Redemptive History and Psalm 3

Listening to a recent sermon on Psalm 3, I noted the preacher's insistence on the abiding validity of the imprecatory psalms. This became an issue back in the 1990's when some Theonomist-inspired leaders began to call for their use in the context of the Clinton presidency. The problem for them is that intuitively most Christians see a problem or conflict with their employment given the commands and general ethos of New Covenant spirituality - and the command to turn the other cheek and to love one's enemies. They're right, and yet the contemporary situation (with the call to use imprecatory psalms) is indicative of even greater doctrinal and theological problems.

A Non-Christocentric Reading of Psalm 112

Recently I sat through a sermon on Psalm 112. It was a workshop in moralistic non-redemptive-historical preaching. It wasn't that the content was awful or the exhortations uninspiring, but the preacher missed the essential component of the passage and read it in a Judaized fashion. While disappointing it generated some great and edifying conversation for the drive home.

The Mammon-Apostates of Psalm 10

Psalm 9 calls for the Lord to rise up in judgment on the wicked nations, while the related Psalm 10 takes up a tone of lamentation and a continued call for judicial action – but in a more narrow context. The condemned self-idolatry of the nations plays out in a more immediate sense in the way the wicked (the rich and powerful) crush the poor and the weak.

Psalm 73 and New Testament Apostasy

This psalm is well known by many for the words of comfort it provides regarding the plight of the believer in the world and the abiding sense of injustice that can gnaw away at us if we let it. The wicked flourish and the righteous always seem to suffer and lose.

Reflecting on Psalm 19: The Law of Nature, Phenomenological Language, and Duality (II)

Returning to the question of double-truth, it might be argued that such dualities, paradoxes, or dynamics (which are so problematic to many) are the result of a severance which occurred with the Edenic Fall. On the one hand these inconsistencies and living contradictions (if that's what they are in fact) present a dilemma, but one that is solved with the eschaton, when all such tensions and dynamics are removed and with the reconciliation that occurs – the ultimate unity or holistic reality we seek, will become manifest in Christ. As such any kind of duality is not something inherent in the world but a sundering, a tragic result of sin.

Reflecting on Psalm 19: The Law of Nature, Phenomenological Language, and Duality (I)

Psalm 19 presents some interesting challenges to those who make the case for natural law or those who insist on a literalistic interpretation of the Biblical text. By literalistic we here refer to an interpretation of phenomena in a Baconian sense – one that must accord with scientific laws and empirical observations.

New Covenant Hermeneutics: Psalm 16

Peter's sermon in Acts 2 provides yet another example of Old Testament writings that must be read in light of New Testament revelation. Psalm 16 is written by David. It is a prayer and a reflection on the goodness of God, to rejoice in the knowledge of Him, and the hope believers have even in the face of death. Read on its own, it is profound and moving.

New Covenant Hermeneutics: Psalm 2

Psalm 2 is a favourite among Postmillennialists. It speaks of the kings of the Earth setting themselves up in opposition to God and His Anointed – a clear anticipation of the coming Christ.

Their nations are given to Christ as His inheritance and He will break them with a rod of iron. The nations are consequently warned and instructed to kiss the Son, in other words to submit to and reverence Him.