Mark Gignilliat teaching on the Theology of the Psalms At our third coffee house of the summer, Dr. Mark Gignilliat taught on The Theology of the Psalms. Mark has taught Hebrew, Old Testament Exegesis, and Biblical Theology at Beeson Divinity School since 2005. His research interests include the relationship between the testaments, and between exegesis and […]
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Benjamin Smith walked into my office about 3 weeks ago and asked me if I would do this. And do you know how you have a mental picture of how something's gonna look? I I had a I really had a even on my way out tonight, saying goodbye to my wife and my kids, I thought, this is gonna be great. 5 or 6 of us sitting around a table, talking about the song. That's really what I had in my in my mind.
Joel Brooks:So, wow. You're all here. I've heard a lot about your church, and and I I commend you for your, for your located in the city, and your vision for the city, I I go to Red Mountain Church, which we're trying to figure out what that means to. One of our deacons is here. He knows this is this is an ongoing discussion.
Joel Brooks:So I I, I commend you. I know I know I know a lot of you do some work at Cornerstone School as well. And it's just some some great things. So I'm I'm glad to be with you all. Your reputation goes before you by the grace of God in in the community.
Joel Brooks:Let me begin with prayer, and then we'll just we'll just dive in and and see where this goes tonight. Alright. So, I I know that we're go well, we'll do it the way that Joel set it up. Q and a later, but if something is just bugging you, you feel free to interrupt. I don't mind that that repartee.
Joel Brooks:I I should go and tell you as well. I I I think red mountains kind of a cool church, and I get a sense you're kind of a cool church. It's dawning on me. I'm not a cool person. I mean that's it's a hard thing for me to come to grips with, but I'm I'm really not.
Joel Brooks:So whatever that whole hipster thing is, that's it's not me. But I can tell you all are really A lot of a lot of the plastic rim glasses around, and I Look at mine. So I Well, I'll I'll do the best I can to to, accommodate the gospel to you tonight. Alright. So let's let's pray, and then we'll we'll hop in.
Joel Brooks:Father, I'm I'm so glad to be here with sisters and brothers who love you and who want to know you, who yearn for their lives to be marked by their following of you and by, more importantly, your your grasp and love of them. And, Lord, for those who are here tonight, who are on the edges wondering what this whole thing's about, As they, even flirt with Redeemer Community Church, would they not see the love that is present in this place to know that god is here. And, father, tonight, as we dive into your word, we do so humbly knowing that it doesn't matter what our skills are, our rhetorical skills, our biblical study skills. We we don't have the power within our frame of reference to make the Bible happen. We we we don't have those skills.
Joel Brooks:That that is something that you, God, by the holy spirit have to do. And and we want you to do that because what we really want is Jesus. And and we don't get Jesus except for the one that's presented us here in the bible and you are alive. So all those things, Lord, I pray that you'll bring them together by your own good gift of grace to us tonight. And if that happens, and if we look back at the end of this evening and see that something happened here tonight, we will know that it was because of your kindness and your grace and your own work.
Joel Brooks:And we pray these things in in Jesus name. Amen. So two two points of introduction for you tonight. I'm on a bit of a mission. I I I don't know how it's happened, but I did graduate studies in New Testament.
Joel Brooks:I I've always wanted to do New Testament. That was my love was the New Testament. And for some reason, in the providence of God, I just keep getting forced into the old testament. I mean, do you want do you want to know the profound reason why I'm at Beeson Divinity School? I mean, the profound reason is I couldn't find a new testament job.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I hate to be so bold about it. And and and so there was an old testament, and now I'm in the old test. And it just has happened again and again, and so now I've just yielded to it, and I'm on a mission. And the mission is to exercise a particular ghost that I still think haunts the evangelical church, and and that ghost is the ghost of that 2nd century heretic, the first really bad guy. I guess if we're going to label him that way.
Joel Brooks:The first really bad guy in the life of the church is that fellow named Marcion. So Marcion shows up on the scene. He's really the first major heretic, and and, and what is it that Marcion's saying? He's saying something that that you've you've maybe heard your grandma say, or or, or your neighbor say, or someone who goes to a good upstanding bible believing church. You may have heard someone say something like this, and that is, you know, that God of the old testament, he's a bit of a crank.
Joel Brooks:But the God of the new testament, Jesus, I can I like that guy? Right? And so there's this playing of the old testament God over against the new testament God, and then this whole sort of scissors and cutting and pasting system happened with the bible. So that anything that smacked of the Old Testament God, which was material and physical and earthy and bound up with the messiness of Israel's history, of this world. That's Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And the God of the old testament, he's down here. I mean, I was on the phone. This isn't being recorded, is it? Yes. Oh, shoot.
Joel Brooks:Yes, it is. Oh, shoot. I was on the phone with my mother. And, recently, and I I mean, my my my my, you know who, reads her Bible way more than I do. I mean, I grew up with I mean, my mother is a godly woman.
Joel Brooks:And even my mother on the phone just earlier this year said something to me like, you know, the God of the old testament kind of bothers me sometimes. And and there was a part of me that goes, well, this is a really fruitful conversation to have with one's mother. And then and then I thought on the flip side of it, but mom, you're, you know, you're that's heretical. That's that's really, really bad. But but I think those sentiments are out there.
Joel Brooks:So I'm on a mission, whenever I get the chance, to put a plug in for the old testament because the God of the old testament and the God of the new testament are 1. They're both Triune. Alright. That same God is triune. And his and and he has a name.
Joel Brooks:And his name is the father, the son, and the holy spirit. And that changes everything when it comes to interpreting the old testament. If you believe that the God who revealed himself to Moses in Exodus 3, father, son, and holy spirit, it changes the whole interpretive game. So I'm on a I I believe that. Right?
Joel Brooks:There's an assertion for you. And at at 9 o'clock or 8 o'clock, we can debate that if you'd like to a little bit. Here's the other thing. You wouldn't have liked me when I was 19. I I don't know.
Joel Brooks:I was a bible major. I studied Greek. I mean, again, I told you I'm not a cool I'm not cool. I was I was definitely not then. Really liked the I liked I liked the logical didactic parts of the bible.
Joel Brooks:You know, so even like it became the sort of running joke with my buddies. Please I'm married now so I've been I've been expunged of these sins. Okay? But but I I can remember dating in college and and and I would ask, you know, the girls that was dating. And what so what are you reading in the bible these days?
Joel Brooks:Without a doubt, without a doubt, the answer was gonna be the Psalms. Right? And I can remember having these sort of arrogant, stupid conversations with my friends, like, when someone gonna say Hosea or how about the logic of Paul and Romans? You know what? I mean, I'm I'm really wrestling with Romans 9 to 11, and how it turned like, I I was really into that, and I still am because that that made the cut too.
Joel Brooks:That stuff's in the bible as well. But something's happened where I've I found myself now gravitating back to the Psalms again and again. And I think the reason why I'm gravitating back to the Psalms is, you know, really the Psalms are kind of the tote bag, a compendium form, a a a little travel case that has the whole of biblical thought and theology in it. I mean, you you you can you really can find everything in the Psalms. And and and the Psalms then becomes a kind of a mirror.
Joel Brooks:A mirror that shapes our souls. A mirror that shapes the way in which we understand what it is to to follow in the in the Christian life. And so I want to talk to you tonight a little bit about the Psalms, and and this is what I'd like to do. And I'm not hopeful. But this is what I'd like to do within our time together is, I'd like to talk about lamenting.
Joel Brooks:So the title of the first part is the Psalms, a warrant to complain. And then I wanna talk in the second part about praising, because the title of the book of Psalms in Hebrew is the tehillim. That is the the praises. But if we were to do a quantitative analysis, and you were to sort of set these Psalms according to their genre or their style there's all kind of Psalms. There there are praise Psalms.
Joel Brooks:There are wisdom Psalms. There are Torah psalms, there are thanksgiving psalms. There's all kinds of psalms, but if we were to to categorize them and quantify them, there is an overwhelming majority of lament Psalms in the book of the of the salt in the Psalter of the book of Psalms. They're they're more lament Psalms. They're more complaining Psalms.
Joel Brooks:They're more complaint Psalms, than any other, kind of Psalm in the Bible. Even though the book is called praises, and we'll talk more about that. There are more laments than any other kind. And I, I think we've been fed a lie in Christian spirituality. I don't I don't I don't presume to know the the world out of which you come.
