WEEK 36

psalms this week
"I believe that God will supply my needs, but I do not believe that I have the Bank of England in my pocket. Faith is not believing fanatically, but faith is believing the truth. There is a wonderful difference between believing your imaginations and believing what God has distinctly promised."
     - Charles Spurgeon
​Psalms 106, 107, and 108

introduction to the Series

Most of what we learn how to do, we learn from other people. Sometimes it is the learning that comes from specific and deliberate instruction. At other times it is the learning that comes by way of example and imitation. During 2023, our endeavor is to learn how to pray from the Psalmist.*

The Book of Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, and it is mostly a book of prayers. We will spend the year going through the book, beginning to end, and letting the Psalmist teach us by example how to pray.
In this endeavor, we cannot benefit from his deliberate instruction, of course. What we can do, however, is take full advantage of his example.  We will observe how he prays, and we will learn to imitate him.

Our approach will be week by week. The recommended practices and exercises are not daily, but rather suggestions for an individual to implement throughout the whole week. ​

Exercises for this week

Psalm 106
Read Psalm 106.  This is a rather long Psalm, and much of it is devoted to recalling and confessing the sins and failures of the people of Israel during their history up to the time of the Psalmist.  As you read it for the first time, simply endeavor to catalog the different instances that are mentioned by the Psalmist.
  • Make a list.
  • How many are there?
  • How spread across the biblical narrative are they? 

Review the list just made. Evaluate the people's sins and failures in terms of each of the following methods of categorization:
  • the Ten Commandments
  • sins of thought, sins or word, and sins of deed
  • sins of omission and sins of commission
  • things that run contrary to love of God and things that run contrary to love of neighbor
  • lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life

Having reflected carefully on the list of Israel's sins and failures as recalled in Psalm 106, what are your observations?
  • What were Israel's particular weaknesses and negative tendencies?
  • Were different sorts of sins more common at different points in their history?  And, if so, why?
  • Which of Israel's tendencies seem most relevant to the world today?
  • Which of Israel's tendencies seem most relevant to the church today? 
  • To what extent are Israel's failures familiar to you in terms of your own experience? 
​
The Psalmist's recounting does include some good characters, as well.
  • Who were they?
  • What made them good -- i.e., how were they different than the people or behavior around them?
  • How is each one a potential role model for you?

Now reflect on the catalog of Israel's failures and sins in light of what is revealed about God.
  • What are the different ways that the Lord responds to the sins and failures of the people?
  • When else in the biblical record to you see evidence of the various responses of God? 
  • What does each response indicate or reveal about Him?
  • What attributes of God are on display in this Psalm? 
  • How are those attributes of God relevant to your life and experience?
  • How are those attributes of God relevant to the world today? 
​
What do you understand to be the relationship between verses 1-3 and the recounting of Israel's history that follows?

How might this particular Psalm inform your own prayer life? 
Psalm 107
Read Psalm 107. This Psalm recounts a variety of different people's experiences with life and with the Lord.  As you read, contemplate:
  • The ways in which their experiences in life become the context for their experience of the Lord.
  • The ways in which their experiences with the Lord become the context for what they experience in life. 

Identify the different types of life situations that the author of Psalm 107 describes or references. Then, for each one:
  • To what extent is this situation favorable or unfavorable?
  • To what extent is it the situation the result of the choices and behaviors of the human beings involved?
  • To what extent does the situation just seem to be what comes naturally as a part of life in this world?
  • To what extent does the situation seem to be caused by God?

As you consider the variety of situations which the author of Psalm 107 references:
  • What is the Lord's role in each?
  • What patterns do you see across the variety of situations?
  • What is revealed to you about the Lord? 

Reflecting again on the variety of situations which the Psalmist describes or references:
  • Which ones resonate with your own personal life experience?
  • Talk to the Lord about those experiences from your own life.
  • Follow the Psalmist's recommendation for those who have had those experiences. 

​Having reflected on the variety of experiences that the author of Psalm 107 describes, spend a few minutes reflecting on your own life story. Try not to get locked into a small slice of your life. Perhaps think through your life in terms of decades. As you do, consider these questions: 
  • What have been some of the most dramatic or impactful experiences in your life?
  • What have been life-changing experiences for you?
  • When have you been most frightened? Most worried? Most in trouble? Most in danger?
  • When have you been most relieved? 
  • In what experiences of life have you most earnestly cried out to the Lord? 

Having reflected on your own life experience,  write your own version of Psalm 107.  Give expression to a variety of experiences and circumstances, speak to the Lord's role in them, and then turn to thanks or testimony or praise accordingly.
​
As you contemplate the variety of your own life experiences, return to the considerations initially introduced above for Psalm 107:
  • The ways in which your experiences in life become the context for your experience of the Lord.
  • The ways in which your experiences with the Lord become the context for what you experience in life. 
Psalm 108
Read Psalm 108.  This Psalm has several different sections. In order to get a sense for the flow of the whole thing, apply these questions to each verse:
  • Who is speaking?
  • What seems to be the speaker's mood or attitude?
  • What do you perceive to be the speaker's circumstance?
  • What is the thrust of the speaker's message?
  • To whom does the speaker seem to be speaking?

In verse 3, the Psalmist declares that he will give thanks and praise to the Lord. Notably, however, his thanks and praise are not private affairs. He is not thanking God and praising Him in the privacy of his own home. Rather, he is giving thanks and praise among the peoples and the nations.
  • What might that look like?
  • Why do you suppose the Psalmist makes that choice?
  • Why is it important to thank and praise the Lord publicly, and not just privately
  • Who has heard you thank and praise the Lord?
  • Who needs to hear you thank and praise the Lord?

​Identify nine different cities or states that are, broadly speaking, within your same geographical region. Write them down. 

Insert those contemporary, regional place names into the spots in verses 7-9 currently occupied by Shechem, the Valley of Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, Edom, and Philistia.  Read those verses aloud with the contemporary place names inserted.

Talk to the Lord about how those verses sound to you now and what they mean to you. 

While we know from Scripture that God is love, that He loves the whole world, and that His will is for all people to come to a knowledge of Him, the reality in every age is that there are some people who set themselves up as His enemies. Sometimes they make themselves His enemies by opposing His plan, or by opposing His work, or by opposing His people. Given that definition, who in our day might be reckoned as God's enemies?  Make a list. 

It is likely that, in the time of the author of Psalm 108, the people of Moab, Edom, and Philistia were perceived to be enemies of the Lord God.  Insert some of the names on the list just made into the spots in verse 9 currently occupied by Moab, Edom, and Philistia.  Read the verse aloud.  Talk to the Lord about your experience. 

Verses 10-13 have a different feel than the preceding verses.  The context of these final verses seems to be one of trouble, out of which the Psalmist is calling to the Lord for help. 
  • What do you understand to be the faith or theological relationship between verses 1-6 and verses 10-13?​
  • What do you understand to be the faith or theological relationship between verses 7-9 and verses 10-13?
  • What do the first 9 verses of Psalm 108 teach you about faith in the midst of trouble and about calling out to God for help? 
* We will refer to the author as “the Psalmist,” though of course not all of the Psalms were written by the same person. A significant number are attributed to David. Others are associated with Asaph, the sons of Korah, and an assortment of other individuals. Also, several dozen Psalms have no name attached to them.  For the sake of ease and uniformity, we will simply refer to “the Psalmist.”