Category: Psalm 133

Standing Firm: Philippians 4:1–3

1. Joy
How might we ensure we stand firm in our faith? Such a question seems a sensible one when we see some around us drifting away from their faith. There are of course many answers. One way, I suggest lies at the heart of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians and is mentioned in Philippians 4:1–3. How about cultivating joy, and more specifically a joy in the gospel?

Philippians 4 vv 1 to 3 17th Feb 2019

Paul sees the Philippians as his brothers and sisters. He loves them and longs to see them. For they are his joy and his crown. They are a crown in the sense that in his striving for the gospel of Jesus Christ he founded them as a church. They would not exist as a local embodiment of Christ were it not for his efforts to preach in their city. They would not be in Christ if he had not preached first to Jew and then to Gentile, and won enough people over to the gospel, to plant a congregation in Philippi. They testify continually to his missionary calling and action. In this sense they are his crown—just like the expression we might make today about some achievement being our crowning glory. This is no immodesty on Paul’s part. He knows that the church in Philippi is ultimately God’s work. Yet he also knows, just as surely as he has co-workers, that he is a co-worker with God (see 2 Corinthians 6:1).

Paul also sees them as his joy. Some people sadly suck the joy out of Christianity. But for Paul, and for us, for all who perceive the glory of what Jesus has done, joy should be at its very heart. What greater joy could there be than people finding out that God loves them in Christ and that they are called to be his community here on earth—called to be his hands and feet in furthering the gospel.

There is joy in being Christ’s body, of continuing his work. Knowing his incarnation as we realise, we are his hands and his feet. Knowing his death as we die to sin and death. Knowing his resurrection as we perceive the glory to come. Knowing his ascension to heaven as we trust in his faithfulness. Let us not become so serious in the task of being Christ’s body that we lose sight of the joy—the joy of seeing God at work in those around us.

The joy of the gospel starts with God himself. We all know that wonderful picture in The Parable of the Prodigal Son —the Father running to greet his wayward child, breaking with middle-eastern convention by hoisting his clothing and running—both seriously embarrassing for a respectable figure.

If that’s not joy, I don’t know what is. But the joy was gospel-focused for Jesus too:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1–2 (NIV)

There are stages to this race—this life of faith—there are hills to traverse, there are dark valleys to wander in, there are mountain top experiences, the analogues are endless. There are however three basic experiences in the midst of this infinite variety: disorientation, reorientation, and orientation.

Joy can come with reorientation. The experience of God putting things right. The joy of knowing Christ as a fresh experience. A recovery from illness, the getting over a bad relationship, the discovery of a good place after serious hardship.

2. Division
Standing firm can also be aided by avoiding division. There are many pitfall and diversions along the way. Loss of unity amongst brothers and sisters in Christ is an especially painful one. When fellowship in Jesus goes wrong, we all have a problem on our journey at the same moment.

Unity is of fundamental importance to remaining a healthy community of God’s people. But we all know that unity is not always a straightforward goal.

Sometimes we learn the hard way the truth and profundity of Psalm 133 which opens:

How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!

Psalm 133:1 (NIV)

This is so self-evident when we have experienced serious disunity, that the illustrations that follow in verses 2 and 3 about beards, oil, mountains, and dew are poetic details that are almost unnecessary.

How do we commit to unity? How do we avoid division? No one sets out to create it at the outset and yet it can rear its ugly head in a moment. One way to avoid it, and it is but one way, is to be more open to the joy that we have in Christ and in serving him. When we have genuine joy in Christ, we take ourselves as individuals a little less seriously, we are fixing our eyes in the right place—we are humble servants of Jesus Christ. The lightness in our spirits that comes from joy is also less prone to take offence, on the one hand, and less hasty in judging others on the other.

Division at the end of the day is serious—it is about undoing the very work of Jesus. The body that Jesus has made whole through being broken on the cross, is denied in division. The walls that Jesus broke down are rebuilt. Division is the very opposite of the reconciliation that Jesus died for.

Indeed, so serious is the ground we walk on in joining division that we are likely to be walking off without Jesus by our side. Or perhaps he’s still there but we become myopic? Whatever the reality of Jesus’ presence, it is no coincidence that so many people at the centre of division leave behind their faith in Christ.

Euodia and Syntyche in our short passage have experienced lack of unity. And Paul urges them ‘to be of the same mind’. This is a rich idea, as members of the local body of Christ they should have his one mind on key matters.

As Paul says elsewhere:

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

1 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)

We don’t know all the details about this situation. We do know they are Paul’s co-workers, and though he’s exhorting them to sort the problem out he is clearly tender to them, they are not the people he has harsh words for elsewhere in this letter.

Lack of unity is painful. It is one of the many events in the life of faith that is difficult. We need to do all we can humanly and prayerfully to avoid it. It is one of the causes of Disorientation, the difficult steep upward slog on the marathon or pilgrimage.

3. New Order
Another way of standing firm is embracing God’s new order. Paul repeatedly speaks of the age to come—here it’s the mention of the Book of Life. A reminder of that goal for all who follow Jesus Christ.