Joel Brooks:I mean, some of you may be new to the faith. Some of you may have been in the church for a long time, but I think we've been fed a lie when it comes to Christian spirituality, or that is a kind of Christian spirituality that emphasizes this ever growing ascendency upward that doesn't take into account the complexity and the fragmented nature of life. For example, it's, did any did any you sing the song when you were little? I did. And maybe this is gonna show the world I come out of, but you remember this one?
Joel Brooks:Everyday with Jesus is sweet. Me and you. Me and you. Right? Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.
Joel Brooks:And I and there's a sense in which that's true, I guess. But I think there's a sense in which our lived experiences would tell us something that, you know, that's that's really not true. And if we enter into the Christian life with that kind of understanding that what what I call let's call it Hallmark Christianity or or or an overly sentimentalized approach to Christianity that doesn't allow into the very fabric of what it means to be a Christian, the disorder and the chaos of being human, then I think we've we've lost something. If we sing everyday with Jesus sweeter than the day before and quickly follow it up with William Cooper's, God moves in mysterious ways, just wonders to perform, or behind a frowning providence, there is a smiling face. I mean, these are these are the kind of hymns that allow into our into our very lives the difficulty and the complexity of of being human.
Joel Brooks:So what I think the Psalms do and why I like the Psalms is that the Psalms force us to to take some sort of account of this. To to to look at the Psalms like a mirror and say, well, what role does complaint and lament have in my Christian experience? Because if we're going to learn something about the book of the Psalms, we're going to learn this. God wants us to live our lives in his presence. And let me expand that.
Joel Brooks:God wants us to live all of our lives in his presence. From the a to the z. From the beginning to the end. The from the mountain tops to the bottom of the of the valley. He wants us to live all of it there.
Joel Brooks:And so if you have the sort of Hallmark Christianity, this this sentimentalized Christianity, or let's use another kind of Christianity. Braveheart Christianity. Right? Stiff upper lip. You know, lay down on the table, and let them gut you out as they're ripping out whatever that is they're doing in that last scene of that movie.
Joel Brooks:Right? You know, that that, you know, stiff upper lip, don't don't, you know, don't allow suffering. Don't allow woundedness. Don't allow that fragmented side to come into your existence. Just, you know, face it.
Joel Brooks:And these things are very hurtful. And maybe some of you have met that kind of Christianity that does it's a triumphalist Christianity. It's it's a it's a Christianity that has all resurrection, but doesn't recognize any any cross. I mean, maybe you've met that kind of Christian and it can be very, very hurtful. Calvin, John Calvin, and I'd make a joke with my students, and I don't really mean this, but as the joke is I no.
Joel Brooks:I asked Jesus in my heart when I was 9, and then when I was about 18, I asked Calvin into my heart. I mean, that's that's bad. But, Calvin, when he was wrestling with with with some of these issues in in the in in his systematic theology called the institutes. He said that people who have that sort of stoic view of Christianity that don't allow grief in are fanatics. That's his actual term.
Joel Brooks:They're fanatics who don't allow in so godly sorrow, real grieving, real real pain. Now let me read you a few things here. Listen to this from Martin Luther. Are are you still with me? You're all here?
Joel Brooks:Okay. Listen to what he says about the Psalms. Where does one find finer words of joy than in the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving? There you look into the hearts of all the saints as into fair and pleasant gardens. Yes.
Joel Brooks:As even into heaven itself, end quote. That's the part I like. That's good stuff. I mean, when you get into these praise Psalms I mean, it's like you've gone into the Garden of Eden. These are people who are living life on the mountaintop in the presence of God.
Joel Brooks:Psalm 100, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. That's wonderful stuff. Right? But he goes on. On the other hand, where do you find deeper, more sorrowful, more pitiful words of sadness than in the Psalms of Lamentation?
Joel Brooks:There again, and listen to this clause right here. There again, you look into the hearts of the saints. He's talking about us now, the saints. And So from our heavenly experiences all the way down to our hellish ones, all of life is lived in God's presence. And the Psalms testify to the fact that God wants to be in the middle of that.
Joel Brooks:He wants to be acknowledged. He wants to be talked to from the mountaintop to the valleys that lay down, below. I mean, in other words, and we'll get into this some more tonight. But in other words, what the Psalms tell us is that we can talk to God in risky ways. It's the I mean, think about some of the things that are said.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna read some of it to you tonight. Some of the things that are said said in these Psalms of lament, I mean, can you I don't know if you do this at Redeemer. We're Presbyterians. We definitely don't do this. But, you know, like open mic testimony night.
Joel Brooks:I mean, do you guys ever do this where the body ministers to the body? I I stand to see who's there first. Right. That that makes that kind of thing makes Presbyterian sweat. I mean, we I mean, even though we're a cool church, we don't we don't do that.
Joel Brooks:But you know open mic night, people come up and give testimonies about what the Lord's done in their lives. It could be a very really wonderful time. But I mean can you imagine Jeremiah getting up at open mic night and saying I want to tell you something, God called me to be a prophet. He said I didn't have a choice. I'm gonna, you're gonna go do this.
Joel Brooks:Whatever I tell you to say, Jeremiah, you're gonna say it. Wherever I send you, Jeremiah, you're gonna go there. He goes on in the first chapter of Jeremiah and he says, by the way, Jeremiah, don't be dismayed in front of them because if you are, I'll dismay you in front of them. I mean, it's the classic parenting line. If you keep on crying, I'm gonna Right.
Joel Brooks:Give you something to cry. I think we had a very similar past. I mean, this is this is this is the logic I think that that's coming out in Jeremiah 1. And then what happens, it doesn't go so well for Jeremiah. It's a hard calling, and what does he say right to God's face?
Joel Brooks:You deceived me and I was deceived. Can you imagine someone getting up in church and giving that kind of testimony? I thought my Christian life was gonna be like this, but it was It ended up being like this, and I And God's deceived me. I'm gonna sit down now. Right.
Joel Brooks:Or or the song that we're gonna look at tonight, in Psalm 73. These are these are striking words. Listen to this in in Psalm 13. I just want to read you a lament. You can look at it if you want to.
Joel Brooks:We'll we'll do so if you have your bibles. I saw a lot of you bringing them in. This is a classic Lament. I'm not even gonna expose it. I'm just gonna read it to you.
Joel Brooks:Alright. So open mic night at Urban Coffee. What Urban what's this called? Standard. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:How long, oh lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Joel Brooks:Consider and answer me, oh lord, my god. Give light to my eyes or I will sleep the sleep of death and my enemy will say I have prevailed. My foes will rejoice because I'm shaken. And just while you have it here, so that you kind of have a sense of what goes on. Very important words in English, and they are also very important in Hebrew as well.
Joel Brooks:But I. That's the transition that you have in these lament Psalms. There's lament, there's complaint, there's gauntlet throwing, and that's That happens in the Psalms. If you don't rescue me, then my enemies are gonna exalt over me, and they're gonna mock you. So there's gauntlet throwing that goes down.
Joel Brooks:But then there's a there's a shift into the but I, and this is now moving to praise. But I trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. I have 3 boys.
Joel Brooks:I have a, a 6 year old son named William, a 4 year old named Jackson, and a 1 year old named Franklin. And, you know, god's having fun with me, I think, on this whole parenting thing. I was a youth director for 5 years. That assures me that I'm getting into heaven, by the way. But I was a youth director for 5 years, and and I can remember thinking thoughts as youth director like, I didn't have kids.
Joel Brooks:Why can't you get your kids in line? You know, those sort of horribly arrogant things that single people who don't have kids tend to think, you know. And, or or how do you think I'm a youth director gonna help your teens when you haven't been you know, all these horrible things. And now, who's laughing? Not me.
Joel Brooks:Right? Now, I'm we've we've got intense little boys, and they're all boy. And they all have earned. They they have earned PhDs in whining. Right?
Joel Brooks:I mean, they they're they're I mean, they're very proficient at whining. It's it's a gift to that that's that they have. And and I and I have no doubt that they're gonna end up on doctor Phil someday. I mean, I know that's gonna happen, but this is our policy now. And I'm not saying we're always consistent with it.
Joel Brooks:We're rarely consistent on anything. But, but this is our this is our policy. It's, and this is really bad with Jackson right now, my 4 year old. When they whine, I'll say to Jackson, Jackson, I I can't understand you when you're whining. But if you wanna talk to me like a big boy, right, then daddy will hear what you had to say.
