Thursday, August 24, 2017

Comment on a Psalm


This Psalm is familiar to most of you. It has been used to comfort saints more than once or twice, I'm sure. It even inspired Luther to write his 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'. Here are some things to consider in preparation for our reading it together on Sunday.

The Psalm opens by giving us reasons to be fearless, come what may. And why not? We enjoy to presence of our God who provides refuge for us.

The Psalm then talks about a city. This clarifies who the 'our' and 'we' of the first part are. This is a Psalm made for a group of people. And while I think we all can figure out which city in Israel was being referred to, the question to answer now is what would this be pointing to today? What's this city of God, now that Jesus has come?

The last section is important because it makes clear what the point of this comfort is about. As comforting as it is to have God as our refuge, the ultimate goal has to do with God revealing Himself to the nations so that they can exalt Him. The Psalm, like everything else, including that comfort, is about making God look good.

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