Both discipleship and pilgrimage are about the journey and the destination:

  1. We walk with Christ and he is our destination.
  2. We walk with the Father and he is our destination.
  3. We journey with the life-giving Spirit and he is the very breath of God that breathes life into our bones at the resurrection.

 

4. Closing Prayer

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus’
Helen Howarth Lemmel (1863–1961)

Book Review, Part 1—The Psalter as Witness: Theology, Poetry and Genre

The Psalter as Witness: Theology, Poetry and Genre, Dennis Tucker, Jr. and W. H. Bellinger, Jr. (editors), Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2017. 216pp. hb. $49.95, ISBN 978-1-4813-0556-3

At the outset I would like to thank Baylor Press for their willingness to not only supply a review copy of this book but to send it across the Atlantic to the UK.

The title of this volume bears testimony to the new scholarly consensus on the nature of the biblical psalms. Probably the majority of scholars now recognise the biblical psalms as a Psalter—that is they comprise a book shaped with intent and purpose. All twelve contributions in this edited volume, to a greater or lesser extent, explore the implications of such a canonical approach. This book is also the proceedings from the Baylor University‒University of Bonn Symposium on the Psalter. This origin signals that this is a technical work which will appeal largely to advanced students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible.

The volume starts with a rather brief introduction which explains the rationale behind the book and the purpose of the symposium from which it originated. The twelve contributions that follow are organised into three groups. The rest of this two-part review records these three headings and the chapter headings so as to aid the interested reader in assessing the scope and content of the book.

Part 1: Theological Approaches to the Psalms

Poetry and Theology in the Psalms: Psalm 133, W. H. Bellinger Jr.

Despite its focus on just one of the Psalter’s very shortest psalms, this chapter provides an excellent point of departure for the volume. Bellinger follows Zenger’s articulation of Psalm 133’s structure. This structure is helpful from the outset in showing how the individual elements come together to make a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Bellinger’s exegesis and theological reflection make a compelling case for Psalm 133’s rich claims about community as a place for divine blessing. This nuanced meaning which arises from the psalm’s structure is all the more poignant when compared to the thin interpretations that can arise if verse 1 is allowed to eclipse the rich imagery and the closing blessing of the psalm.

Feminine Imagery and Theology in the Psalter: Psalms 90, 91, and 92, Nancy DeClaissé-Walford

This second chapter also focuses on the rich imagery of the Psalter. With the purpose of ensuring the psalms speak to all, DeClaissé-Walford examines the imagery for God which challenges the all too common absolutizing use of the central image of Yahweh as king. The role of imagery which concerns wombs, mother hens and weaning is considered along with the centrality of wisdom—the Hebrew Bible of course conceives Wisdom as feminine. More specifically it is argued that Psalms 90‒92 are not only a literary whole, but that there is a feminine voice which can be heard in these three psalms.

“Who is Like the Lord Our-God?”: Theology and Ethics in the Psalms, Harry P. Nasuti

The rich possibilities afforded by the canonical approach come to the fore in this contribution. Psalm 113 is examined from different canonical perspectives, as part of the Hallelujah triad, Pss.111‒113, and as the opening psalm of the Hallel Psalms (Pss.113‒118). Nasuti also considers wider intertextual connections with the Book of Job and with Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel chapter 2. In this way the potential of the canonical approach to enable individual psalms to come to life with theological and ethical challenge in the present is showcased. For Psalm 113 this is specifically ‘a full-bodied act of praise’ [p.45] which goes beyond praise and is a call to imitate God.

David and the Political Theology of the Psalter, Stephen Breck Reid

Like the previous chapter this fourth contribution makes much of the possibilities enabled by a canonical approach. The underlying presupposition here is that the shaping of the Psalter by the Yahwistic community reflected a ‘dangerous memory of David’. Breck Reid argues that this memory was ‘an anti-imperial metaphor for political agency’. This is helpfully acknowledged as essentially a working hypothesis. Most of this contribution is concerned with examining various Royal Psalms and paying careful attention to their position within the fivefold Psalter. This approach makes sense of the David who is ‘both the architect and patron of the Jerusalem temple and liturgy as well as the exemplar of the suffering penitent’ [p.49]. His proposal concerning David as cipher is certainly richer than Gerald Wilson’s rather rigid role for David which was a key part of the initial canonical movement.

Spatial Theory and Theology in Psalms 46‒48, Till Magnus Steiner

This chapter commences with an exploration of Psalm 48 where Magnus Steiner makes the case for the existence of a dominant pre-exilic base to which vv. 8, 10‒12 and 14b (versification as per the Hebrew text) have been added at a later date. This opening typifies the approach adopted in this chapter in which though the explanation is rational, but it is difficult to entertain that it is the most likely of many possibilities that might explain the final form of these three psalms. There seems little doubt that Psalms 46, 47 and 48 were intentionally placed together because of their Zion Theology. It is also quite possible that they were edited to make their connection clearer. The tendentious application of spatial theory proposed here demonstrates that the canonical approach does not escape from one of the frustrations of the more traditional historical critical methods, namely the seemingly endless proposal of rival theories.

 

Part 2, in which chapters 6–12 are reviewed and some final comments are made, will follow soon.