Joel Brooks:But right now, if you're whining, I can't I can't understand you. Right? I think that's right. I don't know. You come you correct me later.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I I think that's the right approach. But here's the thing that that sort of gnaws at me as I say, even as I articulate that to to my boys, and I'll continue to do so. That's not how God deals with me. He doesn't do that. As a matter of fact, in the book of Psalms, God not only authorizes, he opens up the door for us to come into his presence and to whine, and to complain.
Joel Brooks:To just lay it out there. To lay it bare. How long are you gonna do this to us? I I was sinking down and you haven't rescued me yet. And the list goes on and on of the kind of laments and complainings that we see in the book of Psalms, Like Psalm 88, it ends dark and the darkness was my closest friend.
Joel Brooks:Period. It's the only lament song that doesn't end in praise. It's, you know, that that there's room for that. And that tells me something about the nature of the book of Psalms. And And I don't know how you understand the book of Psalms, but I think a typical way of understanding Psalms is that the Psalms are human expression.
Joel Brooks:Inspired, right? But but human expression that's directed, to God. Okay. And and that's true. Right?
Joel Brooks:This is where John Donne, the old, English poet said that the Psalms are like manna for the soul. Or or like John Calvin said about the Psalms, the Psalms reveal the anatomy of all the parts of our soul. Or like Gregory of Nyssa, the 4th century theologian from the Cappadocian father from the east. Like he said, what are the Psalms? Well, the Psalms reflect for us what it means to walk in our Christian life from blessing, to confusion, to loss, and then back to blessing again.
Joel Brooks:It's all about human expression to God, and I think that that's that's true. But I don't know if you've ever noticed this in in the Psalms. And you can look there. I mean, someone look at, if you have a bible. And I think all of our English bibles do this.
Joel Brooks:But some of what if you look at the end of, of chapter 41 or the beginning of chapter 42 and see what you find there. But now, am I right? Yeah. So what's that big thing at the top of chapter 42? What does it say?
Joel Brooks:Book 2. Have you ever noticed this before? Right? Book 2. Well, then you come to the end of chapter 72.
Joel Brooks:Let's look there for a second because they're gonna come back. My father hates it when I'm teaching and make people turn in their bibles a lot. So I'm sorry about that. But that's why you're here. Here's something very fast.
Joel Brooks:Look at the way in which Psalm 72 ends. The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended. Right? Why is that a problem? Well, all we have to do is like turn a few pages and we see more more Davidic songs.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna come back to what I think is going on here. But what's what do you see at the top of, chapter 73? Book what? Alright. You're getting it here.
Joel Brooks:Look at the top of chapter 90. I should say chapter 90. Psalm 90. Book 4, and then look at the end of Psalm, beginning of Psalm 107. Book what?
Joel Brooks:5. Right. Well, self evident. So, that that's actually not in the Hebrew. There's not book 1, book 2, but but it's it's set up canonically, the way in which the book is shaped.
Joel Brooks:Every one of these sections ends with amen, the amen, amen, and amen. And then it goes on into a next section, amen and amen. So that becomes kind of a literary guide, like a like a signpost that tells you, well, that particular segment of the Psalter is done. Now we're going on to another segment. So you have 5 books.
Joel Brooks:Now this book of the Psalms, the whole book. I don't know how you've understood the Psalms before, but we we tended to think of the Psalms as kind of a I have before as a as a willy nilly thrown together hymn book. Right? Here's one here. Here's one there.
Joel Brooks:But what you when you when you step back and look at the book of Psalms as a whole the Psalms as a whole. What do you see? We see this intentional 5 book structure. What else in the old testament is a 5 book structure? Rhymes with.
Joel Brooks:The the the Pentateuch. Right? I'm sorry. I'm teaching I'm teaching summer Hebrew, and it's, and I'm these are bad teaching habits I fall into. The pent Pentateuch is a 5 book structure.
Joel Brooks:And what do we call the Pentateuch? We call it the Torah. We call it the law. We call it instruction. And now, another thing I'm trying I'm trying to make a case here, Psalm 1.
Joel Brooks:How does Psalm 1 begin? Which I think Psalm 1 and 2, by the way, aren't just, the beginnings of book 1 of the Psalter, but they're actually the thematic heads of the whole book of Psalms. That that emphasizes both, what Psalm 1 emphasizes, and then I'm not gonna get into Psalm 2. Psalm 2 emphasizes the reign, the kingdom, the kingship of God, and his anointed one. Right?
Joel Brooks:Now I won't get into that, but I think there's huge overlap there by the way of Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, what Jesus is doing on the Sermon on the Mount. But I can't I I won't go down. I won't chase that rabbit trail. But here we go to Psalm 1. You you know the Psalm.
Joel Brooks:Right? Or or some of you may. Bless is the man. I always get this confused. Bless is the man or will be, sensitive.
Joel Brooks:Bless is the person who does not How do we do this here? Right? Walk, stand, and then sit with bad people. That's my Eugene Peterson gloss on that. Right?
Joel Brooks:With bad people. But they delight in the law of the Lord. You see, there there's a there's a mindset in in a lot of academic circles, frankly, that places the law over against the worshiping cultic setting of the of of, of Israel's religious expression to God. So that's the legal side, but Israel's real religion is the cult. That's what they do at temple.
Joel Brooks:That's what they do in synagogue. That's what we see in the Psalms. So they they make this this junction, a bad disjunction between the law and worship, but not Psalm 1. Right? The blessed person is the person who, delights in the law of the Lord, and that's the person who's gonna be like a tree that's planted by a river and there's gonna be fruit that falls off of that person's life.
Joel Brooks:But the wicked not so like them. They're gonna be like the chaff, which the wind drives away. Psalm 19. The law of the lord is perfect. It's it's, it's better than the honeycomb.
Joel Brooks:It's sweeter than Remember that? It's beautiful reflection on the perfection, and the glory, and the goodness, and the sweetness of the law of God. And then what's the longest song? Psalm 119. And guess what Psalm 119 is?
Joel Brooks:It's a whole long reflection on the law. And for those of you who may have noticed this even in your English Bibles, I think most of them, indicate this, but it's it's a Hebrew acrostic. All of, Beit, Gimmel, all the way to Tav. It'd be like saying a to z. So so so what's I think Psalm 119, at least the way in which it's formed, what's trying to say to us in its literary shape?
Joel Brooks:The a to z of life, the olive to the top, the a to the z, the alpha the omega, the beginning to the end, all of it is meant to be lived in light of the teaching and the law and the authority of god, and that's where the light is. It's like a light into my feet, and for my path. So what what's what am I trying to make a case for here? Yes. Yes.
Joel Brooks:The Psalms are a reflection of human expression to God that meets us in all of the contours of life. All of them. But the Psalms are also Torah. The Psalms are instruction. The Psalms are a word from God about how he wants us to interact with him, about how he wants us to engage him, about how he wants us to live life before him.
Joel Brooks:And you know that's true, don't you? It's it's a bit sort of counseling cliche ish. I know it. But but, you know, if you ask somebody what's the opposite of love, it's not really hate, is it? Because those of you who are married, you know how you know how quick that line now don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about.
Joel Brooks:But you know how quick that line can get crossed over. I mean, I love my wife. I love my Whammo. We're we're we're in some sort of, I mean, that happened to us like 3 years ago, I think. Me and my wife.
Joel Brooks:But but it's not but hate's not really the opposite of love. What's what's really the opposite of love? It's indifference, isn't it? That's why I I heard one marriage guru say that the worst kind of punishment you could do to your spouse is the silent treatment. That's the worst.
Joel Brooks:Why? Because what what are you doing in the silent treatment? You're basically saying, in effect, right now, I don't care whether you're alive or dead. You don't exist to me right now. Right?
Joel Brooks:That's that kind of indifference, and god does not want indifference from his people. He would rather swearing and the shaking of the fist than the indifference that I really don't care whether you exist or not. He wants all of it. He wants the joy. He wants the complaint.
Joel Brooks:He wants the lament, and he's moving us somewhere in the gospel. He's moving us to ultimate praise and reflection on him. I'm not gonna make my goal tonight. So So can we look at Psalm 73, and then and then I'll stop, and we'll take questions. Unless you want to just fight like, you just you gotta get it out.
