task, to write a poem in 5 minutes in response to these Psalms and to Jesus. They had good examples, they were better than mine[8], but here is my poor example, written in 5 minutes.
[1] Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[2] Took the following discussion from Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[3] Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[4] Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing? by Bob Kauflin (2008). This is one of the best talks I've heard on singing in church.
[5] Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing? by Bob Kauflin (2008).
[6] Overview: Psalms by the Bible Project
Write out something specific that He has done for you in Jesus.
If you were to re-write Psalm 150 in the model of where you can praise God, what can you praise God for and how you can praise God, what would you write?
If you were to think hard on praising God, how might you describe it?
I’m going to give you 5 minutes right now to get started in response. Use Psalm 150 as a guide, use the questions down the bottom of your page to help.
As an example, on Tuesday night, I gave some of the leaders this same task, to write a poem in 5 minutes in response to these Psalms and to Jesus. They had good examples, they were better than mine[8], but here is my poor example, written in 5 minutes.
Praise the Lord.Now it’s your turn, you have 5 mins and then we will break into groups and discuss and praise God for who He is and what He has done for us.
Praise God outside of walls,
Praise Him in royal halls.
Praise Him for Jesus’ salvation,
Praise Him for Jesus takes our condemnation.
May our praises never forget,
That Jesus took our punishment.
Victory is ours, given to us,
Praise Him and make a big fuss.
Praise the Lord.
[1] Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[2] Took the following discussion from Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[3] Untangling Emotions (2019) by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
[4] Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing? by Bob Kauflin (2008). This is one of the best talks I've heard on singing in church.
[5] Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing? by Bob Kauflin (2008).
[6] Overview: Psalms by the Bible Project
[7] Psalms (Understanding The Bible Commentary Series) by Craig C Broyles. Also, pointed out in the same commentary is that most likely this Psalm was written after the Exile when Israel had no standing army under the Persian Empire
[8] On Friday night I did in fact read out another leaders poem and not the one listed here.
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