Joel Brooks:You want to ask anything now? Okay. Sorry, Joel. I just broke the rule. Yes.
Joel Brooks:Okay. So I'm I'm I'm gonna treat this like a class situation. You you feel free to fire back at me. I, you know, I use whining and complaining for a certain rhetorical effect, admittedly. Right?
Joel Brooks:But with that said, you know, I I want to avoid an overly detached and and sterile way of looking at this. And this is part of my goal even as I think about pastoral counseling and dealing with people who are suffering. I do think we need as as disciplers, as people who love those who are in suffering. I mean, at some point, we need to move them to the but I part. Right?
Joel Brooks:Remember how the Psalms make that move? But I also think, because of the way in which the Psalms are shaped, that we do need to allow people to have some space to live in the grief, in the sorrow, in the frustration, in the why part. Right? That comes before that, that, conjunction but I. I'm stealing from Walter Brueggem in here, but the the movement of lament Psalms and really the whole book of Psalms is from disorientation to orientation.
Joel Brooks:And I think sometimes we can do real harm to to sweet followers of Jesus when they're in real disorientation, and we try to push them too quickly to orientation. Now, I don't know. I mean, you know, some people are gonna have maybe a stoke stoke will take on how they enter into their suffering. Other people are gonna be a little bit more unguarded, but but it's I don't want to make it clean. I don't want I don't want to sanitize it.
Joel Brooks:It's messy. And when you have somebody okay. I'm gonna get hyperbolic here, but it's really not hyperbolic. You all know this. But when you have a mother who miscarried for the 5th time.
Joel Brooks:Right? And she's just tired of it. I mean, I I I have a I I know someone right. I'm thinking of her right now. Right?
Joel Brooks:Or and and just or another failed relationship again. Right now, for you, you're like, well, that's not that's kind of picky you niche to me. I don't care about that. I'm a man. I can handle this.
Joel Brooks:But but but maybe not in another thing. I mean, in other words, there's some fear trigger. There's some trigger that'll get all of us and can disorient us to such a state that we are we are lost. And I think there's some wisdom, biblical wisdom, in allowing people to remain in that space for a while. Now, whining, complaining, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna go to the guillotine over the terms that I use, but as far as expressing to God honest confusion, and honest disappointment in him, I'm I'm disappointed in you.
Joel Brooks:I think the Bible allows room for that, and I think we need to allow people to have the space to do that kind of thing as they live life before God. Think about Job. Right? Oh, don't do No, I shouldn't say that. I mean Job.
Joel Brooks:Don't do studies on Job. It'll ruin your life. I'm just joking. But think about Job. Right?
Joel Brooks:I mean here's Job, first three chapters. Braveheart Christianity. I mean there it is. Curse God and die, his wife says. Oh, you're a foolish woman.
Joel Brooks:How can I do that? The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. How blessed is the name of the Lord. Right?
Joel Brooks:That's the good part, the first three chapters. I like that part of Job. That's, you know, that's William Wallace. I can I can I can do that? But then we go into chapter 4, and I I begin to see some very interesting things.
Joel Brooks:Number 1, his friends come, and they end up being bad guys, and we know that because by the end of the book, they're having to be atoned for by Job. Remember that part? So So they're having to come in and do something for Job. But they come in, and they sit with Job in silence for 7 days. That was when his friends were at their best.
Joel Brooks:But immediately, when they opened their mouth, it went downhill from there. Now I think we need to open our mouths. We need to speak truth and love into people's lives. But there is a lot of times, to my mind pastorally, when being quiet, ministry of presence, letting people be in the deep end of the pool, not trying to rescue them too quickly, and and and praying. I mean, that there's there's really something there's something to that.
Joel Brooks:And as you go on in the book of Job, man, it gets messy. What does Job keep saying? I want a court appearance now. Because what they're saying is not true about me. I want a court appearance with God right now.
Joel Brooks:And he goes on just lambasting the whole time. I mean, this is we're talking, my friends, tonight. But, you know, I'm very careful with my students at Bison when they're taking Hebrew. I encourage them never to use this as sort of a will to power tool. You know, I went to seminary.
Joel Brooks:I know a little Hebrew. It says yes in your bible, but really it means no. You know, I'm against that. There's a real danger in that. But there is one of those verses in in Job that the traditional rabbinic scribes, the the masaretes, tweet, and it's the one that got the cut in most of our English translations.
Joel Brooks:And it's a verse that you know. I hope I don't heard anybody here tonight with this, but though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. I I this it's one of those scenarios where I actually think the text is saying, you keep slaying me and I'm not gonna trust you anymore. You can see why the rabbinic scholars didn't like that. So we gotta fiddle with that a little bit.
Joel Brooks:So, you have all of that. And then what happens? God shows up on the scene. He gives Job his day in court. Okay, Job.
Joel Brooks:You want to have a little, tit attack with me? Well do that. You stand there, and then what happens? You know, Job, you know what it's like, someone talks a big game. Right?
Joel Brooks:I'm ready. I'm ready to show up. And then it comes to game time, and you're like, well, where was that big game? Job had all these questions lined up in his mind that he was ready to ask God. God shows up under the scene, and Job is silenced.
Joel Brooks:Where were you? Who, you know, and and then he moves him into restoration. Job puts his hand over his mouth. All to say, I I I just that's that's messy. It's real messy.
Joel Brooks:And and for those of you who are in pastoral ministry or those of you who are sort of rubbing shoulders with other Christians, you know it's messy. I mean, your neighbors know it's messy. And so that's what I think, you know, whatever nomenclature you wanna use, I don't I don't care. But as far as allowing people the space in their Christian existence to voice real complaint and real hardship before God, I think we need to allow that space and not necessarily feel the pressure, the sort of pious pressure, to push them on too quickly. Had a woman, some of you would know her if I said her name actually.
Joel Brooks:Her, her husband died tragically, and, they were very close and, actually, she was in our church. She she grieved in this sort of hemorrhaging hemorrhaging kind of grief if we die, our wives may grieve for 6 months, but they're they'll get over it. I mean, they're gonna move on. I mean, she was just in deep grief and she emailed me and asked me if she could sit in on my Psalms class at, at Beeson. And I said, yeah.
Joel Brooks:And my wife and I had had our own, sort of brush with suffering as well in the past year. And so, you know, here she is in this class, and it it became rich, you know, just the experience. She sat in my office one time, and she said, Mark, does the sovereignty of God still work for you? And when I was 23 year old and sort of a rabid salivating Calvinist, man, I would have that was like, you know, being at the skeet range, you know, pool. Boom.
Joel Brooks:Right? But, you know, when you're not 22 anymore and and you've you've been to the cemetery a couple times and you've seen people you've seen marriages fall apart and, you know, it's not that you don't believe it anymore, but you're not so cavalier about it. You know, you recognize, yeah, I believe in the sovereignty of God. But you know what? That hurt it hurts too.
Joel Brooks:Teresa of Avila, a medieval mystic. The story story about her where she's she's ill, she's traveling, and she comes to a river that she has to cross. And she says, god, why why are you doing this to me? I'm I'm so sick. Why are you doing this to me?
Joel Brooks:And he responds and he says, well, don't you know I hurt my friends? And she responded by saying, yeah. And that's why you have so few of them. Right. I mean that's the is that the fine print of the gospel message?
Joel Brooks:God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Right? I mean, that's true. Do you know that famous picture of of, the early Christian martyrs where they're in the Colosseum? And, Polycarp is praying in the middle, and they're surrounding him.
Joel Brooks:And the picture is looking in from the sort of the side wall of the Colosseum over the back of a lion who's about to be released on these Christians to to it's a famous picture of the early martyrs. And and I saw this one time. That's a cartoon. You know, there it is. And the caption was, god loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
Joel Brooks:Right? I mean, that's the that's the fine print that they're suffering in this thing. And what we all want, I know it's what you want, it's what I want, is we we really want Jesus. And the fine print is the way in which we get him in in deep and profound ways is by the means of grace and in the school of suffering. I I don't like it.
Joel Brooks:I wish it weren't that way, But but it is. That was a longer answer than you wanted. Oh, Psalm 73. Let's look at it real fast. Truly, God is good to the upright.
Joel Brooks:I won't go into all the details, but this is the first psalm in book 3. I think that's significant. It's both looking backward. It's pointing forward. And when you move into book 3 of the Psalter, they're they're the darkest of the Psalms of the as far as sort of a, a collection of laments, there's there's more laments per capita in book 3 than anywhere else.
Joel Brooks:So we're we're going into a dark part of Israel's life before god. Truly, god is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart. That's his confession of belief. This is Asaph. In other words, I I've read some commentators that say that, surely he's being tongue in cheek here.
Joel Brooks:A little sarcastic, In light of what what's about to come. But I don't think so. And and the reason why I don't think so really is is a linguistic argument. How does the next verse start? You you can you know, in Hebrew, it's a big deal, and in English, it is too.
Joel Brooks:How's the next verse start? But I. Do you see that? That's a disjunctive. So it's like the first verse is is a it's kind of like a big umbrella title for the whole thing.
Joel Brooks:Yes, god is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. This is this is Asaph's confession of belief. This is what he really believes to be true. This is true. God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
Joel Brooks:This is my credo. Do you do you guys do confessions of faith at Redeemer? Right? This is my, I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That that that's his confession.
Joel Brooks:It's his script. It's what he believes. But what's happened here in Psalm 73? It's what happens all the time in the life of the church. It's the crisis of when our confession of faith collides with what we're experiencing.
Joel Brooks:I believe this to be true, but what I'm experiencing is coming into radical. It's a brick wall. I've run into a brick wall with my belief and my experience, and that's where we go in verse 2. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant.
Joel Brooks:I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They don't have any pain. Their bodies are sound and sleek. And here's the funny thing about this. You know that's not true.
Joel Brooks:Don't you? But, and again, I don't wanna sort of overly read this here and get overly I don't wanna do a sort of psychoanalysis on ASAP here. But but, I mean people do that when they're grieving, when they're lamenting, when they're complaining. They they get kind of hyperbolic. I mean, you know, don't you, that Tiger Woods has problems?
Joel Brooks:Right? I mean, real problems. Or these people who I mean, they're wealthy. They have their own yachts. They're I mean, they don't have any of the troubles I have.
Joel Brooks:I mean, look at the wealthy. Look at the prosperous out there. Look at the wicked. I mean, you know their marriages have problems. You know their kids are giving them grief.
Joel Brooks:You know that they're having trouble at work. You know that they're popping pills for their anxieties just like everyone else. You know that's true, but that's not his experience. You see, and I think this is what's what he's saying. They're not troub They don't have trouble as others do.
Joel Brooks:They're not plagued like other people. Prides their necklace. Violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes, they swell out with fatness. It means they're just overly prosperous.
Joel Brooks:They scoff and they speak with malice. They set their mouths against the heaven. Therefore, people turn and praise them. They say there's no fault in them, and this is the worst part. That they even say, god doesn't even know about this.
Joel Brooks:There's no knowledge of the most high. We're living life as if he doesn't exist, and guess what? It's fine. It's it's actually pretty good. Now listen to verse 13.
Joel Brooks:You have the first confession in verse 1, and here's the reshaped confession now in verse 13. All in vain, I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long, I've been plagued and and and punished every morning. That's his new confession of faith. Can I put it in the in the language of the book of Psalms?
Joel Brooks:This is what he's saying. I did Psalm 1. I did that. And the returns been nil. I didn't follow in the way of the wicked.
Joel Brooks:I followed in your way. But it's not working for me. It was in vain that I did all of that. You see when he says that I saw the prosperity of the wicked, that's not I don't like that translation too much, and I don't mean to disparage translations. But but the the Hebrew word, there's a word you all know.
Joel Brooks:It's shalom. I saw the shalom of the wicked. I saw their I saw their wholeness. I saw their peace. In Psalm 29 verse 11, you can look at this at another time, but in Psalm 2911, shalom is what God promises to his people.
Joel Brooks:And what is it that Asaph sees? He he looks at us and says, well, what you promised to us is actually being enjoyed by them. They're in our house, sitting in our couch, eating our food, and then, I could take it for a while. But stress fractures have sort of given way to full cracks, and now my walls are about to fall. And he's sensitive enough in these next few verses to say, if I would have talked this way, I would have betrayed the children of this generation.
Joel Brooks:I mean, in other words, he he knows there's a communal responsibility that he has as a leader for God's people. I mean, if I start talking this way to the sheep, I mean, this is this is dangerous. So what do we see though? Oh, another b u t there in verse 16. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.
Joel Brooks:Until I went into the sanctuary of god, then I perceived their end. Well, I won't take a long time to engage all of that. But what happens to Asaph? Does his problem does his theological angst does the philosophical problem of evil that he's raised get answered here? Not really.
Joel Brooks:And you know what? It didn't get answered for Job either. When he raises these profound philosophical questions that have plagued Christianity throughout the ages. I mean, it's what your skeptical friend at work ask you all the time. If God's all loving and all powerful, then why do these things happen?
Joel Brooks:You know? You know what God's answer to that would to Job was? It was shut your mouth. That's what God answers was there, but you can't always don't do that to your coworker. Right?
Joel Brooks:But but, he did God doesn't answer. He doesn't meet us on that level. But what happens? His his he's reoriented. God comes back into view.
Joel Brooks:I'm in the sanctuary. God had been displaced to the periphery, but now he's been brought back to the center, and it doesn't mean that all my questions are answered, but I have him. And that's what it says later. Who do I have in heaven or earth beside you? I don't I don't there's nothing more.
Joel Brooks:That doesn't mean that I'm gonna have all of my problems resolved for me. But what else do I have? Do you remember that conversation Jesus had with Peter? And all these disciples heard Jesus speaking, it was just a hard word. And they turned around and they left.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus looked at Peter and he said, Peter, you too. And what did Peter say? I don't have anywhere else to go. And that's, I think what Asaph is saying here. I mean, I'm I'm confused, it's difficult, but I don't have anywhere else to go.
Joel Brooks:And I'm gonna hold on to you, believing in the end, no matter what. I'm gonna hold on to you, Christ, no matter what. Even though I might not have all my problems resolved, eventually, I believe in the afterward and the glory in the resurrection. Well, this is very baptist of me, but I'm gonna end with a poem. And this is a poem that's it's so seems so like it was written yesterday.
Joel Brooks:But this is a poem from Gregory of Nazianzus, who was referred to as the theologian, Cappadocian father from the east, great Trinitarian theologian. Listen to this. He's a he's a bishop, by the way. Alright? A prayer to Christ.
Joel Brooks:Where's the injustice? I was born human, well and good. But why am I so battered by life's tidal waves? I'll speak my mind, harshly perhaps, but I'll speak. Were I not yours, my Christ, this life would be a crime.
Joel Brooks:We're born. We age. We reach the measure of our days. I sleep, I rest, I wake again, I go my way with health and sickness, joys and struggles as my fair. Sharing the seasons of the sun, the fruits of the earth, and death, and then corruption just like any other beast, whose life, though lowly, is innocent of sin.
Joel Brooks:What more do I have? Nothing more except for god. Were I not yours my Christ? This life would be a crime. There's a bad kind of reductionism that I think can reduce the complexities of Christian life to two simple formulas.
Joel Brooks:But I'm gonna do a little reductionism here right now. And that is I really do think that our struggle with Christ and the gospel and the way in which it shapes our relationships, the way in which it shapes our hopes and our disappointments really boils down to Jesus asking us, Am I enough for you? Am I enough? And that's the whole shooting match. See the gospel is not just the ticket to get on to the train, and then once I get on the train, I want all the goodies.
Joel Brooks:You know, where's the candy cart? Where's the drink cart? The gospel is the ticket. It's the train. It's the caboose.
Joel Brooks:It's the whole 9 yards. And that's a constant challenge that I think the Psalms present us in our suffering and in our lamenting. Is Christ enough? And when we can answer that by his grace, yes, then we begin to move to the but I part. Lord, we do need you in this.
Joel Brooks:And and I pray now as we enter into our discussion time that, you will let us mutually encourage one another as we wrestle with these things. In the name of Christ. Amen. Alright. I'm on.
Joel Brooks:Am I on? Okay. What's your favorite salt? You know, it changes. And it's one of the it's one of the things that I like about the salter.
Joel Brooks:Because it's gonna meet people at different stations of their life, and and I would say, alright, I'm it's probably well well, right now, it's Psalm 73, and it and it has been for a couple of years. My wife will tell you, in a sort of in our in our own familial suffering, we had a sort of an acute scenario in our family, and and, surely, god is good to Israel. It it it almost became for her, it it it was a means of grace. It was the bible for her, to have that, you know. So, you know, when those things happen in certain seasons of life, you might move on from the season, but those those Psalms still remain special.
Joel Brooks:I can still remember my mother's Psalm 571 saying it over and over again. Be merciful to me. Be merciful till these calamities pass by. So it just depends, and that's what I like about it. I mean, Joel and I were talking in the break, and you mentioned something about I guess you guys do a, a corporate, recitation of a psalm at the beginning of worship.
Joel Brooks:Is that what you're telling me? And, you know, that's one of the wonderful things about doing that together as community and the life of the church because you might not be in a particular station that that that that Psalm is, but your friend is, or someone in the community of faith is, and you enter in to praise and lament together, that's that's Paul. Right? Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those with who weep. And, you know, so I think that that dynamic of of of, allowing the Psalms to be as full and whole as it is to meet us in different places.
Joel Brooks:What's your favorite?
Connor Coskery:Psalm 13, I think.
Joel Brooks:Psalm 13. Interesting. Well, that's providential. Me and you tonight, we that's my whole lesson. Yes, sir.
Joel Brooks:That's a good question. And I I'm gonna be careful how I answer that because, it's not as easy a question to answer as it might seem. You know, it's it's kind of like, relationships, you know, people people tend to view other people's relationship through their own. Like, everyone's everyone's dating relationship must be like mine, or everyone's everyone's marriage has to be this, you know, if you found that where, you know, people sort of impose their own stories on you and our stories are so different? You know, I grew up with the Psalms, and I do see that as a grace of God in my life.
Joel Brooks:So there that's it's such a part of my DNA, that that's just gonna be different for how it has worked for me than it might be for you. I think I would say to you just like any good literature, and and these analogies always break down, but just like any good literature, it demands to be read again and again and again. Those of you who have read a really good book, you know you know what I'm what I'm talking about. Right? You read it once and, like, wow, that was good.
Joel Brooks:You read it again, like, wow, I didn't see that. And the bible has that kind of potential as well. So that I would say, you know, don't get hung up on the parts that you don't understand, but sort of focusing on the ones that you do. And and then and then, I'll give you an example from the hidden from the history of the church. Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine.
Joel Brooks:Have any of you been to be some divinity school besides your in the chapel? Or you got, right? And you know this big dome that's in our chapel, and and we have all these big hitters in the history of the church that are in the dome. Well, one of them is Saint Augustine or Augustine, depending on how you wanna say it. And, when Augustine became a Christian under Ambrose of Milan, this is in his confessions.
Joel Brooks:He goes to Ambrose, his bishop and he says, tell me what I should read to prepare me for my baptism. And Ambrose said, go read Isaiah because in Isaiah you will find the gospel prefigured better than any other book. Right? So what is it? What's so what is it?
Joel Brooks:It's okay. So he goes and he begins to read Isaiah, and this is almost verbatim what Augustine says. He said, I found the first chapter so obscure that I figured the rest of the book must be equally difficult. So I decided to put Isaiah aside until I could learn the Lord's style of language a bit better. Now that's a gust he made the dome.
Joel Brooks:Right? I mean, why did? So, you know, I would say cut yourself some slack on that, and give yourself some time. There there are disciplines that are involved in this, but give yourself some time to learn the Lord's style of language. It's, you know, it's not like modern poetry.
Joel Brooks:It's terse. It's, laconic. There's parts of it that are problematic and difficult. And I would just say, kinda dive in. There's a 150 of them.
Joel Brooks:Find 4 that you really like and read them a lot. And then, you know, maybe build off of that. I don't know. I mean, again, that that might be a strategy for you. But I would say I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't allow there to be any guilt, you know, connect or shame connected to the fact that, boy, that just doesn't you know, I don't I don't I don't love those.
Joel Brooks:Well, you know, there is a discipline in the life of the church to learning the Lord's style of language. And and I think there's a lot of the bible that's like that. And so we all have our parts that we like better, and it's just it's part of, I think, growing in the Christian faith is to sort of begin to expand out. You wanna come back on that? Clarify.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Yeah. And and maybe I mean, you sound like you're you're you're someone who thinks analytically. So it might be it might be an idea to go on Amazon and find a, you know, tripper long ones how to read the Psalms to maybe get some sense of how, you know, how the book works. But I I I think you're right.
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's one of the that's one of the the the we we get the bible that we get and it's not necessarily one that we want. Think about what Cecil b DeMille had to do with Exodus to make it into the 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston. I mean, he had to have this big, you know, sibling rivalry between Moses and Ramses. That that's not the bible, but he gotta have that. I mean, he's gotta you know, the bible's not good enough.
Joel Brooks:It's gotta be sexied up a little bit to make it onto the screen. And that's one of the things I think we always have to wrestle with is is the fact that well, here's another example. Right? I I the King James version of the Psalms is better than the Psalms. I mean, what do you do when you have scholars born out of the Elizabethan era of English?
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's that's English at its height. We're talking about Shakespeare now. What do you do with people who have those sort of rhetorical tools and gifts that meet a language like barbaric a language like Hebrew that Jerome, the early early monk called barbaric. I mean, it's a it's a language that's I mean, it's it's kinda rough. It's, you know, what do you do?
Joel Brooks:Well, what do you well, the translation's even better than the original. And I think that's where we have to wrestle with. Okay. God, your word is sufficient, and it's what you've given us. And, I'm just gonna have to sort of wrestle with that and and and see how it goes.
Joel Brooks:Yes, sir. Yeah. Little new agey, little yeah. Well, I mean, the larger issue that I think you're tapping into is how we how we understand the way in which the bible refers to itself, and how we understand the ways in which the bible's terms need to be understood within the framework of the bible itself. And that's always gonna be an interpretive challenge because we all come with baggage, whether we want to admit it or not.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I am a kind of white middle class guy and I read the bible like a white middle class guy. And if I don't take that into account then I'm gonna be thinking that the bible's making objective statements that are really back handedly subjective. You know, so we we all need to take into account our situatedness. I mean, I had a little a little hose. It turned bad.
Joel Brooks:I was at a church in town, and and, I forgot where I was, and we ended up having this sort spat back and forth to somebody in the Sunday school class. It I I do that at Beeson, but I I shouldn't do that in this anyway, I apologize the next week. But the the man said, you know, I don't read the bible with my politics in mind. And my response was, oh, yes, you do. And and if you don't take into account the fact that you do that, then, you know, you're gonna, you know, you're you're gonna be reading it like the kind of right wing tea party person you are.
Joel Brooks:And and I don't care what your and and I said, I don't care what your politics are. I mean, like, I don't I don't I don't even wanna engage that. But don't pretend like that doesn't influence the way in which you read. It was all over the foment over Tim Keller's new book, A Generous Justice. There's a certain quarter of my denomination that's really upset about that book because it sounds too, social justice y.
Joel Brooks:Well, good night. I mean we're gonna have to lobotomize major portions of the bible to make that work. So all to say, you think about the ways in which we use the term hope. Right? Hope.
Joel Brooks:Well, how do we use hope? Well, I hope that happens. Well, it's kind of connected to wishful thinking. It might not happen, but I hope it does. That's not a biblical concept of hope.
Joel Brooks:A biblical concept of hope is a confidence that what we're hoping in will for sure come true. I have a hope and that that's why in Romans, there can be overlap between and and hope, faith and hope. Right? Because I believe for sure that this is gonna happen, and I and I risk I risk everything on it. I mean, that's what Paul said.
Joel Brooks:If Jesus is not raised from the dead, I'm going to Vegas. Right? I mean, he didn't say that but he's You know what you know what I mean. To meditation. This is where I think we have to let the bible itself begin to define for us what it means, and it's a fun word.
Joel Brooks:It's it's, it's a Hebrew word that's that's and it's an onomatopoetic word. It's it's a word in others that sounds like what it's actually trying to do. And so if you looked it up in a lexicon, for example, or dictionary and try to say, well, what what is what is meditate? Well, it's, the cooing of a dove. It's the sound that on National Geographic when that video from a mile away goes in on that lion chewing on the side of that zebra.
Joel Brooks:And what do you hear? You know what you hear? You hear That's what you hear. That muttering, that sort of crooning, that that feasting sound that a lion makes over. I've that that's that's what's going on in the bible.
Joel Brooks:It is that kind of not otherworldly trance removal of yourself from reality, but it's being in the middle of reality, and reflecting, haggai ing, cooing in your own mind, the truth of God. It's one of the things that I tell my children, and I really wish I could do it. Right? Isn't that how parenting is? Right?
Joel Brooks:This is the hard reality of parenting. I'm sorry. It's my world. It's like, I'm gonna teach my boys what I what I would know is the truth, but they're gonna become what I am. And that's what scares the living fire out of me, but that's another discussion.
Joel Brooks:But what's what I tell my boys. Hey William, when you just hit your brother like that, and he's screaming lying on the floor, You know what happened there son? You listen to yourself rather than talk to yourself. Right. And we need to be talking to ourselves.
Joel Brooks:We need to be Haggai ing to ourselves. We need to be meditating to ourselves. In Jerry Bridges' language, we need to be preaching the gospel to ourselves every day. I I don't even know if Tom Cannon knows, I know this, but my pastor has a little a little, slogan on the cover of his notebook that he preaches all of his sermons out of. And the slogan is, believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts.
Joel Brooks:Right? I don't know I don't know where it comes from. That's what he has. Have you ever seen that, David? He's got that little thing there.
Joel Brooks:And I think that taps into a biblical notion of meditation. Tell yourself the truth. Tell yourself the truth. Even when you're in a situation where it's hard to believe the truth. Meditate on God's truth.
Joel Brooks:Haggah, coo over it. You know, there's it's I don't really know the counseling psychology world. Some of you do, but that's, you know, that doesn't that kind of tap into what cognitive therapy is? I don't really know all that, but isn't that kind of what it is? You gotta tell yourself what's true, and not listen to yourself in the middle of that.
Joel Brooks:And I think that that taps into what meditation is. And and let's let it and let's let the bible define that for us, and and then whatever the sort of halo data is from other religions and competing ideas, we'll just have to we'll just have to keep those to the side. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Joel Brooks:Next question. They're hard. They're hard. And, and I think part of the way in which you frame the question is right. And again, this is that human expression part, to God that is authorized.
Joel Brooks:I don't think you find in these, imprecatory Psalms reflections on personal injustice, someone's wrong me, they tend to be more kingdom of god oriented. And it's, you know, let those who despise the kingdom of God, the kingdom of our Christ be finally overdone and overcome. And I think there's room for that kind of praying. You know, CS Lewis didn't like those you know, he and he's a good guy. He's on the side of the angels.
Joel Brooks:CS Lewis called those Psalms barbaric. Lewis did. So, I mean, I'm not trying to you know, I don't I don't wanna lessen their sting, but I do think that these have ultimately to do with the kingdom of God and the triumph of the kingdom of God. And if you read those sort of, I mean, do you really know what we're do we really know what we're praying? When we say let your kingdom come, it's wrapped up in these things as well.
Joel Brooks:Revelation 19. And he breaks out on a white horse. He's got a robe that's dipped in blood. He's the king of kings and the lord of lords and the sword goes out of his mouth and the blood flows up into the to the to the neck of the horse. You know, that's not it's not just Psalm stuff.
Joel Brooks:And so the kingdom of God when it comes does mean the overthrowing of the of the wicked and those who have set themselves in opposition to our lord and his Christ. That's that's revelation language. So every time you pray the lord's prayer, you're you're tapping into that. Your kingdom come. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:That's good news for us, but that's really really bad news for others. And there are times I think, you know, we're we live sedentary lives. We all do. I mean, for the most part. But you know, those Christians who are in the Sudan or those Christians who are in, the, you know, the mountains of Peru or in Vietnam, you know, these these that 10:40 window where there's so much suffering in the world.
Joel Brooks:You know, I I I bet they they get it. And again, I I don't in any way want I mean there's a hardness there. But, so I don't wanna let that go. But I think I would like to view it more less American. Sort of like me, someone hurt me and you know, made their knees be cut out, you know, less godfather ish, you know, kind of thing, and more and and more kingdom of God and and and Christ.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. They're tough. My students got on to me because I taught a whole class some songs and and just avoided it, and they wouldn't let me do it. So I've I've had to wrestle with this. They're they're hard.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Joe. Can you talk about how we create these songs with the Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:And that'll help, I think, fill out some of this question as well. I give this sort of experiment with my class, you know, and I'll tell them, you know, tell me which Psalms are messianic. And there are classic ones, right? I mean, some will argue Psalm 2 although I have a colleague who doesn't think Psalm 2 is messianic. Some will, you know, then they'll say what Psalm 22, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?
Joel Brooks:Psalm 110. I mean, so there's some classic ones that seem to be pointing to the messiah and the one who's gonna come, But then I'll I'll I'll sort of play with the students and I'll say, but really, as Christian readers of the bible, we need to recognize that there aren't messianic Psalms but the whole psalter is messianic from the beginning to the end. And this is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer's little book on the Psalms is a real gem. You might like it actually. I don't know if you read like German theologians, but Bonhoeffer's book on the Psalms is a nice way of entering into the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:It's really small. This is what Bonhoeffer says is that when we read the Psalms, we need to ask first what does this Psalm have to do with Jesus? And then secondly, what does this psalm have to do with us? And so you think about lamenting, and you think about praising, and you think about imprecation, and the way in which Jesus died on the cross and suffered the judgment of God on himself, you think about what happened in Gethsemane. To my mind, this taps into what my theological tradition has identified as both the active and the passive obedience of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:You know, he was actively obedient that is he lived life for me. He is the Torah Observer. He is Psalm 1. I know that I can't be Psalm 1. I know that I'm a, in Luther's terms, will be righteous and a sinner all the way to the end.
Joel Brooks:But where do I find Torah keeping? In Christ, in him. Well, where do I find lamenting? What it means to sorrow? Jesus sorrowed.
Joel Brooks:He sorrowed on my account. So not only did Jesus die passively for me, he also lived actively for me. He kept the law. He knew what it was to praise properly. And the other thing too simply is the Psalms were Jesus hymn book.
Joel Brooks:It's his prayer book. That's the way in which he worshiped God, as a human. And, I mean, it's a very fun question to ask even now. Right? What's that bizarre verse in Hebrews 2?
Joel Brooks:That's a quote from the Psalms. But when you gather together and worship, like it says in Psalms, he comes among the congregation and he sings with his brothers and sisters to the father. Right? So in some incredibly powerful way that we don't understand, when Redeemer Community Church gathers at 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and you come together as a corporate community of faith and you're praising the father, Jesus is with you in your midst singing to him as well. And I don't want to get sort of a simple interpretive clue to that.
Joel Brooks:I think it's partly just sort of wrestling with individual Psalms, and thinking creatively in that way. For example, Psalm 98. Yahweh will return as a king, and when he returns as a king, he's gonna bring justice and judgment. It's a praise song. Well, thinking about that messianically, it's it's not a it's not saying anything messiah, Yeshua, Jesus, but how do I think about that messianically?
Joel Brooks:Well, Jesus. I mean, Jesus returns as Yahweh, and he comes to bring judgment. We see that he's flipping the temple the the tables in the temple. He's doing all these things. But then here's the surprising part.
Joel Brooks:Jesus the judge moves into passion week and takes the judgment of Yahweh onto himself, and becomes the judge judged in our place. I mean, that's the gospel. Well, there's how I begin to think about Psalm 98 extended into the larger 2 testament canon, and I just think that's the fun of reading the Psalms in light of the whole of the Bible. So that I think we need to ask that question first though. What does this have to do with Jesus and how do I move into that there?
Joel Brooks:Yes, ma'am. Missus Brooks. Yeah. Yeah. Feel funny.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. No. And I that's a great question. And if you had a different guy up here, he'd answer differently, you know, that that's just how, you know, so there's a, this is a debate, and this is one of the reasons we have denominations and, you know, the so but I mean, to my mind, I I, you know, I'm I'm I'm full I'm fully located with in what I can see to be the great tradition of Christian reading of the old testament, and that is recognizing that there is Old Testament and New Testament with the same God whose covenant keeper over both. And that we can make moves very naturally from Israel into the life of the church.
Joel Brooks:Now one thing though that I think that forces us to do though in the book of Psalms is to begin to think more corporately. There is the individual side in the book of Psalms, but there's also the corporate dimension as well. So I think that we need to think that way a little bit more. But, yeah, I think we I think we can make those moves rather, rather easily with in other words, without running a lot of interference in getting to to that. Maybe we just sort of do it right off the page.
Joel Brooks:Calvin did that, Luther did that, Aquinas did that, Augustine did that, Irenaeus did that. I mean, it's like, you know, all those dome people. That's just how they did it. And, and there's a few at, you know, in the late 19th century into the, into the 20th century who who have caused you who don't find that as persuasive anymore. But I would to my mind that those that's that's in there that's abnormal within what I would call the great tradition.
Joel Brooks:Not just the reformed tradition, but the great tradition of reading the old testament Christianly, that sort of that family resemblance that holds it all together. Now with that said though, I differ from my own, I would say, the sort of core of my own tradition and what that means for Israel in the future. I still think there's a future for Israel. I think Romans 11 and the way in which it ends, and Tom Wright, who's really sexy. I mean, everyone loves Tom Wright.
Joel Brooks:N t Wright. You all read n t Wright? A funny story about NT Wright. He's a New Testament scholar. Someone came up to him and said, I really like you, but whoever that Tom Wright guy is, I don't like that author.
Joel Brooks:It's the same same guy. But, you know, Tom Wright argues that when Paul says all Israel will be saved at the end of Romans 11, that what he really means there is reconstituted Israel, the church. Tom Wright makes that argument. That's a classic reformed argument, what would be called a supersessionist argument. That is Israel played its role in the divine economy in the old testament, but now the church is here.
Joel Brooks:They're superseded. That's, you know, it's like the the the, the booster rockets on the space shuttle. Right? We're in Jesus land and they've fallen off back into the ocean. And and I I don't think that's the case.
Joel Brooks:I think that there is a future for Israel, not necessarily national Israel, but at least ethnic Israel, just don't know. But I but I the gifts and the callings of God, Romans 1011, are without revocation. And and and that that means Israel, I think. In Christville, there is a sort of fan there's a very, cache approach to this that's known as the 2 covenant view. That says Christians relate to God via Jesus and while Jews relate to the same God via Torah.
Joel Brooks:That's that's that's real problem. It's all gonna be in Christ. But how that happens, I think, is, best well, you know, I don't know. Yes, ma'am. Can you share a little bit more about the vision of the salter, I mean, start to touch on.
Joel Brooks:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I and again, you know, there there are certain before I tell my students, you know, I call it a cone of importance or a cone of a cone of certainty.
Joel Brooks:You know, like there are certain things at the top of the cone that are really, really important like, trinity. You know, you don't believe that? I think smoke, you know, it's bad. Divinity of Jesus, fully fully God, fully man, the atonement, sufficiency is the authority of scripture. These are very important.
Joel Brooks:Your view on the millennium, right? Way down there, right? So, you know, there are certain things that I believe to be true, but if you held a gun to my head, I could change my mind very easily like, are you an on millennialist? No. Not anymore.
Joel Brooks:So I I think this is the case with the Psalter. Though, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't go to the guillotine over it. But if you look at books 1 and 2, there's a heavy emphasis on Davidic Psalms, the largest sort of collection of Davidic Psalms. So and there seems to be an emphasis there on the Davidic covenant. Right?
Joel Brooks:But then when you move into book 3, remember that weird verse at the end of chapter 72, the prayers of David, son of Jesse, have ended. Well, we know they really haven't. So what's that verse doing? Well, I think that verse is making a theological claim about the hope that's connected to the Davidic covenant. We're we've now we're now moving into disorientation.
Joel Brooks:Right? We're disoriented. So now you move into book 3, and I think if you're thinking about it in light of the the history of Israel, that would be the exile. I mean, this is the dark part. This is the part of confusion.
Joel Brooks:This is a part of our hopes in the in the Davidic king have completely fallen apart. We don't even have a Davidic really, a a good Davidic king on the throne at all. Zedekiah was a puppet guy. He was a joke. He's the last one before they went into exile.
Joel Brooks:I mean, so they're here in exile, but then you move into book 4, which I would argue is sort of the heart of the Psalter, Psalms 96 to a 100, really kind of at the heart of it. And what's the emphasis there? Yahweh Adonai. He is king. There's the king.
Joel Brooks:So you move from the hope in the Davidic King to frustration over that hope, and to an emphasis of book 4 on the on Yahweh himself. He is our king, and he is returning. He is coming, which then leads into Psalm 100, which is I mean, you know this song. It starts the favorite thanksgiving song, but it's just loaded with royal language. Enter into his courts with thanksgiving.
Joel Brooks:Enter his gates with praise. This is like he's in his royal palace. He's the king. That's who we're we're worshiping. And then when you move into book 5, where are we starting to go now?
Joel Brooks:Unending praise. Right? A little disorientation, still up. But once you get to those hallelujah Psalms, and then 147 to 150, they're just explosive praise, and that's where it moves. So I think that's kind of how it works when you sort of look at it in light of the the, sort of history of Israel.
Joel Brooks:But the problem with that is there are, jeez, you know, that's 3 or 4 here just, you know, like, what do we do with that? I mean, there's there's always that part. It's like putting a bike together, you know, on Christmas Eve and, there's the bike, but that there's a whole bag of bolts there that I know is supposed to be there somewhere, but, you know, that It's not Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Joel Brooks:That's okay. Good. I'm gonna write a book on that. Make a lot of money. That's how that's how it work.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:That's a great question. No. I don't think there's really a way to gauge that. That that's a that's a certain kind of, behind the text question that would be very hard for I mean, there are some scholars who've made careers out of trying to figure out the answer to that kind of question. That it it'd be called sort of a religious historical approach to reading the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:And I I I don't I don't know. I mean, I I I think I'm I'm a little bit more resistant to that because I I I think we have the Psalms as it is, And you're right. I mean, one of the things that is a repeated theme in the prophets of the old testament is God does not want our religion. He doesn't. He doesn't care about external ritualistic worship if it's not tied to hearts of belief and repentance.
Joel Brooks:Right? Jeremiah 7, he comes into the temple. What does he say? Do not say the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. This is.
Joel Brooks:Very likely though that Jeremiah is actually repeating the liturgy of the. Don't come in here, continue to say your liturgy and bring in your sacrifices, and you go out and you treat your neighbors the way in which you do. Don't do it. I don't even want it anymore. Amend your ways or I'm gonna, you know, pour out my judgment on you.
Joel Brooks:So this is where I think, our acts of worship are constantly acts of mortification and vivification. I use big theological terms, right, of dying to self and being made alive again in the gospel, of repenting and believing. You kind of pray and and seek God's face as you repent your way into a new set of feelings. Sort of sing your way into a new set of feelings kind of thing. And I think that's where we we constantly need to be, dying to self and being made alive again in the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Right? That's one thing. And taking stock of that, you know, being being being honest about those sort of things. But here's the other part. And this is, again, where the gospel comes in and shapes our understanding of all these things.
Joel Brooks:My prayer life is in Christ. It's in Christ. I think it's one of the tragically lost themes of protestant theology at its best is the ongoing intercessory role of Christ on our behalf right now. And so how are my prayers I mean, how does it work? Well, I think this is how it works.
Joel Brooks:I pray to the father by the spirit in Christ. And Jesus takes my human words, my human fumblings. He cleans them up and he presents them to the father in the way which they should be presented. Just like Romans 8 says, we don't know what to say. We groan, but the spirit knows what to say with words that are beyond our ability to utter.
Joel Brooks:And so this is where, you know, I think we need to have a sort of robust understanding of our position in Christ. Our union in Christ, and my prayer life is shaped with that understanding. I'm praying to you father. I think this is what I need to say, but receive it Jesus in the way which it needs to be received and present it to the father on my behalf. And you know what that does?
Joel Brooks:I think it kind of allows us to have a little bit of freedom with I learned this from a theologian named Carl Bart, actually. He said, you know, we that gives us some freedom for the ways in which we talk to God. You know what it's like, don't you? When you've been around people and you're like, wow. They really know how to pray.
Joel Brooks:Right? Well, there's something to that that I don't want to take away from, but at the same time, some of that's not all, you know, shouldn't be as impressive as it is because even that person's prayers need to be cleaned up by Jesus. So that's, I think, that part of mortification and vivification, dying to sell, and living in the reality of the gospel that Jesus prays for us. And my prayer life, my psalter life is lived in him.